Steampunk Frankenstein by Dana Mattocks

Making the case

The first major obstacle in the actual building phase of the project was to make the aluminium frame look like one which had been made from brass beams. The brass rivets were important to the look, because rivet technology has advanced from mushroom heads which show above the metal to the flush mounted rivets found on modern aircraft.

During a visit to an aviation centre at a nearby airport I met some very skilled tradesmen who showed me how to safely heat rolls of brass to 875 degrees in massive ovens for a given amount of time before letting it air cool. This process enables a molecular change called ‘annealing’ to take place to the brittle sheets of brass, and it means they could then be brake bended like copper.

I then spent an additional twenty hours back at home drilling and riveting actual brass mushroom headed rivets to the brass skin and frame using air tools which resulted in an incredibly solid finish that looked very dramatic.

The large steam ship brass switches found near the bottom of the PC weighed in at 23kg before mounting. Simply mounting these to the wood planks wouldn’t work without first building solid mounts in the back to secure them to the main frame. As items then began arriving in the mail from eBay sellers, I became increasingly busy refurbishing these beautiful antiques back to life again.

Once I’d done this I went back and applied chemicals to age their appearance to keep all of the brass metals at an equally oxidized state. Adding lead solder allowed me to create the appearance of heated or well used steam pipes and valves. I also spent extra time reviving the internals of every component.

The brass gears in the WWII radar port next to the reservoir were constructed over several days using five large sets of antique mantle clock gears. I wanted the feel of a mechanical heart for this machine and this seemed to be a great way to convey the idea. The brass switches actually control different LED light systems.

Despite the work that had gone into the machine, I still hadn’t come up with a name, but I thought ‘Steampunk Frankenstein’ was fitting and decided to incorporate giant bolts that looked similar to the neck bolts found on Dr. Frankenstein’s famous monster. Standing at eight foot tall it’s certainly a monstrous PC to behold.