So, back in September or so, my friend Mandy, who is one of the partners of the Steampunk Laboratory, brought to my attention a letter-to-the-editor in the August, 2008 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine.  That letter explained that it would be cool if people could use "steampunk" to inspire students into a career in engineering.  Heh.  We agreed.

I wrote a quick letter to the magazine, and then a follow-up letter when the editors at ME Magazine asked for one.  Alas, I think they published the first one, which was drafted in rather a rush, and didn't include information about our new community workshop.  Regardless, I'm pleased to have any kind of press! 

By the way - if you found this link via that letter in ME Magazine, we'd really appreciate it if you dropped us a quick note saying so, either through the "Contact" link at the top right of this page, or email "Alex at SteampunkLaboratory dot com".  Thanks a ton!

 http://www.ColumbusIdeaFoundry.com

Here's a small scan of the letter:

So.....  Having "incubated" at Milo Arts for about a year now, it's time for our little chick to poke its beak through its shell and emerge as a red-brick, egg-project-laying chicken, or something. 

We'll be moving to a new place, where we're renting a 2400 sq foot stand-alone brick building, with gas heat, 12 foot ceilings, a garage door, 1 phase and 3 phase 220 volt, 60 amp power (good for our plasma cutter and welders!), and more.   Marvin, the landlord, is giving us a motorized hoist, a horizontal band saw, and has offered to allow us to pick through one of his other industrial sites for any gear we might need.  Very very helpful and generous!

The idea is to start a non-profit organization for the Steampunk Laboratory, to seek grants to teach science and engineering through hands-on, functional art projects, as well as to start a larger community creative fabrication and education center, where we could offer memberships to people who would like to use the facilities, tools, CNC machines, expertise, etc.  Not sure yet whether that will be a monthly-type of membership (like a gym), or a buy-in like a co-op, or simply an hourly rental rate for the tools.  If you have any ideas or suggestions, please send them our way!

Should be lots of fun. :-D

Today we started learning how to program our 68HC11 Evaluation Board (EVB), from Wytec.  That involved sharpening our knowledge of binary, learning hexadecimal, and an introduction to the C programming language.  We compiled a simple program in C which counted in binary, downloaded it to the EVB, and watched it illuminate a bunch of LEDs as it counted to 255.  Much more fun than it sounds, trust me. :-)

And we took our first picture of the "finished" desk.  Then had some fun with Photoshop, in proper Steampunk style. :-)

(As it appeared in the printed catalog of Dunderback & Co., 1894):

Jonathon's learning the Photoshop ropes!  We'll probably switch to GiMP soon, once Alex figures out how to use it. :-)  (Perhaps Mandy can give him a few tips).

In the meantime, here's one of Jonathon's pieces, and a link to his member folder, where you can see more illustrations and a step-by-step process of how to turn a sketch into a colored illustration.  (Click here or on a pic below to go to his folder).

Mandy took her turn on the CNC machine yesterday... Nikki and Bucks came along for the show, too.  (Nikki ensured that Bucks followed proper eye-safety awareness by wearing goggles.  We'll have to post that pic sometime...)

Potential goods to vend at the OSU bookstore? ;-)

And who better to bring the CNC project online than Mandy, who made a 3D solid model of her bedroom to make sure her new shelves would fit.  Pleased to be working with people as immersed in the work (read: crazy) as I..... :-D

Last night, Mike and I finished mounting the last motor to the CNC frame (the Y-motor), as well as the delrin nuts to the Z and Y rod housings.  (This was after I disassembled, drilled holes in, and reassembled the wrong part.  Mike, ever the gentleman, politely suggested that I "potentially" drilled the wrong plate, before fixing my mistake. Heh.) 

Now that it's done, the final design moves our stage (i.e. the workpiece) in the X direction (about 24" of travel), and the router moves in Y (about 12" of travel) and Z (about 5" of travel).  Mike also donated a new router bit to the cause - one which can plunge into our workpiece (and which is about 10 years newer than the bit we had on the router before).  

When all was set (and after we tried to find Marshall to share in the first CNC test), we turned the router on for the first time (which is to say we plugged it into a power strip and hit the 'on' button).  That thing is enormously fast, and it sounded like an airplane engine buzzing loudly in the little shop.  Both our eyes widened, and we kind of adopted the same stance soccer players do when they line up for a penalty kick.  Gonna have to get a plastic case to enclose the whole apparatus soon.

But then we mounted a piece of foam on the stage, plunged the router bit, and jogged the motors around.  It worked great.  Below is the very first piece we cut:

The image is a little hard to decipher - it's a piece of foam block, about 12"x24" and 4" deep (the larger cut is about 6" across).  We just traced out a few random shapes.  Lots of fun, but we quickly wanted to see what we could do with wood.  We took turns operating the controls of the motors while the other kept an eye on the stages (we don't have emergency stops yet when the stages reach the end-of-travel), as well as kept a hand on the off-switch to the router.

Here's my piece:

 and a close-up:

Even though I wrote the directions of the motors on a piece of paper and taped it to the computer monitor (counter-clockwise = "away" from each motor; "clockwise" = towards each motor), I still made a few errors jogging around the workpiece.  (It took a while to realize that moving the stage "away" from the motor essentially means moving the router bit in the opposite direction - a bit counter-intuitive at first).  I tried writing the word Steampunk, but clearly ran out of room.  Heh.

So now we've finished what we consider Phase 1 of the project - the mechanical and electrical infrastructure.  Now we're really looking forward to moving onto Phase 2 - getting the software to work (creating CAD files; converting those files to a toolpath; then converting the toolpath to commands for the individual stepper motors to carve the shape).  After that, we'll have fun in the final Phase 3 of this project - learning the "sweet-spot" processing parameters to efficiently, accurately, and aesthetically cut different materials (wood, plastic, wax, metal, glass) with different router bits, cutting speeds, travel speeds, set-ups, etc.  Great fun!

My friends Nikki and Mandy introduced me to Jessica, Rochelle, and Jonathon.  Rochelle is interested in learning flash animation and website design, and Jessica's son, Jonathon, is interested in learning how to use computers to illustrate his comics, how to print a real comic book, and how to host an online comic website.  We're going to try all of these, and post the results in a separate art blog.  Glad to finally be getting to something purely, indulgently, artistic! :-)

And, even more excitingly, Nikki, Mandy, and Jessica are interested in searching for grant opportunities to help graduate the Steampunk Laboratory from a "pilot program" to an official educational instrument.  Nikki's a PhD materials scientist who writes grants every week; Mandy's a practicing mechanical engineer who's interested in helping with the Steampunk Laboratory website hosting, as well as general fabrication (she's got more tools than I), and has already helped design the exhaust system for the welding and ceramics shops; and Jessica's an accountant with grant auditing experience.  :-D  Not sure a better group of motivated folks could have fallen into place.  They've encouraged the development of a mission statement, a business plan, and even a board of directors.   Moving along a bit faster than I anticipated, but I'm grateful for it!  More on these points as they develop...

Jonathon's not just interested in coloring his comics (which he draws prolifically!), printing a hardcopy book, and hosting the images online at the Steampunk Laboratory, but we may also develop his own website, with his own URL, images, and text.  That will be a lot of fun....  He's keeping careful notes about the technical aspects of using Adobe Photoshop to scan, color, and print his comics, and perhaps he'll be able to inspire and teach his friends and family to do the same.  We may move to the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GiMP), a freeware software program very similar to Photoshop, so that he can continue his work at home when not at the Lab without having to break the bank to do so.  Perhaps an "open-source" philosophy should be a thread running throughout most of these projects, to minimize the thresholds necessary for other people to do this work too, should they want to try.  (For example, this site is designed and maintained by the open-source program "Plone", and members can add to it by following the instructions here).

In addition to working on the antique desk, we're also developing a CNC machine at the Steampunk Laboratory.  We have a separate blog about it here, but I figured I'd include an entry here on the "general" Steampunk Laboratory blog (the Lab Journal) to inform new folks about it. :-)  Pictures posted below, text to follow when I have time...

Today we integrated the computer and the desk....  This involved cutting a hole in the bottom of the wooden panel of the desk for the electrical cables to emerge, afixing the wooden panel to the bottom of the metal desk, adding a length of metal conduit to conceal the wiring, and putting it all together. :-)

I cut the hole in the bottom wooden panel of the desk by drilling 4 holes in a square, and then using a scroll saw to cut out a square.  (A scroll saw has an easily removable / replaceable blade which can be threaded through a hole drilled in your workpiece, so you can make "interior cuts" without having to cut through the workpiece from the edge).

We also had to cut the metal desk to accommodate the LCD monitor in the "closed" position (in the current assembly, the monitor hits the metal desk as it closes).  In order to do this, we needed to know how much of the desk to cut.  Drew and Matthew measured it, and then I used an angle grinder to chop out the part they marked off (pix will be uploaded later).

To hide the unsightly cables within the desk, I thought some conduit, painted brass-colored, would be nice.  The conduit I wanted to use to hide the cords was too narrow to accommodate the plugs at the end of the cables (i.e. we couldn't just thread the cables through), so I wondered if I could "grind" through the metal, push the cables through, and then seal the conduit back up somehow. 

I originally tried using metal shears to cut the conduit, but they weren't strong enough.  Then I tried a sheet metal "nibbler" (voracious as its namesake in  Futurama... ;-), but the nibbler head was too wide to fit through the conduit as well... (below).  You can see that it did "nibble" a small hemisphere out of the conduit, but I couldn't get it to travel further....

To secure the conduit for grinding, I placed it between a couple sticks of lumber, and placed a dowel beneath it to prop it up high enough to grind, and clamped the whole assembly.

This worked reasonably well (wear headphones!), but the links started coming apart as I handled it.  Before Matthew, Drew and I painted it (later), we used electrical tape to bind it together.  Not a great solution; this will still have to undergo an iteration or two before it's robust enough to fit into the desk, I feel....

Now we were ready to afix the bottom wooden panel to the metal desk.  This required drilling some new holes (since we're mounting it -outside- the desk, rather than -inside-, in order to make room for the PC to fit within).  When you drill holes for a screw, you want to make sure that the drill bit is as wide as the shaft of the screw, but not as wide as the threads (so that the threads of the screw "bite" into the hole you drilled).  Matthew and Drew compared drill bits to find the right size...

After we assembled the wooden desk, we took the monitor apart for painting....

Partially assembled, it looks pretty good so far! :-)  At least we have it to the point where we can turn it on and use it.  The rest will largely be cosmetic touches (painting the metal part of the desk, adding some finishing treatments, concealing the cables, etc). 

And assembled together (mostly) for the first time....  (still needs the back of the chair, and cosmetic touches....)

Last Sunday, Drew, Matthew and I submitted a proposal to our investors (their mom and dad ;-), and thankfully it was accepted.  So I went to the house of the guy on Craigslist (Chris) who was selling the used computer we evaluated, and bought it - a Dell desktop and a 15" LCD monitor. 

When I brought it home, I realized it was going to be harder than I expected to put the components into the desk.  It's a "clamshell" type tower, which means that when you open it, the components are stored in both halves of the case, meaning that twice the effort would be needed to take the guts out and jam them in the desk.  However, I recalled seeing a large stack of very thin computers (HP Slimlines) at Chris's house, so I called him back up and asked about their cost and performance.  They were comparable, so I went back the next day to buy one.  I figured I'd keep the original for use around Milo (the woodshop needs a computer and internet connection - for quick "how-to" lessons, as well as for organizing our inventory - especially the thousands of fasteners we have in the shop - nuts, bolts, screws, etc.  A month or two ago I organized them all in the hundreds of plastic storage shelves we have, then took digital images of each shelf, organized the images into folders which indicate what category and subcategory they belong to, and stored it all on CD.  Elaborate, but fairly efficient for me to do).

When I got to Chris's and told him the original PC was too big for our use, he was kind and actually offered to buy it back.  I didn't take him up on that, but I appreciated the offer - this is one of the reasons I like to buy things off Craigslist - the few problems I've had with the gear I've bought, the people I purchased it from were ready to take it back and reimburse me.  :-)

Anyway - the HP slimline may fit in the desk without even having to take the components out.  As it is, we may just need to cut slots in the metal desk for the CD drive, the on/off switches, and the USB ports, but otherwise they can remain assembled together.

Over the next few days, I finished staining and varnishing the wooden panels to the desk, brushed, primed, and painted the metal frame, and mounted the LCD to the underside of the flip-top.  Painting the metal frame involved:

1. brushing the whole surface with a steel brush, to get the flecks of paint and rust off.  (Note: if the paint won't come off from brushing, leave it on - as my friend Josh said, if it has been there for 70 years, may as well leave it).
2. coat with Penetrol (a priming substance for oil-based paints) - using a "throw-away" brush
   
3. clean with mineral spirits and paper towels
   
4. lightly sand
   
5. clean again (Josh said vacuum, but I just washed it with mineral spirits and paper towels again)
6. paint with satin black oil-based paint using a regular paintbrush

That worked very well - I'll post pix later.

Mounting the LCD monitor to the underside of the desk, however, was trickier.  Fortunately the monitor had 4 mounting holes already installed in the back for installation with a wall-mount bracket, but I didn't have the screws to fit it.  Had to go to Lowes twice to get the right size (6x32, 3/8"), and even still, I think I need to return for longer ones.  Also bought a sheet of 6"x12" welding steel (16 gauge), some brass wood screws (8x32 1/2"), and a set of titanium nitride drill bits.  (I remember from one of my mat sci classes that TiN has a very low coefficient of friction and a high hardness, which means they do well during machining into metal).  TiN looks gold-colored, and in fact many gold-looking watches, jewelry, etc., are actually just steel coated with TiN. 

I drilled 4 holes in the back of the steel plate, and mounted the LCD to it to make sure they fit.  (Sort of).  Then I removed it, drilled 6 more holes for the wood screws, to afix the steel plate to the wooden desk.  (This all could have been avoided if I simply drilled through the wooden desktop, and fixed the monitor to it directly; however, after the staining job came out so nicely, I didn't want to mar the surface with four screw holes).  I then put the plate back on the monitor, then screwed the plate to the wooden desktop (a little awkward, since the screw holes are beneath the monitor edges, but there was enough space to reach them with a long screwdriver - I checked first). 

The result is pictured below.  I intend to remove the steel plate again, possibly contour it with the scroll saw I bought last week (make it a bit more ornamental), and then paint it brass, to match the rest of the fixtures we'll be putting on the desk.  I'll probably take the plastic case off the monitor and spraypaint that brass as well, as Jake von Slatt did on his SteampunkWorkshop.com site.  Pretty fun!

The previous couple of times that Drew, Matthew and I got together, we did a lot of mechanical work - wiring up the CNC motors, sanding the wooden panels of the antique desk, etc.  This week it was time to do some brain work, too.

Since we couldn't proceed any further on the desk until we had a computer to put into it, it was time to decide what kind of computer to buy.  We did some calculations as to what size LCD monitor would fit in the desk, what prices the different monitors and computers cost, and the pros and cons of buying a used one from Craigslist versus a new one from Microcenter.  This required a bit of geometry, a bit of price/performance comparison (especially since we couldn't find an exact match between the computers we saw for sale on Craigslist and new computers to compare their prices too), and a bit of writing to put the whole analysis into a proposal for our investors. 

Our investors, we are lucky to say, are Drew and Matthew's parents.  Their dad, David, came by to pick them up at 4pm on Sunday, and Matthew handed him a blue folder with our 3-page proposal within.  Dave asked if there was going to be a presentation as well, but they demeured.  I do believe they agreed to field specific questions, however.

Fortunately, Matthew and Drew did a good job writing the proposal, because on Monday, our investors let us know that they agreed to fund our computer purchase!  I went ahead and bought the computer we were eyeing on Craigslist, and dismantled it that night to make sure it would fit.

Looking forward to stripping and repainting the metal frame of the desk, ripping apart the computer parts, jamming them inside, and covering everything with nicely finished wood.  Should be fun. :-)

Last weekend, Matthew, Drew and I started staining the wooden panels of the antique pupil's desk I bought a year ago.  Watched some videos online about how to do it, went to Lowes to get the stain, varnish, brushes, etc., and tried it out.

It was a busy shop that day, as my friend Mike was also working on our CNC machine.  Since we needed a little space and some good ventilation, we did the staining outside.

Worked well!

We also learned that if you get a drop of stain on your skin, then soap, water, rubbing alcohol, and a power sander will take the stain off.  ;-)

The end result looks good so far!  Note the original color/condition of the wood beneath the two recently sanded and stained panels... 

Should look great once they're put back together with the metal parts of the desk.  Now we have to figure out how to strip paint off metal, resurface it, and repaint it too.

The first "steampunk" stuff I tried was work that had been published by Jake von Slatt on his site, SteampunkWorkshop.com, and referenced heavily from Green Art, a French metal etching artist.

Briefly, it involves printing an image with a laser printer onto inkjet photoglossy paper.  This creates an image out of toner on the glossy paper, but because it's glossy, the image doesn't adhere 100% - it can be transferred to metal by pressing the toner image against the metal and ironing the back of the glossy paper.  This "melts" the toner onto the metal, and acts as a protective mask for the areas you -don't- want etched.  Then you hook up the metal piece to one end of a batter (or in my case a computer power supply), hook another electrode up to the other terminal, immerse the pair in a solution of copper sulfate (i.e. water + Root Kill), and allow the electric current to pull ions off your workpiece and onto the electrode.

I've blogged more about this the first time I tried this, last year, on my EmbeddedRelated.com blog.

In the figure below, the top piece represents the first attempt of my most recent endeavors.  You can still see the black toner "mask" around the edges of the "Steampunk Laboratory" text, which I didn't finish sanding off after etching.  I didn't finish it, because I forgot to protect the edges of the brass workpiece with electrical tape before I etched it.  As a result, the solution etched not just the exposed words "Steampunk Laboratory", but also all of the exposed metal around the edges.  Oops.

The middle piece represents my second recent attempt.  This time I -did- protect the other exposed areas with electrical tape, and even though I was checking the etching depth every 15 minutes or so, I didn't catch it before it etched all the way through a couple of places - the "S" and the "O"...

The bottom piece represents the third attempt.  This time I checked more regularly, and pulled it out a few minutes short of the previous etching time.  It's getting better - I think the bottleneck in the resolution is the quality of the laser printer I'm using now.  (I bought it used at a flea market for $25, and it's quite old, dusty, and dirty).  The bottom of the "L" and the "B" didn't quite print right (I covered the errors with pieces of electrical tape, the outline of which you can clearly see). 

Since I'm fairly confident that the etching process itself is working pretty well, I went ahead and sought out a cheap but newer laser printer on Craigslist.  Bought one new-in-box for $60 from a guy who bought it but never opened it before he decided a color one.  I myself haven't tried it yet, but that's on the list of things to do this week!  Hopefully with that printer I'll be able to produce satisfactorily high resolution etchings and galvanic machinings.  Should be fun....

Today, Drew and Matthew came by from 10:30 till 4:30 or so.  We had a trip to Radio Shack, to Lowes, grabbed lunch, and then did some work.  We wired up the stepper motors to the CNC controller board, started sanding the antique pupil's desk with a power sander (needed to take turns to keep our arms turning completely to rubber), and learned a bit about shop tools, plasma cutters (i.e. real-life light sabers!), CNC design, stepper motors, and more.  A good first day!

Wiring up the CNC stepper motors in the shop:

.... and sanding decades of graffiti and chisel marks off the antique desk we intend to turn into a computer....

Matthew would start, then Drew would take over, and then I'd put some elbow grease into it...

A great start!  Looking forward to the finished projects.  Before and after photos will definitely be posted...