#belgrave

[travelmanposts]

Puffing Billy heritage railway, Belgrave, Australia: Puffing Billy is Australia’s favourite steam train and one of the finest preserved steam railways in the world. This century-old steam train continues to run on its original mountain track from Belgrave to Gembrook in the magnificent Dandenong Ranges 40kms east of Melbourne... The Puffing Billy Railway is a 2 ft 6 in narrow gauge heritage railway in the southern foothills of the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne, Australia. Wikipedia

[punkedsolar]

Here is a video of my singing lyrebird!

The culmination of six or so weeks of crazy amounts of work. In my city, we have a yearly lantern parade on the Winter Solstice to light the night up. Everyone makes lanterns and we close the whole centre of the area to walk the street.

Lantern Making Process

Lantern making starts with a series of sketches. These are usually made life size so I know roughly how much space I will be taking up. I have to carry the lantern to the centre of town, so if it's too big to get through the narrow bush tracks where I live, I'll have trouble.

Once the size is known, I can pin out the rattan shapes. I boil the rattan first, and then I bend it into shape. If I can, I tape it in place, but wet rattan won't tape. So I bend it and dry it in shape, then I tape it. This process can take days and days.

The rattan shape is held in place by PVA glue and rice paper. I mix the glue 50/50 with water, apply rice paper, and then wait for it to dry in place. Once there is a single dry layer I can then add more. 2-3 layers of glued paper gradually form a lacquered layer that can support weight.

After this it's the time to start adding supports and areas where lights can be held. This time around I've got some USB controlled soundbars, and they have to be attached.

For small, simple lights, stick on Velcro dots work well.

For heavier, more detailed ones, I bind them into the lantern under more rice paper and glue. I need the solidity of the lacquered paper to avoid them ripping through.

For a few areas this year, I designed and printed elements on my partner's Bambu Lab printer. The beak is actually a 3D scan of a real lyrebird beak that was in a museum. The feet I designed myself.

At every point where I do something that could damage the wiring, I perform another wiring test. The hot glue could possibly melt the wiring - it definitely removed my fingerprints.

The bird, once finished, gets decoration as well - lots of printed feathers that I have to individually glue in place. The wings are velcro attached and also a mixture of rice paper and normal paper.

The head has a bike brake cable inside which goes down to a rod that holds it up. When I squeeze the brake, the mouth opens and closes.

The claws that wrap over a thick vest covered in hot glued plants - the entire bird stands on it's own feet, wired to the base.

The vest was then covered in decoration to make it look like the bird is standing on a forest floor.

After this process, I put a Bluetooth speaker into the lantern's body and used my phone to control both the lights and the music. With the jaw able to open and close, the bird could actually sing.

And all of this resulted in a lantern that just stood on my shoulders in the parade and could animatedly interact with others.

And here she is!

Curious about other lanterns and the rest of the parade? Here are some of the other magnificent creations! Thanks to our wonderful parade photographers.

[melbournetrains]

i see you when you're sleeping

[tradlads]

“I can live a week without poetry, but not a day without jazz.”

Philip Larkin

[snappingthewalls]

[miradas-world]

Just like a movie scene 🌴🚂🚂🚂 💚

[bandcampsnoop]

3/7/23.

Ron Rude (Belgrave/Melbourne) was part of a vibrant Australian post-punk scene in the late 70s/early 80s. Actually, there is an excellent compilation that captures this - it was released by Chapter Music in 2001 - and it contains "Piano, Piano" from Ron Rude (it also contains songs by The Apartments and The Pits just to name a few).

Ron Rude sounds like a product of their time that also somehow retains a current feel. You can't help but see parallels to The Stooges, Lou Reed and David Bowie. You can also hear Orange Juice and Lloyd Cole in the vocals. And finally, I can't help but hear a little Mac DeMarco.

This is being released Sorcerer Records, a reissue label based in Melbourne.

[lexxwithbooks]

📖: 𝑲𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒉 (𝐵𝑒𝑙𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝐷𝑦𝑛𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑦 #1) 👑🪟🧺

✍🏽: 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝