Saturday, December 4, 2010

Steam Turntable + The Sex Pistols


New Zealander Simon Jansen's steam-powered record player is a thing of beauty. I'd like to report that it sounds as good as it looks... but it's absolutely horrible. As he explains:

"Yes, it’s a steam powered record player. Playing a punk LP. The Sex Pistols – God save the Queen (Victoria obviously). You can’t really get more steam, or punk, than that!

This all came about when I decided to build my own small steam engine from bits of junk around my garage. I built the engine first (named Nigel after Sir Nigel Gresley) then I made a boiler from some copper water pipe. After making the boiler and a small throttle valve I was able to test the engine running on steam. Now I knew the engine ran I started on the next part of my scheme – to use it to turn a record. I made up a firebox and heavy wooden platter. By this stage I already had it in mind to create the only true steampunk project on the Internet."

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