You may recall Patrick Johnson's marvelous short film Granite Copper Motor from earlier this year. Recently Patrick spent some time with my friends David, Dennis, and Brady, while they designed and constructed a steam boiler dubbed 'Ignatius the Firepig.'  I do so love Patrick's calm and peaceful treatment which is the antithesis of todays frenetic, falsely dramatic, cable television style.

Enjoy!

Modern Alchemy from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo.

A short documentary featuring artists David Dowling, Dennis Svoronos and Brady Scott as they design and construct their steam boiler, Ignatius.

Directed by:
Patrick Johnson - www.journeymanstudios.com

Featuring:
David Dowling 
Dennis Svoronos
Brady Scott

Music by:
John Murphree - www.johnmurphree.com

Camera by:
Patrick Johnson
Ben Hartman - www.who-is-sure.com

Last May's MakerFaire in San Mateo was the highlight of 2008 for me! I had just about the best time of my life!  Now Maker Faire is coming to the U.K.!

Ian writes:

MakerFaire is coming to the UK as part of the Newcastle Science Festival on 14th/15th March 2009 in Times Square outside the Centre for Life and various other nearby spaces, so we’re looking for Makers to take part.

Lucky lucky Meredith Scheff is at Maker Faire Austin right now and she's twittering everything she sees! You can follow her here or add satiredun on Twitter.

Continuing the tale of my long and busy weekend . . .

So a crew from PBS's new show Make:TV spent the weekend with me in the shop filming me at work.  I re-created a couple of projects and made a coach lamp for the car, start to finish.  That turned out to be really hard as I was creating from scrap brass and found objects a whole new piece that needed to be completed while the crew was still there.

When Make:TV was blocking out the schedule for their visit to Boston they asked me if there were more 'steampunk' people in the area doing big projects.  I pointed them in the direction of M@ (Matt) and Holly and HUMANWINE.

. . .

My buddy Paul Cesewski (and former shop-mate/shipyardian) built this rail-car that tickles all my maker-buttons: made from recycled parts, can go fast, utilizes an obscure form of locomotion, has a good possibility of injury,  and serves no readily logical purpose other than to have a friken' great time.

This video is of him and cohorts riding said mobile on probably the funnest bit of abandoned railway around: the tracks look reminiscent of  'scary' rides designed to look dangerous, decrepit, and flimsy. But, you know, real. I especially love the part where the tracks are a good 3 feet off the ground. Unsupported.

Every now and again, here at the Steampunk Workshop, we get email that totally makes our day.  Sometimes its simply a note from someone who has discovered Steampunk for the first time - or more precisely discovered that there was, in fact, a name for this thing that has already been passion for most of their life.

But sometimes the notes we receive really get to us because they are about real people, romance, passion and of course making things and that is our Raison d'être.  This was in deed the case this morning when I opened my mail and found a note that began:

I'm not entirely sure what I am looking at here, but the 'Ordinator' by Flickr user Imajilon is a pretty sexy bit of workmanship. It's like some weird steampunk/psychedilic milkshake. I want to pull the levers and run my hands over the grill; expecting electrical shocks and vision quests.