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Monthly Archives: March 2014

Revisiting Kilroys in Minneapolis

Posted on by by Posted in Automata & Kinetic Art, Coin-Op Machines, Restorations, Vintage

Vintage Games, Advertising, Strange Wonders, and Peculiar Oddities

In the process of updating this video that I made in 2010 with new Kilroys website and contact information I realized that I had lost all of the original raw video clips during my last computer build, and all that exists now is the low bit-rate rendered SD version that you see here.

This made me start thinking about shooting an updated video in HD – which got me thinking about all of the fantastic items that have appeared at and disappeared from Kilroys over the years – which got me looking through old photos, and finally, which brought me here… to show some of those pictures.

Kilroys is an establishment owned by Kevin Hammerbeck and located in the slowly-disappearing Minneapolis warehouse district.  I call it an establishment because in a way it is a little difficult to categorize. Just a few days ago I called Kevin to ask what words I should add to the video title to make it more descriptive – Kilroys what in Minneapolis?  After some silence we started laughing – even after nearly 40 years in the business he was at temporary loss for that single short phrase that would fully describe what Kilroys is and what he does.… Read the rest

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Making Wax for Carving, Casting, and Machining

Posted on by by Posted in DIY, Sculpture, Molds, & Casting

Pouring, Hand-Forming, Detail-Carving, or Polishing – Wax Does it All

Sculpting and hand carving are skills that do not come naturally to me. I can visualize, create, and generally comprehend geometric forms, but there are some things that I just cannot see while working on shapes in nature, and this includes human faces and figures.

I do still need to be able to create an acceptable figure or head now and then for automaton or animatronic projects, but unless some skill develops it is destined to be a “rework until good enough” endeavor. I can live with that shortcoming as long as the job can still eventually get done. It does however require the selection and use of sculpting or carving materials that can tolerate a lot of mistakes and rework. The ideal material would be easily hand-moldable yet firm enough to hold shape and detail without fear of damage from the slightest mishandling. It must carve easily, but it should also allow easy addition of material to fill in mistakes.

After trying a few different types of sculpting media (water-based and polymer clays, oil based plasticine, basswood, carvable foam) I decided that carving wax was a material that I could live with.… Read the rest

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Review: AmScope 3.5x-45x Boom Stereo Microscope

Posted on by by Posted in Tools & Machinery

Circuit Board Model with Trinocular Camera Port and 144 LED Ring Light

AmScope Model SM-4TX-144A Circuit Board Boom Stereo Microscope

AmScope Model SM-4TX-144A Circuit Board Boom Stereo Microscope

One of the perks that you lose when abandoning the corporate engineering environment is the access to high-end test equipment to use or borrow for your own projects, and one of the things that I missed the most was having a good quality stereo microscope within reach. Working with microwave ICs and picosecond-range pulse circuits required spending a good portion of the work day staring through microscopes while assembling die-level circuitry and performing wirebonding. Microscopes were so common in the workplace that I never really understood how pricey they were until I had to purchase a Leica scope & wirebonder and the ocular-less Mantis for general assembly work in my development lab.

I have always had some of my own basic gear at home – oscilloscopes, a logic analyzer, and other basic equipment – but no network or spectrum analyzers, and no microscope. Surplus name-brand scopes in decent condition can still command high prices, and I was recently looking for a nice used Nikon or Leica when this AmScope stereo boom microscope happened to arrive courtesy of Santa Claus. A few years earlier I had come very close to purchasing a different AmScope model based on a high percentage of favorable reviews.… Read the rest

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