MadDog Mike's Platterful of Pupule - Phineas' Steam Powered Wheelchair

Wow. Very kool !!!!

Thanks Wendy and Hang10Tiki. Wendy, I didn't take any more pics of the trailer. I finished the repairs and sold it. It was sad to see it go but it just wasn't big enough for Teresa and I

Trailor looks great. You are a handy man!

I liked the way the Sunken Grotto mug turned out so I made a Temple of the Jade Jaguar mug inspired by the Temple of the Jade Jaguar wall

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2025-08-02 16:51:56 ]

We love our Swap Witco fountain mug so much we feel sorry for you that it's in our hands.

This Jaguar mug is creepy cool.

Wendy - "We love our Swap Witco fountain mug so much we feel sorry for you that it's in our hands." LOL I'm very glad you have it. I traded it for an AWESOME black velvet painting of the exact same fountain <3
The Jaguar mug is fun :) The 3d modeling was challenging but I think I've got it now

A few projects I've been working on.
My 3D printed pendants from the Art Swap. I passed them on to TikiAno at Tiki Oasis. I see a set of Boar Tusks, A Hornbill Skull, a Marquesan U'u War Club, a Phineas Foggcutter head, a Jade Tile in a Bamboo Frame, and a Hawaiian Fishhook.

What do you make with a 3D printer and stl files for a skull, a set of boar tusks, a cowrie shell, and a cylinder? You slice, resize, re-arrange and make an Asmat Ndakus/Trophy Skull to float on your cocktail LOL

Babalu had a Clay Jam at his studio a few weeks ago, I made a diving helmet mug.

Sculpted the helmet from lowfire clay

Underglazed it with a base coat of tan and bisque fired it.

More underglaze in several colors of blue, green, and brown. Then a clear glaze and fired again

Wanted to pour the open window in the front with epoxy resin. After some experimentation, I covered the inside of the hole with Saran Wrap, packed the mug with sand and put a tape top on it, then poured the epoxy

My window wasn't very smooth on the inside so the optics are not too clear but plenty clear enough for an LED ice cube in the drink to shine through.

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2025-09-01 16:16:37 ]

Crazy cool

I had a plan for a Lava Tube Eternity Table. If it work, it will look like a glowing lava tube extends miles into the Earth.

Started with a 5 gallon steel bucket. Painted the inside flat black. Broke up some Styrofoam into pieces and spray painted them black too. The solvent in the paint dissolves the foam a bit and creates a rock like texture.

Placed a 12 inch acrylic mirror in the bottom of the bucket and glued the foam pieces to the side of the bucket. Left some space between the foam pieces to string red rope lights through. Spayed a little fluorescent orange to give a little color and contrast.

Ran red rope lights in between the Styrofoam spacers and secured to lights to the foam with wire staples.

Here's what I've got with the lights on.

Next step is to cover most of the rope lights with bigger pieces of textured foam. Didn't get a good pic of this step but cut out some random rock shapes and spray painted them gray. Then brushed them with watered down black paint which settled in the textured areas of the foam. Then flipped them over and cut some kerfs into the foam so it would curve with the bucket.

Glued and pinned these pieces to the first layer of foam support pieces. It's getting there.

I found a round piece of 1/4 inch glass for 10 bucks. But it was 28 inches and I needed 16. The internet told me to cut it off in sections.

Then cut off the "tabs"

Not quite round, I was able to smooth it out some with a grinder and flapwheel. Some flat black paint on the outside and some brackets to support the glass.

Next step is to put reflective film on the bottom of the glass, arriving in a couple days on Amazon

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2025-09-01 17:05:13 ]

I like seeing your brain working out these projects one step at a time. Go man go!

BlackWater and danlovestikis thank you very much

The inside is done! It doesn't photograph very well and the smaller diameter of the bucket keeps the illusion for being perfect but it works for me.

Next I may try to do a lightweight concrete stone on the outside with my leftover red ropelights

Are you sure this isn't a portal to hell? Looks pretty hot!

Stunning! Great execution on a really unique idea!

Go Mike go

Love the diver helmet Mug. This new table is very nice.

👍🏼

It just might be Wendy... LOL
coldwarspacemonkey and hang10tiki, thank you

My wife had a Halloween raven for a few years that I wanted to transform into a hornbill. But she wasn't going for it.

This year I found her a smaller but more detailed and more animated replacement.

I 3D printed a beak for him

And trimmed it to fit

I picked up this foam putty to fill in the gaps. Never used it before but it's air dry, sandable, paintable, lightweight, non-shrinking. We'll see how it works

Put a gob of putty inside the beak and shoved it on the raven's face

Then smoothed out the putty

While the putty was drying, I started painting the base and tail. I wanted the base to be brown instead of black so the bird would stand out better.

I gave the tail a wash with grey and the base a wash of black to accentuate the texture.

Now to wait for the putty to dry

First pass at painting the hornbill head. I'll hit it again tomorrow after this dries.

I'm calling it done! His head moves but TC doesn't support video

3D printers are sure fun to play with. This was a terrific project that you pulled together. Happy wife happy life!

Great transformation

Thank you H10T!

I had some putty left over from the hornbill project so I did another transformation. PVC pipe to bamboo

This piece of PVC pipe hold my projection screen when we do movies on the patio. It was a bit ugly so I decided to bambooify it. They are lots of ways to make PVC into bamboo but here's what I did, I'm happy with it. (PS, just the one lower piece of bamboo it mine. The bigger pieces were made by God

I used this air dry foam clay to make nodes along the pipe.

I pressed a groove into the node all the way around

But as the clay dried, the groove went away. Not shown here, but after the clay dried (a few days) I cut the groove back with a Dremel

The next few nodes a made the groove by tightening a zip tie around the clay while still wet and cutting it off when dry

Be sure to wipe the letters off with acetone and a rag, yellow paint won't cover them

After a base coat of dull yellow I randomly dusted it with some bright yellow and brown spray paint to give it a mottled effect. A small brush and brown paint in the node grooves. And some random brown steaks lengthwise on the pipe.

You made it invisible. Now it blends into your decor. Another MadDogMike success!

Good fix MacGyver

Thank you Wendy and hang10tiki :)

New project. I have a Papua New Guinea wall and one of the display items is an old French cartographer map of PNG.

But it just didn't last outdoors and looked like this most of the time

So I printed a 3D topographic map, mounted it to a blue stained board, and put it up instead.


To be honest I liked the old one better but this should last longer.

That is so much better. Well done once again MadDogMike!

Nicely mapped out

Thank you Wendy
I see what you did there hang10tiki LOL

I blame my friend Joe Fellmeth actually. He has been telling me about his plans for drink activated special effects - you order a specific drink off the menu and it triggers a series of lights, sounds, smoke, pyrotechnics, etc.
Quite frankly, I was jealous. So I devised an idea. My table is in the Mayan Temple area of my backyard. So I want a Mayan Revenge drink, served in a skull and conquistador helmet, that lowers from the ceiling amid Mayan war chants and maybe smoke and lightning.
"A goal without a plan is just a dream" so here's the plan. I mix the drink at the bar next to the table, pour it into a receptacle on the bar, and pump it into the mug in the rafters. An electric mini winch lowers it down But then the problems arise. I couldn't find a suitable mini winch. Joe says "Just lower it manually on a cord. Duh!". Then there's the issue of ice, I can't pump the ice with the drink. So I made the concealment container for the mug out of insulation foam, added a gel ice pack, and use a large ice cube already in the mug. So I can set it up before guests arrive and it should be good for an hour or more without significant ice meltage, laying in wait like a sniper, for someone to order Mayan Revenge.
More progress pics later LOL

Box made of 1 1/2 inch XPS foam.

Painted to match the ceiling and screwed in place.

Space for a gel ice pack, lowering cord extending down.

Cord leads over to the bar

I 3D printed a skull and helmet with a glass liner. The skull is just a few percentages too small and the glass doesn't recess all the way down. I'll reprint the skull a little bigger and the helmet a little shorter.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh this is going to be a good video when it's up and running. I'm glad I watch you on fb too.

Oh my. Awesome 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Wendy and Jon, here's the finished video ;)

https://youtu.be/JQ5wZiqV6t4

LOVED the video on Utube. You are so much fun to know and watch.

Strong work sir

Wendy and hang10tiki, thank you.

New project time. Many of you know my friend Phineas. He is getting kinda old, 205 years to be exact, and his knees aren't what they were in the 19th Century. So I'm working on a steam powered Gilligan's Island style remote control wheelchair for him.

I started with a kid's Jeep that I picked up for 20 bucks not working. It has both the ability for a kid to drive it or (the part I was interested in) for an adult to drive it with a remote control.

I charged the battery and cleaned up various contacts and got it running. I was hoping to strip it down to a floor pan somewhat like an old VW Bug. This is the pile of parts that I took off.

This is what's left, seems to me one piece molded plastic. Took off the big wheels from the front and replaced them with some smaller, more wheelchair-like ones. Remember Jack "Hacksaw" Reynolds from the early 70s? Had a lot of pent up frustration and cut a Jeep apart with a hacksaw one weekend after a particularly disappointing college football game loss. Next step will be to take various saws and cut off any extra plastic then build a bamboo chair on top of it.

[ Edited by MadDogMike on 2025-11-29 17:42:37 ]

This is already fun to watch!