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Or: what I did this afternoon. Here is my engineering prototype for the finished item. It’ll consist of etched copper plates held together with leather. My design for the plates, hot off the presses. Note the patterns on one side, combined with holes completely through the plates. The large hole in the triangular bottom plateContinue reading “And now for something a little more sophisticated”

Over the last week, I’ve been learning the android platform, from a software development point of view down to the platform development kit and below as usual. I have so many ideas for things to hack, that its hard to decide on which to do at any one time! First of all, I found aContinue reading “Android APK resource extractor”

Just spotted this on MAKE magazine: the use of vinyl dye to dye plastics.

We just got back from Leeds an hour or so ago; loads of fun, must definitely do it again! I quite liked Leeds as a city, its an slightly crazy mismash of styles; we especially liked wandering through the huge indoor market place. More later, with photos!

blue rose.pngOriginally uploaded by adq_uk

A week or so ago, I finally broke and ordered a new SLR body. After a lot of deliberation, I chose the Nikon D90. I had considered the D300, but (a) its waaay more expensive, and (b) it is quite a lot heavier. Considering the D90 has the same CCD as the D300, I feltContinue reading “Camera upgrade complete!”

A few days ago, I tried the thermal transfer onto brass again, this time with almost perfect success: There were a couple of small bits that failed, but I fixed them by hand with a permanent marker, but mostly it was a perfect transfer. The thing that took the time was beating  Inkscape->Printer into submission;Continue reading “Etching success #1”

… was worse than #1. This time I tried a different type of paper: Epson Premium Glossy @255gsm. This was too thick and also quite plasticky (same kind of feel as a non-digital photo print). The water didn’t soak into it at all during the removal process. I just tried this because I had itContinue reading “Thermal transfer attempt #2”

My first attempt was to transfer the following laser printout on Epson photopaper onto the piece of brass below. I folded the paper and stapled round the edges to keep the brass in place. I wasn’t quite sure how to do the ironing 🙂 So I opted to press the very hot iron down directlyContinue reading “Thermal transfer attempt #1”

So, the calculations for the solution i’ve just created. I am the first to admit that the following may be absolute bollocks; although I was quite good at chemistry, its been a while since school… Anyway, the proportions for the Edinburgh Etch are:4/5 Saturated FeCl3 solution at (40% weight/volume)1/5 Citric Acid solution at (25% weight/volume)Continue reading “The Edinburgh Etch calculations”