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# I just googled for steampunk is shit
:D

actually if someone makes a real steam powered thing I'll be fucking impressed

where's my steampowered airship, you cads!
(I helped save b3ta! discomeats This canoe, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 1:31, archived)
# I, and a friend, had a strange idea to make a victorian era synthesizer/electronic organ one evening.
Take a treadle sowing machine and connect permanent magnets discs that spin
inside lowered coils of wire connected to paper horns. One for each key/note.
Sort of like a glass harmonium, but using the electro generative effect.

We figured it would sound stupid and horrid enough to fit the steampunk ethos.
No reason you couldn't use a small steam engine to power it instead of foot power.
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 1:40, archived)
# Whoooooooshing good idea !
(I helped save b3ta! Valin I changed glasses while I wasn't looking, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 1:54, archived)
# how about
a steam driven shaft

with cogs on it that have magnets at what effectively becomes harmonic intervals

you'd have some sort of arrangement of keys that would either enable the magnetic pulses to be output to a speaker

thus, an steam powered electric musical instrument would be created

edit: infact, have both, for that full on Dr Phibes experience :D

(I helped save b3ta! discomeats This canoe, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 1:57, archived)
# Hook the steam up to the blower on this thing . . . maybe even put some bubble solution in it !
pipedreams.publicradio.org/articles/how_a_pipe_organ_works/images/how_a_pipe_organ_works.jpg
(I helped save b3ta! Valin I changed glasses while I wasn't looking, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 2:03, archived)
# but we want electro mechanical though
(I helped save b3ta! discomeats This canoe, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 2:05, archived)
# Back to the drawing board . . . YO TESLA !
(I helped save b3ta! Valin I changed glasses while I wasn't looking, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 2:12, archived)
# That's the idea, yeah.
I thought about it later and realized that the magnets could be in fixed discs and
the key, when pressed, brings a second interrupting disc between that makes
the connection to the drive shaft. Magnets could be set in the disc at right angle
to the spindle axle and the coils would be fixed around the axle beside the
magnet disc. Reduces the actuated parts to little tandem wheels in the key
end. Big O drive shaft, little o upper magnet disc, and the keyed disc.

 oO
  o___v
       ^
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 2:12, archived)
# I'm not a mechanical person (you might have guessed)
but it could be a funny instrument to make

and some mad bastard is going to want to perform with it.
(I helped save b3ta! discomeats This canoe, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 2:15, archived)
# It had also occurred to me that you could make a modern powered version.
Small beads of steel in plastic discs, same actuating method, but use
standard guitar pickups fed to a conventional amplifier. If you used
beads of the same mass as the part of a string inside the pickup's
capture zone the result would sound pretty close to a normal guitar.

edit: BTW for any geeks out there.
Tone-Wheel organs use a variation on that idea.
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 2:28, archived)
# fuck duh...
guitar

OF COURSE!

this simply didn't occur to me

oh..

multiple guitar/violin type instruments

ahhh yeah
(I helped save b3ta! discomeats This canoe, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 3:32, archived)