Steampunk Canada

I've been thinking about doing a set of steampunk themed plates to fit the "Decorator Series" switches and outlets in the Steampunk/Gaslight themed office that we are slowly creating in our home.

Here's the first rough prototype that I knocked up to get an idea of what it would look like in the flesh. At 5.8 mm, it's about 1.3 mm thicker than I'd like, but that's a product of using black and gold painted 3 mm masonite for the prototype. I'll probably use sheets of black and brass finished plastic for the production versions.

There is still some refinement of the design to be done, and I plan to expand the concept into double, triple, etc plates. Once I have the final design(s) figured out, my LASER cutter will allow me to spit out copies quite easily.

What do you think? Is it worth continuing down this path? Should I also do matching plates to fit the older style switches and outlets as well and offer both styles for sale?

Looks great! We've been talking about decorating a room in the steampunk style in our next house, so I will be interested in seeing updates as the project progresses. Had originally planned on using brass or bronze plates, but yours are looking good and I haven't found anything like them online...

An update:

Here are the current revised designs for single and double Decor style switchplates.

Triple and Quad plates can be easily created by combining elements from the single and double versions.

It was quite a challenge to get all the gears to mesh properly, without any mechanical errors that would lock everything up if they were real gears, and yet ensure that the design was expandable to cover the wider plates.

Beatiful work, I'm really impressed.  So where can I get one of these laser cutters?

If you're interested in a LASER cutter/engraver, be aware that they are not an inexpensive item..

Even a small entry level desktop model with a 10 watt LASER cartridge (10W is the lowest power LASER that's generally fitted to any of the engravers) will set you back around $10K, and by the time you have a model with a decent sized work area and enough power to work quickly (if you have enough time a 10 watt laser will do the work, but it'll be slow), you're already in the low $20Ks.

It you're really interested, talk to Canadian Engravers/CESCO  in Mississauga, ON. They are Canadian distributor for Universal Laser Systems (based in Scottsdale, Arizona).

Mine is a VersaLASER VLS4.60 with a ULR-50 50 Watt LASER cartridge. I can etch items up to 24 inches by 18 inches in it. By the time I added a couple of options (better lens assembly, rotary accessory for engraving glasses, and a few other bits), I didn't have much change left out if $30K (and I bought it when it was offered at a one month only "special price").

They are pretty simple to use. They are attached to a PC like a big printer, and can be driven by pretty much any software with a print function. However, for best results, you want a vector graphics program like CorelDRAW (or Adobe Illustrator). I do all my work in CorelDRAW X4.

You can see more examples of what my LASER can do on my web site.

Hmm, a little beyond my means, I will have to stick with my dremmel and cheapo router.  no Dr Evil toolery for me unless that lotto Max comes up on Wednesday.

There are a number of places that offer a LASER cutting service, but because of the high initial purchase price of the LASER and on going maintenance (a LASER tube regas/refurbishment starts at USD$1200), the minimum charge you'll be looking at is about $1 per minute of LASER time (with some places charging as much as $3 per minute).

The gold painted piece with the gears made for the prototype in the first post required about 12 minutes of total LASER time (I could pull the actual to the second burn time from the LASERs driver if I needed to), but a bit of refinment in the driver settings and design tweaks should reduce that down to about 5 minutes (could do it even faster if I didn't mind badly charred edges on the wood). An entry level desktop LASER with a 10 watt LASER cartridge may take up to 5 times longer than my 50 watt LASER, but it would still get the job done ... however you'll be paying for more operator time (can't leave the LASER running unattended in case the job catches fire).

The LASERs work in 2 modes ... vector mode (point to point narrow beam cuts or etches like a pen plotter style printer) and raster mode (etching/engraving of an area where the LASER head moves back and forth like the print head in a dot matrix or ink jet printer)

Sillythings like rotating a piece with a lot of raster etching by 90 degrees in the software before sending the file to the LASER, can reduce the time needed to LASER the piece by as much as 50%. In the prototype, the back and forth raster etching of the centres of the six smaller gearstook longer to complete than the vector mode used to cut out the rest of the piece.

Something like this with a lot of intricate detail:

... which measures 11 inches by 7 inches, took about 15 minutes to vector cut from a piece of 3/32" oak faced plywood. Try to imagine how long that would take with a coping saw or scroll saw.

I have a friend in California with exactly the same LASER model that I have, who provides a service or artists to turn their creations into physical objects. I'll eventually be offering a similar service.

Beautiful work.

M Butler Hallett at July 27, 2010 at 12:13 PM

Beautiful work.

Once you have the design in software, the LASER makes it easy.

I can do this sort of stuff by hand, but it's frustrating because it's so time consuming and the end result never meets my own expectations. And when it comes to making multiple versions, forget it. I can make one or two copies that never quite match before I get totally bored with the project and want to move on to something new. The LASER just lets you crank out one identical copy after another.

The fish was the very first thing I produced with the LASER after I got it uncrated and installed. I didn't do the original design. It was just something I downloaded from the net and then tweaked a bit to fix a few design flaws. Unfortunately, it's a bit fragile and if it's out on display, people can't resist handling it. The first one was thrown out 4 months ago after it started to look a bit ratty. No problems, just another piece of wood and 15 minutes with the LASER and except for the grain in the wood, I have another identical copy. After 4 months amongst the rest of the clutter on my desk, the replacement also has a few broken bits. I'm going to try making another one from 3mm masonite (lovely stuff to LASER if you plan to paint the end result), finishing it in bronze paint, and then framing it. Should look stunning mounted on the wall in the office. The big decision is just how large to make it.

The gold painted gears are strange to handle. Even close up, except for the weight and the fact that they aren't cold to the touch, they look and feel like cast metal. Turn the piece over and the unpainted masonite is totally unexpected, as is the obvious fact that it's all one piece. The 4 little spur gears that look so much like they are separate gears from the front, become just part of a single piece of masonite.

The other bonus with the LASER is that once you have the design work done (the hard part), you aren't restricted to just the original media. If I decided that I wanted the fish etched onto a glass, then all I'd need to do is spend a few minutes in CorelDRAW to optimise the artwork for glass etching, shrink it down, and move it to a position that's good for that particular style of glass. Once that's done, it's just a case of install the rotary adapter (to hold and rotate the glass while the LASER is doing its thing), clamp a glass in the adapter, and "print" the design. The LASER driver on the computer stores the data that it sends to the LASER (in fact it will hold many previous jobs ... the default is 2000), and I can come back months later, retrieve the stored data, clamp the same type of glass in the rotary adapter, press the go button, and I have another identical copy. Eezy peezy.

Push-button light switches would add a nice Edwardian touch too:

http://www.rejuvenation.com/typepageSwitches/templates/houseparts_group.html

PM at July 28, 2010 at 9:10 AM

Push-button light switches would add a nice Edwardian touch too:

http://www.rejuvenation.com/typepageSwitches/templates/houseparts_group.html

That web site has some stunning stuff.

It would not be hard to modify the design for those style of switches.