by guest blogger BricabracWizard (Michael Greensmith)
Steampunk came about in the late ā80ā²s. Basically coined as Victorian science fiction. With thatĀ in mind I decided to create an old fashioned music player with new fang dangled equipment.Ā The first step was finding a box to encase the equipment in. I found this old indoor bowls caseĀ by the side of the road being thrown away. The picture does it more justice than itās worth… theĀ case was in very bad shape.
I dismantled the box and carefully sanded/polished all the components, stained, varnished andĀ reassembled the case.Ā This wasnāt a particularly well made box… ahhh the nostalgia!
Looking good now! At thisĀ point I started playing around with a few ideas to see what would and wouldnāt workā¦
These are just two ideas from about 12 ideas I had, unfortunately I didnāt take pictures of all theĀ ideas I had. One idea was to have the speakers come out of the side of the box but this madeĀ them too low and the whole thing too wide.
Next came the drilling of holes in the case to accommodate the speakers, control knobs andĀ power socket.
Here you can see the square hole I cut for theĀ control knobs. The wood is too thick to just drillĀ holes for the control stems and poke them through.Ā The copper rectangle is about 1mm thick. Using a Ā carving tool I cut out just enough wood to lay theĀ copper insert in so that it is level with the top ofĀ the case. The amplifier I used was from JaycarĀ which also has an input for a microphone. At 25 wattsĀ per channel, this is a sweet sounding amp! OfĀ course you can use whatever amp you have onĀ hand.
In order for the controls to be where I wanted them a lot of wires hadĀ to be extended. As you can see from the last picture, it was a bit of a nightmare! When rewiring orĀ remounting electronics make sure everything is secured with no chance of movement. Do notĀ do this if you are not comfortable with electronicsā¦.get someone who knows.
After extensive testing to make sure everything worked, time to create the holder for the iPhone/iPad/iPod. I managed to find an old dented brass vase. I cut off one side of the vaseĀ using a rotary drill with a metal cutting disc attached. The copper plate was cut in the same way.
