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Guess who's back..... Henry goes steampunk...

Thank you Tim.. :)
 
Little sneak peak on the corner finish.. :) Just a fancy small eye catcing detail.
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The little pieces of brass are kitted in place, with a paintable polymer, so the epoxy doesn't get repelled... Once it is all cured, it gets this final blank epoxy coating. This will run in and fill up all the gaps and make one smooth shiny surface. :)
 
Tank is completely done. And running it's second test fill. :) Funny is despite the 3cm wide braces, it still bulges almost 3mm out. That's 7mm less than without the bracing. Glass is actualy darn flexible in every way..
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Also working on the lights setup.. Constructionaly is is finished.. Tomorow i will put in th eelctronics, led strips and controller/dimmer..

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I'll come back on that with more details when lights are burning and all is buffed up a bit... :thumbup:
 
Glass is actually a liquid:):)
Is it? Never looked at it like that.. :)

The u -shaped pieces on the rim, couldn't you make them out of copper?
Yes and maybe no.. I know/see what you mean, saw the same thing in the close up. And changed the Square knee to a chrome nickle version to break the contrast and is a bit less bulky in size..

I thought because the LED Profile is aluminium to give at also an aluminium touch elsewhere. I've look around for brass U profiles, the excist but are bend and not in the same dimensions as the aluminium extruded versions. What i found till now i didn't realy like. The tubing i used is Brass, but i soldered some brass thread in and used S39-CU flux and noticed the brase gets a kind of CU finish from it.. It likely contains some CuSO4. If i give it a decent buffing job it will be off again and just clean brass. Tho i lik ethe cupper touch, makes a bit more like ols used finish and might change over time in color again.

Not yet sure about it, also still got some Humbrol met. brass modeling paint, might just paint the aluminium U profiles with that. HAve to see how it looks. Also want to paint the plastic side covers from the Alu LED profile in this color.

But not yet sure.. Actualy looking at it as a whole. those alu U profiles don't look so bad.. :) The picture is a badly taken close up shot, showing it as detail to much in your face. The whole light ficture is 123 cm long, with a 1m long alu led profile. So aluminium is the dominant part after all, can't change that. The painting idea might just look to fake.. Don't know yet have to try.. :) And the brass definitively needs a buffing..

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Maybe just run the file over the sharp U profile edge and round it a bit. These little detail can do a lot..
 
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Thixotropic... :geek:
It gets more exciting by the minute..:hungry:

The whole ensemble - tank, base/stand, and light - is looking great Marcel, nice craftsmanship :)
Thank you.. :cool: Actualy it is all very straight foreward kitchen table DIY.. All thats used is excisting material available in every well equipped hardware and modeling store with a minimum of rather ordinairy tools.
 
Caramba..... Ariba hambre hambre...
me too. :confused: I knew our hobby had certain plasticity, but this...
 
looking forward to seeing this all set up and finished.

Thank you Danny.. :) If i can ever show it setup i have not yet an idea about.. I'm not building it for myself. I deliver this setup next week ready to run and tested to the new owners. I yet didn't got an indication in how and when they are going to set it up. This topic in unfortunately only about the diy building part. :) But after thus i buil myself something simular in cube dimensions in the near future.. :)
 
Finaly!! This project is finished for now and ready to ship out..

Few details on the light fixture..

It has 1m - 8520 dual chip 18 watt 6500K LED. (2 x 50cm) it needs a 2 amp (24 watt) PSU.. It has 72 chips with 65 lumen p/chip. If that is 72x65= 4680 lumen i dunno, but it's pretty bright, hence it needs a dimmer.. All is glued with M3 double sided sticky tape into a round P7 aluminium led profile.
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As in earlier post this is the profiles cross section diagram
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The 3,6mm hole at the top i used to make a dowel connection, reamed the hole with a 4mm drill bit.. The 2 stands: 1 assambled and 1 disessambled.

For the dowel i used 40mm x 4mm solid brass rod, the tube is 6x4mm brass.. Hammered the dowel 20mm into the tube, the other end fits snugly into the led profile and makes a very stiff connection keeping all straight in line in every direction. After all the complete fixture is a stand in 123cm long.. Stands can be easily pulled out again, for maintenance or storing etc...
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The rest is rather self explainatory, i guess.. But still for clarity, a 100mm - 10x10 mm Aluminium U profile padded inside as stand on the glass. A little piece of brass M4 thread soldered into the vertial tube. The U profile is nutted on with a brass M4 nut secured with a stainless steel spring washer. at the other end taped M5 thread 5mm deep.. In there comes the M5 knee, screwed in a M5 x10mm piece of brass thread again with on that the piece with the dowel. M4 is the only thing soldered, the rest is screw and dowel connection.
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Decided to paint the plastic end caps.. Humbrol enamel number 54, nice stuff, looks nearly realistic..
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Took a cheap $ .5 RGB led controller with remote controll.. Cut off the RGB connector.. Leaves you with 4 wires, RGB and Black.. Black is the positive lead and the leds are controlled via the negative. So the 3 negative RGB wires can be soldered together in my case, since i have only 1 channel white light. Now it doesn't matter which button on the remote controll is pressed it doesn't do anything strange. Only important buttons are On/Off and the DIM buttons.But if any other button is accidently pressed nothing happens. Nice is these controllers have an Eprom memory, so if mains is switched with a timer it comes back on in the previous setting..
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So now it's a single wired controller for a white light led only..
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Let there be light.. :) Oh and i placed a thin poind foil mat on the wooden bottom panel, in case to extra protect the epoxy with moving rocks around.
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I didn't paint the Aluminium U profiles, because seen as a whole it fits the over all design, it needs to age a bit over time.. It all will change in color by cleaning rubbing and touching, that's something paint doesn't handle very well.. Except on the plastic, that Humbrol paint vulcanizes into it.
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Well i'm about done.. Noow get this thing out of my house and hopefully i can show a pic when it's setup and running with a Happy Henry.. And hopefully 2 other happy owners. :thumbup:

I hope you liked it and maybe i inspired you with some crazy ideas of your own.. Todays available materials do not limit us anylonger to complete glass boxes only. Room enough to still be playfull and go different routs than only traditional. Thanks for your time.. :thumbup:
 
Pleasantly surpriced i received this in the mail today. :)
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Actualy not bad for a few beginners. :thumbup: Except the Chamaedorea 2nd plant from the right.. The shop clerck said it wasn't a problem.. I said you'll find out within a few weeks that he's full of youknowwhat. :)
 
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