Miniature Steam Engine
April 2023
A build of a Stuart 10V from an unmachined casting kit purchased on eBay. I'd wanted to build one of these from a very young age and finally got around to it about 30 years later!
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TV Unit
December 2022
A 'floating', wall-mounted pair of shelves for under our TV. Built from old scaffolding planks and steel box-section, it provides a home for our speakers, AV receiver, record deck and Blu-ray player.
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Offset Smoker
July 2021
After wanting to cook some Texas BBQ and seeing the price of offset smokers here in the UK I decided to embark upon a project to design and build my own from scratch in collaboration with my Dad.
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Splitflap Display
May 2021
A 4-character build of Scott Bezek's splitflap display design to display various counters on my desk and make cool noises.
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The Island
March 2021
A collaboration with my wife and my Dad, a custom kitchen island built from reclaimed timber and steel from scratch for our barn conversion project.
Staircase
December 2020
A collaboration with my wife to design and engineer an epic custom staircase from scratch for our barn conversion project.
LoRa weather station
July 2020
A battery powered humidity, temperature and pressor sensor based on a Bosch BME280 and LoRa node module. Data captured via The Things Network.
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Desktop Geiger Counter
July 2020
A hand-crafted wooden case with brass and steel fittings and a Raspberry Pi inside running InfluxDB and Grafana.
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Inkyshot
June 2020
A 3D printed case for a Raspberry Pi Zero and Pimoroni InkyPHAT display to send messages and inspirational quotes.
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Train Departure Sign
July 2019
A balenaCloud powered live train station sign for your desk. Built with a Raspberry Pi Zero and OLED display.
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Web controlled RGB LEDs
December 2018
Driven via a Raspberry Pi, control an obnoxious (or not) RGB LED Xmas tree from anywhere via a web browser!
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UPS Monitoring
October 2017
A quick setup using apcupsd, InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana to monitor the line voltage seen by the UPS powering my home server.
Steam Engine
July 2017
Build over 4 years of a 1/3rd scale, coal fired, live steam model of a Burrell Single Crank Compound traction engine.
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Run-DMD Clock
June 2017
A custom designed frame and build utilising the Run-DMD edge board.
Hook pinball
February 2017
Restoration of a 1992 Data East 'Hook' pinball machine. This comprises of a full strip down and rebuild of all mechanical assemblies cleaning and replacing parts as required to make it play as new again.
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Flame Eater Engine
May 2015
The second miniature engine machining project completed on my new machines; a 'flame eater' engine.
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Home network
August 2014
Setup of an HP Microserver Gen 8 running VMWare ESXi to run systems such as IPCop, Unraid, Windows & Ubuntu server for my home network.
Elmer's Wobbler (#25)
December 2013
Having just finished the installation of a new lathe and milling machine in the workshop, I needed a quick project to test them out. This is that.
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Plasma Speaker
November 2013
A breadboard experiment using a flyback transformer from an old TV to make a simple plasma speaker.
Tesla Coil
October 2013
I built this OneTesla kit to further my knowledge of Tesla coils, plus it makes a good showpiece for the 'shop! When tuned properly it runs very well.
Workshop
June 2011
Building a new workshop from the ground up over 2 years from 2011 to 2013. Set up of a small machine shop, as well as a place to maintain cars and other vehicles.
Indiana Jones Pinball
February 2011
Complete tear down and full rebuild of a 1993 Williams 'Indiana Jones' pinball machine.
Weather station
August 2009
A custom build weather station system created using 1-Wire sensors, monitoring temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed/direction and rainfall.
Whitewater Pinball
August 2008
Another full teardown and complete rebuild of a 1993 Williams 'Whitewater' pinball machine.
Jurassic Park Pinball
January 2008
Full strip down and complete rebuild of a 1993 Data East 'Jurassic Park' pinball machine.
Twilight Zone Pinball
August 2007
Rebuild and recondition of one of the most complex pinball machines around; Twilight Zone (also one of my all time favourites!).
MAME Cabinet
November 2006
A project to build a full size arcade cabinet housing for a MAME setup. Custom designed in CAD and built from scratch with proper arcade controls.
G.A.R.E.V.
May 2006
The Global Access Remote Exploration Vehicle completed as part of my Bachelors degree at the University of Plymouth.