Straight from the show floor of the North American Model Engineering Expo held in Toledo last weekend, Ross in Detroit posted this incredible gallery of homunculus-sized steam, gas and hot-air model engines in our comments. There's some breath-taking ingenuity on display here. It's steam-powered retro-fetishism for Lilluputians! Thanks, Ross!
NAMES Expo [Pbase]
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"The iPods retain their packaging and are in their ow..."
"They have the iPods in a special display case, as I ..."
"I have one of those copper octopus-looking head mass..."
"Oh, come on Rob. Don't tell me the upcoming promise ..."
"Thanks for the link-love, John! One reason this do..."
"The funny thing about the EULA is that it's the same..."
"Love ya too, iJoel :D FWIW, 64% of my latest commen..."
"WalMart sells iPods already, does it not? Are they ..."
"At first I was filled with fear and went to go hug m..."
"The NeoCube is composed of 216 individual high-energ..."
"I just tried to install Spore on it and got nothing...."
"iPhone jumps the shark...."
"It's missing the blood drip though. A comedian I'm ..."
"I like the Smiley crop, gives it a nice evil slant....."
"wow, I really like this story... fascinating ..."
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I've always wanted one of these... I wonder how much they're worth... Add an electric generator, and you could have an alcohol or coal powered steampunk laptop... Make a putputputer... That was bad, I appologise for the pun... Still want to make it tho.
Oh, my gosh, I crave one of these. Mrs. Fnarf lives in mortal terror that I'm going to get one and start pottering with steam in the living room.
Anonymous, you can get a working one starting at about $100 or so, less for badly used on Ebay, but you won't be able to power a laptop with most of them -- their output is very small. There are fancy kits that allow you to set up a working shop, with miniature lathes, bandsaws, drill presses, etc., all whirring away with exactly the kind of belt-and-pulley setup that was used in the early industrial era. Or you can light up a flashlight bulb, but that's about it. They typically burn pellets, not actual coal.
The really nice ones, like the solid brass ones shown here, go for a LOT more money, and are usually not purchased except as plans or unmilled kits, for machinists. That's beyond my skill level (well, pretty much everything is beyond my skill level).