JvS on Make:Talk - Podcast now available

Jake von Slatt — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 10:30

Hi Everyone!

I had the distinct pleasure of joining Mark Frauenfelder and Gareth Branwyn of Make: Magazine for the first ever Make:Talk live on Friday at 12 noon PST!

We talked about Make: #17 - The Lost Knowledge Issue:

MAKE Volume 17 goes really old school with the Lost Knowledge issue, featuring projects and articles covering the steampunk scene, makers creating their own alternative Victorian world through modified computers, phones, cars, costumes, and other fantastic creations.

Projects include an elegant Wimshurst Influence Machine, an electrostatic generator built entirely from Home Depot parts, a "Florentine Flask" siphon coffee brewer, and a tea cup-powered Stirling Engine. The section will also cover watchmaking, letterpress, the early multimedia art of William Blake, and other wondrous and lost (or fading) pre-20th century technologies.

Our guest is Gareth Branwyn, who edited this volume's special section. We'll also talk with Jake von Slatt, creator of the Victorian-era Wimshurst Spark Generator that appears on the cover of our current issue.

More information is here and you can listen via the widget on this page.

UPDATE: Plans for my Wimshurst Machine are now available here!

Wimshurst machine

giralua — Thu, 04/02/2009 - 13:31

Edmund Scientic used to sell economy-grade (but still very impressive) Wimshurst machines. Maybe they still do, I haven't checked. I had one when when I was a kid (I'm 56 now). I built the biggest Leyden jar I could using only household materials, was able to put a very respectable charge on it. Startled a lot of my friends with it, too.

My 8th-grade science teacher in Connecticut had a sturdier, fancier model Wimshurst, but I don't know where he got it.

If my aging memory serves me, there was a comic-book superhero (I forget who) who had a nemesis called the "Dust Devil", who could be incapacitated by the proximity a Wimshurst machine.

It's great to see people doing this stuff!

Thanks Jake

Randall Knapp — Fri, 03/06/2009 - 16:46

Love to hear your thoughts and your adventures. By the way, you're a great orator, well spoken. Looking forward to hearing you again and seeing your next project.