Author: colin

Little update

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I’m back working on some items again. Sold two steampunked leather mice. Yay! But other stuff has been stagnant, so I dropped the prices on Etsy a LOT. Please buy stuff!! I really think my next move is going to be guitar pedals. I’ve been scouring the market so far with analog clocks, cigar box drums, steampunked wireless mouses, etc., but with hardly a bite. I’ve finally got Instagram account up and running to help get the word out.

It’s kind of depressing to spend so much effort on items I think are cool and have no sales to show for it, so I guess my final foray will be guitar pedals. If that fails, I’m going toward my big invention ideas whole-hog. Youtube hasn’t panned out for me yet either, now that you need 1,000 subscribers to make even a cent.

Here’s a preview of my new “Mini-Tubulum” with only 4 pipes. Actually, if you use the palm of your hand, you can get each to speak an octave lower, so you have effectively 8 very bassy notes. This one is tuned D, E, G, A, with the D 3 half-steps lower than the F on my big tubulum. It sounds really cool!! The pipes are 1-1/4″ PVC and are noticeably quieter (and lighter-weight) than the 2″ PVC on the big tubulum.

Sheet Music for Piano

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Hi folks! I did a few recordings on a grand piano of my jazz hymn arrangements (Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us, Be Thou My Vision, The Love Of God). Sheet music will be available for purchase (low price) and videos will be posted on our Youtube Channel. Enjoy!

Steampunk Wireless Mice

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Logitech m325 wireless computer mice that have been “steampunked” with dimpled aluminum and leather are now available at our Etsy store. SN002 is tan suede leather and SN003 is a rich brown polished goatskin leather. They are fully functional and tested before shipment. They really catch attention at the office!

…Okay, yet another item that’s not “music” – But hey, it’s really cool!

PVC Pipe Amp Kit Status

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Just to keep you up to date on the PVC pipe amp kits… I’m working hard on the manual for the assembly. Whew, it’s a lot of work! It’s up to 22 pages now, and that just for the PCB and Faceplate assembly!

For the Faceplate drawing, I had to download the AppImage of latest build of FreeCAD (still at 0.17), because, well, I couldn’t figure out where 0.16 went (thanks, Ubuntu!), and the Ubuntu-software center version of FreeCAD (also 0.17) didn’t have dimensioning capability. Hopefully they’ll get up to version 1 of FreeCAD someday….

I’m having a hard time deciding whether or not to include a 15″ x 15″ baseplate in the kit, because it means the shipping carton has to be much larger. Any opinions? Also, the 90-deg elbow is easily available at any home improvement store, so I might leave that out too, because it might cost as much to ship as it is to buy in person! Besides, if you want to recreate the Super Mario Bros amp, you don’t need an elbow!

I made a few videos pertaining to the assembly. Those will be posted once the manual is done and the kits are ready.

Once the weather lets up, I can go ahead and router the features into the five remaining PVC pipes I have here. That a major part of the kit.

Clock SN001 & SN003 Update

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Clock SN001 is done. The “nudge” factor I used to keep the needle from sticking seems to be working very well, and I recalibrated the “mode” knob. The demo video was posted on Youtube. It’s up for sale on Etsy.com as well…

Analog Meter Clock
SN003 is completely done!

Clock SN003 has been updated! I added a feature to the back corner of it, and it’s looking great. The instruction sheet is done too, and the demo video has been shot (but not processed). Hopefully it’ll be posted to Youtube and Etsy within the next week.

Status of products

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  • PVC Pipe Amp kits: Parts-wise, I expect I can make about 7 kits, but the assembly instruction manual is not ready as of today. I also need to buy materials for the wooden bases.
  • Cigar-Box Drum Things: Seven of them are ready to go, except I didn’t take photos yet.
  • Tubulum plans are ready. Still on the back-burner: Paddles to play it with! We’ve been using foam sandals, which work really well, but, well, they’re sandals! We don’t plan to make kits for the Tubulum, because it would be too heavy to ship and you can buy all the parts at your local home improvement store.
  • Guitar pedals: Vacuum tube and other guitar pedals are in the works.
  • Clocks: S/N 1, 2, and 3 are basically ready, except for videos on how to set the time (it’s easy, and it’s described in the instruction sheet). I want to shrink the PCBs down for the next batch, but they function really well.