With almost all the last fixes on the apartment done, I felt that I needed a new project to pick up. Something that in no way was practical and had a deadline, but just for the pure joy of doing it.

I decided to try to build a steam engine from scratch. I spent all of that time in the hex project learning CNC, but then in the end I never really used it. And if I am to get some credibility as a hobbyist mechanical engineer, a steam engine is the perfect portfolio piece. Nothing speaks old-school engineering quite as much as a steam engine.

During the month of December and January, we completely rebuilt the apartment. This means that we tore out all walls, floors and electricity and then rebuilt everything.

Since early February, we have been moving in, and custom-building bookshelves among other things. The living room is now done. Everything in oak was built by me.

Sandblasting and powder coating!

They say that powers coating really needs clean metal, so I decider to sandblast all pieces. Now they all have this beautiful ghostly white color with a subtle glitter. Really beautiful.

Before pulling all of the pieces at risk, I decided to do a test coating on a throw-away piece. Not much to say. I hung it from the trolley, grounded the powder gun and sprayed. Except for the area closest to where it hung from the wire, the powder covered the piece with perfect smoothness.