Make:

This month's dorkbot looks incredible, steam powered!

7:30pm Wednesday 06 Jun 2007

place:
21 Grand
416 25th St @ Broadway
Oakland, CA

Kimric Smythe - The Modern Steam Engine
Kimric Smythe is exploring the steam engine not with an intent to expose a "supressed technology" but something that can make use of varied fuels, and easily assembled parts. Few people can assemble a gasoline engine from found ,assorted parts. Much less machine them. Kimric on the otherhand ,with a pair of plastic calipers and an old air compressor assembled a working engine out of a used air compressor. The goal was to use as little custom machining as possible. Kimric did almost all the work on a drill press, using a lathe only on some deepdrilling work, but could have done it without that. The inlet valve assembly is the part that gives people some pause. He was able to use an off the shelf "whistle valve" as his inlet valve. The project took about 40 hrs but half of that was trial and error time.

He built a boiler using a similar approach. The boiler produces about 3 hp at 125psi and has been pressure tested to 240psi. Much higher than required Kimric later found out.

You can see the engine running on air on YouTube.

Liam McNamara - Clockworks
Liam McNamara builds kinetic sculpture, junk art, and music making machines. In 2005 Liam assembled a group of 20+ artists to build the Clockworks Installation at Burning Man Festival. Liam will talk about how the group collaboratively designed and built the wooden clockwork using gigantic plywood gears with, wood peg pinions, and 5 bell wood peg programmable bells all powered by a gravity escapement, a wind motor made of woks and monkeys turning cranks. Why we love hacking obsolete technology how it all worked and how/why all of this was burnt to nothingness at the end of the event.

Kinetic Steam Works - Steampunk Tree House
Kinetic Steam Works, established in 2005, is a Bay Area collective dedicated to steam powered kinetic art, whose mission is to explore and repurpose the artifacts of clockwork modernity. Steam powered machines, simple and intricate, blur the line between art and industry... kinetic masterpieces created during an era of diabolical innovation and gleeful invention.

Sean Orlando's Steampunk Tree House, a 30' tall metal tree with steam instead of sap flowing through it's channels and a wood and metal house nestled within it. A roving veritable steam gardener, in the form of the Kinetic Steam Works will provide regular applications of steam, so that the tree's pipes puff with fluffy white scald. Inside, a veritable treasure trove of gimcracks, trinkets and tiny ephemera tucked into shelves and drawers, as well as surreal paintings adorning the walls.

dorkbot-sf - Link.