Steampunk Heart

A good friend of mine, and fellow steampunk Airship crew mate, asked me to make a steampunk heart for his character. How could i refuse??!!?! I have always loved steampunk related things and having recently joined a local community of steampunk enthusiasts, I was chomping at the bit to do a steampunk piece.

My friend supplied the camera lens he had acquired on the cheap from an antique shop that he wanted to be the housing for the heart. Finding some gears at my local Hobby Lobby I went straight to work.

The idea from the start was to have it lit from the back so the gears would show through the lens. I began my search for an led lighting setup. After failing to find what i wanted on my usual sites (Ebay, Superbrightleds..) I stumbled upon a site for train miniatures. www.modeltrainsoftware.com had some really cool pre-made kits for doing small lighting rigs. And the best part was it would run on a coin battery, which would make it ideal for installing in a rather small piece. I went with the "fire!" kit, which got me three lights (steady orange, blinking orange, blinking red), this would give it the appearance of a "beating" heart.

So, while I was waiting for this to come in (very fast shipping, by the way) I began work on the gear display. I started with a clear disc of PETG I had laying around, cut to fit inside the back of the lens assembly. This would later be tinted to allow the lights to show through the gears but not be seen when turned off. I super glued the gears on the disc with an attempt to resemble a clock's internal workings.

 After the glue set (which didn't take long haha) I tinted the back of the disc with VHT nightshades spray. Very lightly. This stuff is very finicky, and takes forever to dry! But it turned out pretty good. I then glued this piece into the back side of the lens which still had plenty of room for the led's and a back plate.

After the VHT dried, I could tell that it was still just a little too dark for the lights, so I took some extra fine wet sand paper and rubbed about half of it off. Now that this was done, in went the lights! a tiny hole in the side of the lens frame for a small set screw allowed me to feed the thin wires of the led's through so the battery and switch could be outside of the lens housing. After trimming the wires to the length i needed I hot glued the led's on the PETG disc. (note: super glue just melted the VHT and wouldn't set)

I ran the wiring for the switch and the battery holder around the out side of the housing and super glued the switch at what will be the top of the heart. It is set back behind the ring that adjusts the iris inside so it will be hidden and still allow the iris to be opened and shut. I then cut another slightly larger disc out of styrene to serve as both the back plate for the led's as well as a reflecting source for the light to brighten the inside of the apparatus, which worked out nicely.

This piece fit snugly inside the frame and gave just enough room for the led's to set undisturbed. I attached the battery holder to the back of the back plate with Velcro so that it could be easily removed for battery replacement.

Well, this pretty much wraps up my part of the heart piece. I may be helping with the leather harness so he can wear it with his outfit, the lens is pretty heavy. But before I let it go I tested the lighting rig and it looks awesome!! here a few "lights on" pics and a video to show the blinking effect!
Enjoy!

This was a blast to build!!! I do have a steampunk arm piece for my character that is in the works so stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading!!

Superfreak1000