IT'S ALIVE!

Here it is finished, and in PG action.

HERO PICTURES

Full shots of the finished project.

FINAL DETAILS

Thrust mechanism.

 Closer.

 From below.

FINAL DETAILS

Close up of the the pre-charger and splash shield.

Splash shieled from other side with water tank detail.

Full shot.

FINAL DETAILS

Controller. Lights, dial and button all work. 

 Controller side

FINAL DETAILS

Warning...

 Operator point of view.

 Side of main control box. Detail of mercury control switches.

FINAL DETAILS

Here's the barrel pressure tank. I've called it a number of things. But in reality it's the electric motor cover.

 A close up shot of the air intake below the platform.

 Platform with brass nameplate.

FINAL DETAILS

Brass and leather accessory holder in the platform.

Operator control handle out front.

 Close up detail of the front of the water tank, showing pressure gauge.

Wiring

Now that all the pieces are in place the wiring begins.

Under control

Here's the inside of the controller with the PWM and the lithium battery from the drill.

Mover and shaker

I've been using all sorts of different motors and power supplies over the year. But I had to find something that works and commit. I found a lithium ion powered 12v drill with two small battery packs. Here are the parts I salvaged from the drill. The motor went into the wooden barrel and the battery will fit into the old train transformer.

And here's the more powerful PWM that I bought to run it all.

Just painted

Here's the compressor piston that I'm calling a pre-charger. All the non brass parts painted. Ready for mounting.

And here's the splash shield painted. It's made of brass but my soldering work was so bad I felt it needed paint to fix it. I used brass toilet hinges to mount the shield to the platform.

Clamp down

Finally got all the parts together in place on the platform. With the copper frame clamped on. Many of the items are now painted.

Brass control plate

I found an old brass sconce from the 80's that was brushed and ugly on one side. On the other side was unfinished and had developed an awesome patina. Here it is cut out to match the original plate.

Platform stained and mounted

All your base are belong to us

Using wood scraps that I salvaged from a client's basement I fashioned a platform. It a nice tight tongue and groove hardwood. It's gonna look nice stained.

Getting control

I found this train transformer at the flea market. I hope to make it the remote speed controller for the device.

Brass Everywhere

Here's some more pictures of the smaller details. Combining lamp parts, air compressor parts and some plumbing and electrical. No paint yet.

More of the detaily stuff

This is a close up of the piston that generates the hydraulic power to spin the motor. That's how it's supposed to be interpreted anyway. It does spin around and pump a piston. The basis of this is the main park of another broken air compressor. Note to self, stop buying cheap air compressors.

Here's a wider shot that shows the water tank in the background. To the left is the exhaust stack made from the mouthpiece of a cheap circular horn and another car bracket.

Nighttime report

Late night shot with more added details. I've added a mercury switch home thermostat (tan piece) to the side of the main case.  You can now see the wiring for the electrics that I'm hiding in the copper plumbing. I've got a working motor in the wooden barrel. But I'm having problems getting the motor to work consistently at slow speeds. I've got a PWM controller for the motor but it seems to be unhappy.

XXX action

So you might have noticed that I've changed the orientation of the lever device. It used to stand up from the surface of the board. But I found it difficult to support. And it occurred to me that a manufacturer wouldn't have built it this way for the same reason. So it now lays down and is attached to the board. The ugly board, by the way, is only temporary until I get the prototype figured out. Then I'm switching to a shaped piece of hardwood. I also eliminated the stands for the motor housing and integrated it into the support for the swing arm. It all came together into a nice clean set up.

Some new details

 Here's a close up of the motor housing and it's supports.

I really like this strut detail. The adjustable threaded thing is from a power seat from the Explorer I cut up for our second art car. It's designed to look like a tensioner for the motor housing. It's attached to an abs outdoor electrical box mounted on a car speaker frame. I still need to pick all the final finishes for the parts that aren't already brass or copper.