Faux Tesla Coil-Part 15-Dynamo and Steam Engine Gauges

I feel like I should be singing my activities of this week to the tune of the song, Twelve Days of Christmas. --- Since I blogged on Wednesday, I've attended two holiday functions, worked on extensive bathroom remodeling, one birthday party, and an unexpected trip out of town. --- It has been a busy week.  Even with all of that, I have managed to get something done on my paper mache' folk art project.  I have a few new pictures of what I've finished up this week.  It is not as much work as I had hoped to get done.

The first picture shows that the gauges have been repainted and mounted on the boiler of the steam generator.  (I am fighting a terrible urge to paint a smile under the gauges to make it look like a happy face.)  Readers may recall that I had painted the gauges last week but the varnish had stripped the paint off of them.  I think I am going to write myself a note and tape it to the bottle of paint that it does not work with that particular varnish. 

The second picture shows the dynamo.  The wire is glued into place on the spool.  The black base of the dynamo is finished with a product that is a combination of gloss gel medium and varnish.  I did not want to take a chance on the varnish stripping the paint off again.  I think the gel medium gave the paper mache' base the appearance of a rough metallic texture.  It could just be that the gel medium was old and did not spread well. 

The last picture is another lightening bolt.  It has been base coated in yellow.  I still need to add another coat to tone down the yellow a bit and add reddish highlights.  This lightening bolt is going to flash near the cat to scare it on the diorama.

I still have not gotten around to attempting to put a lab coat on the anthropomorphic pumpkin.  That will be my priority project for tomorrow.  I'm hoping it will turn out well.  If I mess it up, I have to remake the character.  Decisions, decisions.  I decided I would go ahead and try it because I am not going to let the fear of failure stop me from attempting something.  It is only a piece of aluminum foil covered with paper mache' after all.  (I'll only let my fear of failure make me procrastinate for so long before I finally get on with things.)

There is just one more piece I need to make.  I have not yet made the transformer.  Basically, it is just a rectangular box painted black.  Part of me wants to say the heck with it and just leave it out.  But the geek part of me won't let me forget about it.  If I were building a real Tesla Coil, you would have to have a transformer between the power source and the coil.  It would have to be there in real life.  Most people would not notice it, but I bet a lot of my friends would.  (You guys know it and I know you know it.)  Well, things will get geekier yet, as I have a surprise for something on the diorama.  If it is not on the next blog post, it will be on the one afterwards.