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Author Topic: Folk Art? Steampunk? Bitsa?  (Read 114 times)

Hero

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Folk Art? Steampunk? Bitsa?
« on: April 12, 2019, 09:09:50 pm »
                      
I found this little (well, not so little) gem at a yard sale some 20 years ago. It's home-built, with a fire extinguisher body, a clothes line pulley with Mamod-looking pulley for a belt drive, a piston made from an old bolt, a cut-down CO2 cartridge for a functional whistle, recycled gas taps everywhere, and who knows what else?

I made a frame for it, removed the plastic lawnmower wheels and replaced them with cast iron ones, scrapped the small flat clothes iron that had been used as a heat source, installed an old pressure gauge, and did a thousand things you have not dreamed of.

Believe it or not, it runs smooth as silk in either direction on about 3 lb of air, and was towed all over by my three-year-old grandson in 2004 and beyond as a favourite toy.

If you look closely, you'll see a lubrication reservoir above the cylinder, and a piece of shoelace leading from it that licks the piston with a film of oil. Whoever made this was a mixture of crazy and genius, I think.

I've put quite a bit of time into it and kept it all these years just because it's so strange....     

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Bob

Jim

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Re: Folk Art? Steampunk? Bitsa?
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2019, 01:08:24 am »
Well that's certainly different :)
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Jim

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Mi Steam

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Re: Folk Art? Steampunk? Bitsa?
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2019, 01:55:37 am »
It looks like the boiler is make from copper pipe fittings.
Carl "There is a better way for everything. Find it."TAE


Hero

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Re: Folk Art? Steampunk? Bitsa?
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2019, 02:12:38 am »
It looks like the boiler is make from copper pipe fittings.

The end caps are certainly pipe fittings; the centre section I'm not sure of.

It's really a horrible mess, what with its blobs of solder and junk components, but as I said, it actually runs and it did have kid appeal. It's unbreakable, too.
Bob

Nick

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Re: Folk Art? Steampunk? Bitsa?
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2019, 09:33:01 am »
Interesting creature  ;D
Nick