I began by building what would be the main viewing window of the ship that would reveal the Giant Squid lurking just outside.  A bedside clock provided the basic shape, which I embellished with some VU meters, switches, brass scraps and a tobacco pipe. 

The tobacco pipe was added merely as an excuse to mount this tiny nixie tube that I have been holding on to for months now.  I’m hoping that its weird warm glow will add to the mood of the piece.

For those of you thinking that I would merely use the image of a squid, shame on you!  Years ago I found this little fellow encased in resin.  Meant to sit on an executives desk I believe.  A ring of high intensity LEDs illuminate it nicely and once it is placed behind the green screen from an oscilloscope the effect is startling.  It really looks like a hologram.

The whole thing is built into an antique portable television set case.  It required very little modification to serve its new purpose.  I used the original brass face plate, but flipped it over so that I could stamp it with my own functions.  The glare hood is from a change sorting machine.

This piece is very nearly finished but I’m resisting the urge to post video yet until I document everything properly.  I’ll post it all in the portfolio section shortly.

The Captain himself is fashioned from brass gas fittings, an indicator light cover and the head and hands from a runners trophy.

One thing that sets this piece apart is that I added a sound element.  At Radio Shack you can get these little sound recorders for $10.  They record and play back up to 20 seconds of decent quality audio (even more decent if you make a resonance chamber as I did in the above images).  I really wanted a sonar ping sound to accompany this piece so it was worth breaking my “found object only” rule.  The component runs on a 9 volt battery which I replaced with a random wall transformer from my collection.  I couldn’t be more pleased with the effect.  It really makes the fiction of the piece more believable.

Since I am still too stubborn to get involved with micro controllers I hacked this rotary switch and timing motor together.  This will cause the nixie to cycle through its digits without the need for a computer to drive it.

The biggest hassle was probably the mechanism that makes the Captain pop up and down within the hatch.  After some false starts I finally settled on using sections of drawer slides to provide smooth and stable action that would endure over time.  After several motor experiments I decided to make it a very slow rate.  This sort of strengthens the whole underwater feel.