Teslacon II continues to explore  the fantastic world of Lord Bobbins versus Dr. Proctocus  this weekend in Madison, Wisconsin. We, the RLGEMS and hundreds of other steampunks will be travelling 20,000 leagues under the aether in the fantastic submarine/airship the HMS Trident! Exotic ports of call, mummie unwrappings, murder, mystery and magic are sure to please the senses.  The RLGEMS had the fortune of being actors in the inaugural con last November. This year, extended members from Chicago will be presenting several panels, events and more! Some of our friends from Michigan and Ohio will be joining us for discussions and merriment.

PLEASE NOTE  our new event listing and calendar! Our panels and events for this weekend have been listed.

FRIDAY NIGHT we will be hosting a Midnight Gala, sampling the finest in fashion, drinks, and music. Please note this event is limited to those of age, so please leave the children with the auto-sitter. Join us at 9:30 in the Leviathan room, 21+.

SILENT FILM with Mr. Perkins, a distant relative of RLGEMS founder Captain Flint will be showing. Join Mr. Perkins in the silent pirate film starring Thee Bluebeard at 8:30 Friday night in the Nemo room. Please view the preview below!

The adventures this weekend have broken the bounds of time and scene, as the AV Club Madison ran a fantastic interview with sci-fi scholar Austin Sirkin and our friend the “Steampunk Chef”, Aaron Egan. Teslacon has posted the entire schedule!

We’ll be bringing our newest fashions, devices, gadgets and music. Please leave us a note below if we will see you there!

Reverend Captain Flint has seen many things in his travels around the world, and many things that should be dead. From the horrors of the undead catacombs of Paris, to the mysterious goliaths of deepest Africa, to the cold steely hull of a pirate Airship invading the Antartic, one must always be prepared with the proper armament. Luckily, he had commissioned and worked with Mr. Nikola Tesla, one electric rifle.

The Tesla Electric Rifle

The Tesla Electric Rifle is a rifle which fires charged electrical bolts, similar in behavior to standard gunpowder bullets. Is is not a ray gun, as it shoots visible micro-charges of electricity, and not electrical arcs or mysterious rays. These electrical bullets can be scaled in both lethality and range to serve a wide variety of uses. Through means of a portable Tesla battery/capacitor, enormous amounts of electric energy can be focused and sent in a shaped charge, bringing down a foe, great terrible lizard, or the flammable gas bag of an enemy ship.

Use and Operation.

Similar to the electric bullets of Cpt. Nemo, the Tesla Electric Rifle is a weapon of the modern age. While the inner workings remain a mystery, the basic concept is known. A battery/capacitor about the size of a small candlestick is hung from the belt of the operator. Two electrodes are present, to which the alligator clip terminals of the rifles’ input wires attach. The wires feed to terminals on the right side of the rifle, where the electricity is internally stored and processed through miniaturized electrical connections embedded inside the device.  Two miniature Tesla coil banks are mounted externally, near the rear brass peep sight and electrics. When fired, energy is sent coursing through two wires, stabilized by a rare earth magnet, and gaining the desired charge and lethality through windings over various material and components. The wires then proceed to a copper cooled anode and cathode.

Through not easily understood means, the internal electrics, anode and cathode work in harmony to create shaped charges of electrical bolts. The rifle can store enough energy for several charges after a disconnect from the power source. The bolts are focused down a half inch diameter brass tube at great velocity, and then expelled with alarming accuracy into whatever target they are aimed at, conductive or otherwise. Each bolt-bullet is like a small, highly focused lightning strike, sending full power of the strike into a very small area. The anodizing and scorch marks at the end of the barrel are a testament to this.

Public Display!

Let it be known the Steampunk Rifle will be on display, carried on the person of one Reverend Captain Samuel Flint of the RLGEMS at the World Steam Expo in Dearborn MI, this last weekend of May, 2011.

Building the Rifle.

The Tesla Electric Rifle began as a prop rifle for the inaugural Teslacon. I needed a good solid weapon, and I’m a big fan of Tesla lore and DIY. I didn’t want to mod an existing weapon or plastic NERF blaster, I wanted something hefty, something wooden and brass, and something that looked like it meant business.

A friend gave me her old parade rifle stock, and it was a fabulous platform to work with. My original intention was to sand the white paint off and dye the wood, but I am pleased with the worn, painted look, though I may update it if time allows.

The brass sights and underbarrel winding rods are from a brass toilet seat hinge, purchased at Menards (I drove all over the city trying to remember where I got the first one). The copper parts are simple pipe straps, tarnishing comes from use and age. Various brass screws, washers and pegs hold everything together.

The Tesla coils are simple steel fender washers alternating with small locking washers, and the bold is threaded right into the stock. The brass rod is from a small candlestick. The trigger guard is a drawer pull, with a shelf peg and brass washer set inside, sheepishly, window putty.

Tesla Rifle Receiver

At the business end of the gun, I’ve used a small brass candlestick rod with threads at either end. One end is epoxied into a threaded hole, and the other is capped with a steel cap nut. The barrel is from a 1/2″ dia. brass pipe from American Science and Surplus. A threaded rod was screwed into the end of the stock, drilled through a candlestick cup. The brass rod is held in place via two washers and nuts forming a bushing. The brazing at the end was from simply holding it over a gas stoce and quenching. An old faux leather purse was scrapped to provide material for the cheek rest.

Tesla Electric Steampunk Rifle Wiring

The wires come from various old headphones purchased on eBay. They were arranged to give the impression of implied circuitry; they feed into two points, and the branching wires feed from these points to the other various odds and ends on the rifle, terminating into two steel tips (original to the wires), seemingly plugged into the anode and cathode at the working end.

The main feeding wires with alligator clips come from a fantastic lineman’s rotary handset I picked up for $12 at an antique store. Red and black with two mean clips, they shout business (and tuck nicely under the cheek rest).

Building the Power Source.

Tesla Battery-Capacitor Power Source

The power source came to be when I realized the rifle had to get its juice from somewhere. Unsuitable for attachment to the rifle, a large tube like candlestick was used as a base. Two sturdy brass candlestick cups were added in place at the bottom of the device with window putty. Sandwiched inbetween the cups are two more old wires, feeding up to the terminals at top, which are door stopper posts. A few hose clamps and odd hooks and catches hold everything together. The result is the capacitor battery bank, which has a surprising heft to it, thanks to the brass candlestick parts. The device is inconspicuous and can be hung from the belt or used as a sidearm when it may be inappropriate to wield a large rifle (museums, parks, day care, bars).

Future Plans.

I may varnish the wood and make the trigger more secure. I am a huge fan of working devices and originally intended to make it at the least light up, but this proved too costly and time consuming, I’m satisfied as is. I recently purchased a new stock from an old crossbow at  Lost Eras antique shop in Rogers Park, Chicago. I’m currently in the sketching stages with this one, as its larger and very unique.

So it was that yesterday, (Sunday if you happen to be reading this on say, not a Monday), myself, the charming KL Kenzie, the good Rev. Cpt. Sam Flint and the lovely Lady Lisa all went to view what we were sure was the new fan-boy wank fest “Sucker Punch“.

Flint, already having read reviews from people who have the time to see movies on opening day, promised us that though the film would be very very pretty to look at it – it would also be completely bereft of anything involving either plot or substance.  Having watched the trailer a good 14,028,215 times I came to the conclusion that this was okay – and that we had to see it Sunday so we could have an article up on Steampunk Chicago by Monday.

So to begin, I’m going to start by saying, yes, I know this movie is “dieselpunk” not “steampunk” according to a number of people who have the time to take barely established counter cultures and differentiate them into further sub-genres.  That aside, if you’re looking for a film that evokes the kind of timeless visual imagery of such works as City of Lost Children, Dark City or even Fight Club, this movie is for you.  This brings me to my first laud to Mr. Snyder.

Snyder has deftly taken the style of post World War 2 America for the film, but cleverly and smoothly throws in a number of anachronistic hints that make classifying the movie to any specific time period impossible.  This is hands down, one of the greatest stylistic strengths of the film, and adds an immediate dream-like feeling to its world.

An interesting promo image for the film.

As for the plot,  I’m going to come forward and say that I think all the ill talk of it is un-founded.  I found the plot to be engaging.  I can imagine the biggest issue the casual viewer might have being that it is anything but traditional in the western world sense of plotting, where one starts at point A and goes from point to point until it neatly ends.  Yet plenty of succesful films have avoided that for the better.  Where Sucker Punch is different is that it also defies the more post-modern conceit of the beginning being the end, the “it was all a dream” or even the “it was all in her head” motif.  It’s never made clear just where the movie is really taking place, and it uses this to its own strength.

Without giving too much away, the film is essentially a story within a story within a story, and though – at first – where they begin and end seems evident, after watching the movie in its entirety you’re left not being so sure.  While I enjoyed this aspect, I can see it intensely alienating a majority of viewers.  I think Sucker Punch is a significantly more clever, and intelligent film than one might expect.

Perhaps that is really the “sucker punch” here (yes, pun intended).  The chain gun toting samurai robot-demons and the steampunk Nazi clockwork robot zombies and the bomb train guarded by androids going for the super city are all really really really awesome, but a movie together, they do not make.  Where the film really lies is the plot of five women trying to escape from… well, it’s not clear.  One might say this is a problem, but I don’t think it is here.  This is a film that’s as much about a Buddhist-esque escape from the self as it is about escape from some kind of physical prison, and the nebulous quality of precisely what the prison is really is the center of the story.  It lends itself up to intense speculation and interpretation, and in a culture where we’re increasingly told what to think or how things are, it’s refreshing to not be told what was right, how it was done, or where it came from.

Is Sucker Punch perfect?  No. Is it entertaining?  Yes.  It’s also intensely disturbing and extremely dark.  The fantasy scenes, of which virtually all the hype is being given, are not so much essential to any key plot points, but are essential to your not losing your own mind at how absolutely destitute the lives of the protagonists increasingly become.  So perhaps that’s what we’re left with.  A sucker punch; we come expecting only extraordinary eye candy and yet leave with our minds in a knot.

So Tesla-Con I has come and gone and all in all, the people really enjoyed it!  From panels on character development, taxidermy, tiny top hats and (of course) airships to the delightful tea room (and its lovely view) to the wonderful special guests to various investors, luminaries and members of the ship’s crew (RIP – Henri Grebelle, Lady Grebelle, MacMurry and The Duke of Buckingham) falling dead – it really was quite a weekend.

TeslaCon was represented by several outstanding groups, people, and event planners. The Airship Archon, the Imperial Anti-Piracy Squadron, Cherie Priest, Mark Donnelly! Truly, friendly faces, fantastic dress and creative weaponry and gadgets were at every corner.

The opening ceremonies began the murder mystery right away, with a character dropping dead from a poisoned drink — and continued through the night with a poison gas bomb in the engine room. Throughout the three days,  the actors remained in elaborate character —  sometimes even two or three — and encouraged the other guests to dig deep for clues and come rushing to every scene. A dark and somber eulogy (which apparently the dead speak at) was even delivered for one of the killed crew members. An old-timey seance delivered even more clues, and some real intrigue. The mystery concluded at a Steampunk Gun Show, as bait to draw out the real killer! People were excited and engaged throughout the convention.

From visuals to audio, no expense was spared in outfitting the airship, er, dresing the hotel. Room placards were printed, period dress restroom signs were hung, and dozens of signs, posters, and art adorned all the hallways.

These were posted throughout the CON - photo by JM Coen

Con-goers were greeted by in character porters and ticket takers while music and ambiance (and the drone of engines) played continually in the background. In the well-staffed (and oh-so-polite) tea room, a window to the clouds presented a majestic view of our flight. Next door, hand selected vendors presented their wares at the ship’s store.  An antique shop even graced the lobby of the airship!

Thanks to Daria Melnikova for the TeslaCon compilation video.

Here are some photos from a variety of people who attended the con.  Next year promises even more elaborate decor and production – we can’t wait (of course we can’t, we’re part of the team) – but we do have a suggestion for next year.

Don’t drink the water (bring your own).

Granted, not a great picture, but this was KL and mine luggage for the weekend.

Opening Ceremonies - And the "take off" of the Explorer II with Captain Dunbar talking all the luminaries and investors ready - photo by JM Coen

And the first murder occurrs! Meanwhile Bobbins reads a note from Lord Proctocus! (As you can see it was all quite theatrical) - Photo by JM Coen

Emporer Justininian talks about the Red Fork Empire - photo by JM Coen

Author Cherie Priest talks at her panel - photo by JM Coen

Captain Anthony LaGrange of the Airship Archon! - Photo by JM Coen

Vourteque, KL and Concordia talk with the Captain after the tragic death of Lady Grebelle - photo by Dave Kaemmerer

KL Kenzie talks during her Taxidermy panel - photo - by JM Coen

Both outfits and costumes were outstanding - photo by JM Coen

A Steampunk Dalek (we were told it was powered by a 9 year old child) - photo by JM Coen

A fight breaks out between the RL&GEMS and the IAPS! - Photo by Jena Watson

The Infamous POKER GAME where McMurry died - photo by Lisa Dousharm

Von Grelle and one of her infamous IAPS members (played by GD Falksen) - photo by Lisa Dousharm

The Lovely Dezomas descending the stairs to the ball - photo by Lisa Dousharm

The Duke and Duchess as the ball... just before tragedy strikes AGAIN - photo by Lisa Dousharm

But fear not - in the end all was well - and the RL&GEMS pose for another great picture

Now to get ready for Tesla-Con II!

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