Featured in Sellers-Showcase Newsletter #3 on Deviant Art

Greetings fellow journeymen. I have recently been featured in the newsletter for the group #Sellers-Showcase in their Artisan Craft folder and I wanted to share this good news. The Sellers-Showcase is a group dedicated to helping all artists get more exposure for their work and to try to make that translate into sales for those struggling artists. They are very friendly and helpful and I feel very honored to have been mentioned in their newsletter. Please check out their group page and the newsletter to find out more about all of the really great artists in the sellers group: [link]

There are a lot of good things on my Deviant Art page so if you haven't seen it yet then jump over and visit it to check my work as well as that of others that I have favorited.  http://janus002.deviantart.com/

The Bennett Valve Ocular Overmask

The newest steampunk goggles are finished and are for sale in my etsy store.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/106234262/the-bennett-valve-ocular-overmask

Here are the finished pictures of different views of the goggles:

More Work on the New Goggles

I started out with another pair of the cup style goggles and I painted these with just a full coat of metal color instead of doing the black to rub n buff like I have been doing.  This is what they are starting as:

I found a couple of handles that I wanted to use on the sides of the goggles that could be attached through the vent holes with regular bolts and nuts.  One was at Home Depot and the other I found at Hobby Lobby which was only for decoration but it's metal and heavy duty anyway.

The one at Home Depot was really cheap and they had more than one style to choose from so I will be keeping them in mind for future projects.  I was also able to make my own "pressure relief attachment" that was made of a spring, a two inch bolt, two washers and a threaded insert for wooden furniture.  I sandwiched the spring between the two washers and stacked them on the bolt with the threaded insert underneath to keep them raised slightly off the goggles.

After getting all of this stuff together I put some stuff aside to make some modified lenses.  Namely parts for a plastic string holder and bits off a sheet of colored photography gels.  Soon the whole thing will come together.

Home Made Pressure Gauge

So, I have been working on a lot different steampunk projects for quite a while.  So many, in fact, that I have not been able to find the time to post any new items on my blog.  One example is this part of a new set of goggles for my etsy store.  The goggles are based on a pair that I made for a friend who made me think of a more engineering style overall.  The goggles needed something that would help out with the effect of an industrial look.

I had read online several months ago about making your own pressure gauge but I lost the bookmark and I'm not sure where I found the article now.  The basic idea is to take a flush finger pull which normally gets put into a cabinet or closet door to help to open and close it.  I found a set of four that were small enough to be made to fit some goggles.



As you can see, these were pretty reasonable so if I messed them up it would be no big deal.  Next you have to use clear casting epoxy to make the "glass" for the gauge.  I already had plenty Easy Cast left from earlier projects.  The process will be to fill the finger pull partially with the epoxy then let it dry, add a custom gauge face then finish filling to top the gauge off.

In order to make the custom gauge be able to attach to whatever item I am steampunking it was necessary to drill a hole in the finger pull then put a small bolt through the hole and a nut on the outside to keep it in place.  Once the first layer of epoxy dries it will make the bolt permanent which will make it possible to bolt it onto whatever I'm working on.



I searched for quite a while trying to find the right gauge face art that would work in this custom part but I finally had to end up printing one and then cleaning it up by hand simply because the detail did not transfer well onto the very small scale that I needed.  This is the first image I found.

I printed this, cut it out and coated both sides with generous amounts of Mod Podge to protect it from the liquid epoxy.  After this covering had dried I put the face into the partially filled gauge and then covered it the rest of the way until the epoxy was level with the outer rim of the metal pull.  Once it had dried, I was left with a small gauge that could be added to my new goggles and it really came out nice once finished.

*Note: some tricks about using epoxy.  The Easy Cast clear epoxy has some quirks to it that can be frustrating if you have never used it before.  It is very easy to pour too much into your project and have the epoxy overflow.  Try to pour in small amounts and let the liquid settle a little before pouring more in.  Make sure the mixture is right which should be 50/50.  It's possible to get a sticky mixture that never fully dries if the mix is off.  And last, the epoxy is made to off gas on its own but it really can help to get all of those tiny bubbles out by exhailing on the epoxy because carbon dioxide helps the liquid release the bubbles even faster.