Not twenty thousand. I can’t yet lay claim to that. Yet who can say? One day, perhaps.
To build a vessel capable of travelling underwater and exploring the depth of the seas has been an ambition of mine since my youth. In those days, I was fortunate enough to sit at the table of the great Dr Pierre Aronnax himself, while he regaled us with tales of his voyage on the Nautilus, with the strange and troubled Captain Nemo.
How I loved his stories. How I longed to follow in his footsteps – or in his wake, perhaps. That I, Maurice Souslesmers, should be able to travel in this way was but a distant dream, until I joined forces with Mrs S, upcycler and creator of weird and wonderful 1:12 scale creations.
“So you want something like The Nautilus?” she asked. “Sounds an interesting challenge. Trouble is, I’m flat broke, so the budget for this project is zero. Everything will have to come from my junk stash. Agreed?”
What choice did I have? We explored the pile of objects together: a cardboard case, a clear plastic lid from a packaging box, some corrugated foil card from a children’s craft set, a finger light left over from last Hallowe’en, a brass radiator key, a small brass bell and whistle, a broken dolls house dressing table, some bits of polymer clay, a blue plastic bag, an empty shower gel bottle, a few watch parts and a jar of nail art gems.
“That should do nicely,” she said.
I was less than convinced.
Nevertheless, she set to work with coloured nail polish, a dizzying array of adhesives and some very messy burnishing paste.
“See this broken watch part – how it swivels?” she asked excitedly. “That will make a turntable for your searchlight. You need to be able to scan around the ocean, looking for creatures, don’t you?”
Before my eyes, the plastic (a strange and rather ugly synthetic substance alien to my era) finger light became a leather and copper-clad lamp on a turning steel base.
I stacked oxygen tanks in the navigation deck’s storage compartments and set about burnishing the huge boiler.
Mrs S found a way to mount the periscope, which had somehow stopped looking so much like a radiator key, and we tested the construction so far.
True, our vessel lacked the opulence of The Nautilus as described by Aronnax – the library and study, the leather armchairs and so forth. Nevertheless, I saw that I would finally be able to make my own voyage of discovery, and I was delighted.
Eagerly, I named my craft after my great hero, and The Aronnax began its journey.
You will see that I am keeping a careful ship’s log and making sketches of the mysterious creatures of the deep I am encountering on my journey. As for those apparently man-made arches and columns I have encountered in the murky depths… Might I, like my predecessors have stumbled upon the famed ruins of Atlantis?
The Case of The Aronnax is now for sale at The SteampunkDollsHouse on Etsy.
“Ornithological taxi-chrono-polymy.”
Henry paused for a moment, looking pensive. Then a large smile crossed his face.
If you are planning to visit any of our forthcoming Steampunk-Shrunk sales (see home page for details) in the next few months, you will be able to see and perhaps buy one of Charles’ ingenious little birds, such as the Crested Red-backed Cogfinch shown here.
I’d more or less given up, when I opened a draw and found some of these little creatures, bought in last year’s January sales, peering hopefully up at me.
Idly I began twisting wire around needles to form coils and threading them with whatever came to hand – vintage beads from an old necklace, cog wheels and watch parts, bells, charms and even miniature teapots. 
The copper coils were bent and twisted at crazy angles and the weird, dangling objects that emerged were hung from lengths of ribbon.
So I was staring at this gorgeous picture on Instagram – yes, this one here – and thinking how much I’d like to create something like it. Now I don’t have a soldering iron or any other metal-working skills or equipment. My woodworking ability stops at cutting up coffee stirrers and lolly sticks with a junior hacksaw. In fact, I’m strictly a glue-and-cardboard person if I need to make anything rigid. It didn’t look particularly hopeful.
First there was much measuring, pattern cutting and trial and error with some nice brown card I had lying about. Next each piece was lined with card-backed fabric in a subdued floral pattern and the centre part of the body was glued in place. It looked roughly the right shape.
It was at around this point that the vehicle’s name came to me. In Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, there’s a character called Autolycus. He describes himself as ‘A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’ and that is exactly what this vehicle was becoming. A spring from a ballpoint pen, the stick from a cotton bud, several small rubber washers, along with beads, chains, charms and jump rings from my junk jewellery collection all went into it. So The Autolycus it would be.
Obviously it lacks the beautiful clean lines of the vehicle that inspired it, but I’m not unhappy with the overall result and I’m sure the ladies and gents at Steampunk-Shrunk will be rather interested in this strange vehicle, despite the fact that it’s the steampunk equivalent of a smart car and only the skinniest and most agile contortionist would be able to get inside and steer the thing. 
Well no, nobody took up the challenge of writing that missing chapter, So I suppose it will be forever lost.
There is a mystery in the library: The Case of the Missing Chapter.
Alas, dear reader, you will have to make up your own mind on this subject, since a person or persons unknown have neatly removed this vital chapter from the book. 
It all started with The Case.
This book, I decided, needed to have a story that started one way and ended somewhere very different because of a surprising plot development in Chapter Four. However this vital section would be missing, so the mystery would be to work out what had happened in the main character’s life to change things so completely.
I searched in my stock box for the most insignificant and unhappy-looking male doll I could find. Here he was. It would take all my skill to transform this sad little man into someone splendid, but I love a challenge!
Next a smart uniform, befitting his new status. Why, he positively swaggered as I pinned that medal to his chest!
If anything, these words made me more apprehensive than I had previously been. As I alighted from the contraption and the smoke from its boiler began to clear, I saw a figure who could only be Lord Horatio standing beside a rusting collection of gears and machine parts. Despite my determination to maintain a calm demeanour, I have to admit that I gasped – or possibly squealed slightly.
His words were friendly enough, though it was difficult to read his expression, since the vast majority of his face was covered, either by his enormous moustache or by the huge monocle he wore.
“What do you think of that?” he demanded, his voice bursting with pride as he threw open the door.
Blades are razor sharp, though. My gardeners tell me the cut he gives is second to none.”
Hello. It is me, Bjørn again. I was telling you in 
“If you ver villing, though, zis could be altered. Wat if I ver to offer you a new heart and a new brain? You have seen ze marvels I can do. It would be ze most glorious experiment, in ze name of Science! If you ver villing, you could become a showcase of mein art! Your mechanised brain and heart on display for all to see ze vunders of ze clockverk body. You could achieve anything once zese adjustments had been made. You’d be as great as me. Maybe greater…”
Eagerly I agreed. My weak heart, which had almost killed me once, would be replaced with a dependable clockwork mechanism, encased in a glass dome, so that all could wonder at its strength, and at my master’s skill. I would be a walking advertisement for his abilities. He explained less about the alterations to my brain, but I was led to understand that my ability to learn, to reason and to imagine would be considerably enhanced.
Certainly now my mind and heart are stronger, keener than they were. I can work harder, faster, better and I hold information and make deductions at lightning speed. All this, the Doctor expected. Perhaps he feared it slightly. Yet he found a way to maintain his dominance.
Steampunk - Shrunk! 