Fender hoop

I have just added a hoop on the back of Fender.

It's made from a standard front hoop for a canvas tilt with the horizontal sticks used as diagonal support poles.

There are a couple of handy slots through the inside edge of the truck capping. I used these to attach the support bars but it was difficult to get the nuts in behind. I used a couple of M6 spring 'U' nuts on scrap plastic strips to guide them in to place.

It should be handy.

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Crossness Steampunk Convivial

Today we had a most excellent experience at the Crossness Steampunk Convivial.

Hats were the thing for the day.

I was glad to see that some Lego travellers had managed to make their way to the event.

The Tesla coil demonstration was fantastic.

The Crossness engine is being renovated and brought back to it's former glory.

Photographers loved the costumes

Umbrella Duelling

There were lots of happy and friendly people there.

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Links:
MPL Photography
The knitted octopus on Shelley's hat was bought from Jane Darnbrough.
More of the Lego travellers adventures can be found on facebook.

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The following pictures are from MPL Photography:

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Esse Ironheart glass

The glass cracked in the door to the firebox on our Esse Ironheart range.

When I went to order the spare parts I noticed that the fixings for the glass were a completely different design to those in our door. Although I could not find any documentation about the change, as they were relatively low cost, I decided it was worth ordering the newer parts.

It was obvious where the new metalwork fitted. However, the stove rope supplied was a double bead with self adhesive on the back, completely different to the previous design. The existing looked like a strip of paper with a bead on one side to go in the groove on the door.

I watched a generic video on the Esse web site but I could not find any specific details of how to fit the supplied version of rope. I've therefore used my best guess.

A wire brush in a drill made quick work of cleaning up the door before fitting the new self adhesive rope.

It was as easy as stick one continuous length round the inner edge of the door and individual lengths along the removable metal strips. I deliberately overlapped beyond the ends on some of the sides.

The end result looks tidy and appears to seal nicely.

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Update: 8 Oct 2017
We've now had enough cold days and evenings to have tested this out several times. There is no sign of any smoke escaping.

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Curious things

We have been planning to go to a couple of Steampunk events this year, similar to the one we went to last year.

To enter in to the spirit I have created a few Steampunk theamed adornments.

It is entirely up to you to imagine what extraordinary properties these curiosities might have.

I've started to learnt a few new skills to work with old materials I have barely used before.

For a quick solution, I'm also using some very new methods to get old style results.

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• The leather pouches are from e-bay. They needed a lot of elbow grease to clean up, along with various leather cleaners, shoe cream and Silvo because I didn't have any Brasso. 
• The copper pipe on the jewellery is 3/16" brake pipe and the copper wire is stripped out of off-cuts of twin and earth mains cable I had saved. 
• The copper barrel of the gun is an off-cut of 15mm water pipe. 
• The watch bits are from e-bay.

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Liner for the leather pouches to help them hold their shape when empty.

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Downloads:
3D printed liner for the leather pouches (STL)
Licence attribution - small business exception

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