More cyanotypes

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, CAD diagrams, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, new products, news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Mar 102023
 

I will be posting some more cyanotype blueprints to ebay in the coming days. These were made from old transparencies I’d had made prior to the move from Utah. But I also hope to have some “brand new” cyanotypes in the near-ish future. The transparent film remains astonishingly elusive; two separate companies are trying to obtain it… and have been for a few months now. Every other print shop in the area has flat refused to try. A print shop a few hundred miles away made a few transparencies for me a few months back; I just sent them files to have a few more made. With luck they’ll come through. I have a *bunch* more I’d like to have done. Here are what I recently sent off:

Martin XB-51. The original print was 1/40 scale; this blueprint will be 1/72 scale.

The Avro “Arrow” structural layout.

Two sheets from NASA illustrating the Saturn V.  One sheet is very likely more interesting than the other, so what I might end up doing is ebaying the two sheets and cataloging just the one.

The US-1205 and UA-1207 solid rocket motors for the Titan IIIC and IIIM, respectively. I have the originals of these framed and hanging on my wall; conveniently, they fit in off-the-shelf 11.75X36 panorama frames that you can get at Hobby Lobby and the like. I will probably tinker with some of the other blueprints that are *close* to this size to massage them to fit into that frame. Because as awesome as the prints are on their own, they’re spectacular framed.

I have also sent a revised version of my SR-71 CAD diagrams to be re-printed. The first print’s lines came in too light/fine. Live and learn…

 

 Posted by at 6:34 pm

Less than a day left: Selling cyanotype blueprints on ebay…

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, news, nukes, projects, rockets, ships, spacecraft  No Responses »
Feb 152023
 

I’m selling the blueprints I’ve recently made. I can sign ’em if the buyer wants, front or back…

Saturn Ib Inboard Profile Cyanotype Blueprint

NERVA nuclear rocket engine Cyanotype Blueprint

NERVA nuclear rocket engine artwork Cyanotype Blueprint

Boeing 2707-200 SST Cyanotype Blueprint

Trident II SLBM Cyanotype Blueprint

Northrop B-2A stealth bomber Cyanotype Blueprint

Saturn V Inboard Profile Cyanotype Blueprint

Skylab Cutaway Cyanotype Blueprint

A-4 (V-2) German Rocket Layout & Engine Cyanotype Blueprints

A-4 (V-2) German Rocket Isometric Cutaway Cyanotype Blueprint

A-4 (V-2) German Rocket Isometric Cutaway Cyanotype Blueprint: Smaller

Wasserfall German WWII Surface to air missile Cyanotype Bluepri

 

USS Monitor Ironclad Cyanotype Blueprint

550 Central Park West Cyanotype Blueprint

Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) Cyanotype Blueprint

X-20 Dyna Soar/Titan IIIC Cyanotype Blueprint

Early X-20 Dyna Soar Cyanotype Blueprint

Large X-20 Dyna Soar 2050E Cyanotype Blueprint

 

 

 

 Posted by at 4:05 pm

Another Cyanotype update

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, blather, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, news  No Responses »
Jan 282023
 

The hardware has been modified to “print” up to the full six feet in length (actually a little more, maybe 6’8″). I continue to crank out test prints, with about a 50/40/10 mix of “awesome”/”disappointing”/”dismal.” Now it seems the production part of the project is largely dialed in; it seems that *chemistry* is responsible for much of the trouble. There is a window in which the fluid can be properly used:

  1. When the two chemicals are first mixed, they produce a liquid that is mud-brown. When used right off, it doesn’t seem to stick to the paper very well, or doesn’t react adequately. In any event, the result is massively faded. Wholly unusable. It seems to take about 24 hours from mixing to reliable usability. After 24 hours, the fluid has turned from brown to dark-ish green. Seems to work great at about that point. After another day, it turns a *dark* green, then trends towards blue. As it goes, it becomes increasingly useless. So there is a 24-48 hour window, it seems. I can work with that, now that I got it more or less figgered.

 

While the hardware is set up for in excess of 6 feet, so far the biggest print I’ve done is 56 inches, a *spectacular* pair of isometric interior structure views of the B-2A. yeah, I’m a bit surprised that the original was declassified, but it was, so there it is (and it was sent to me by a Russian feller, so it’s out there). I’ve done 2 so far… one is as close to perfect as I can hope for; one is *slightly* flawed via faded bits.

 

When I left Utah, my cyanotyping hardware got trashed. But I had the foresight to roll up all the transparencies I had. And wow, I have a lot of them. And WOW are they dirty. Utah is great and all, but it *is* the desert and full of dust… it’s coarse, rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere. All of the transparencies will have to be washed and windexed. And I’ve washed, but not yet windexed, the first of the six-footers I plan on printing: a CAD diagram of my own, the SLS in 1/72 scale. A good businessman would have had this ready for the Artemis mission a little while ago but… shrug.

 

These test prints will probably go up on ebay to get some sense of the interest in them. I suspect an Etsy store would be the best next step. There are a *lot* of crappy digitally printed aerospace “blueprints” there… one of the very first ones to pop up is a digitally printed 12″x72″ Saturn V that almost certainly was derived from Space Drawing 4.  I previously sold actual cyanotypes of this at the exact same size… for $50 compared to the digital print at $75. I feel rather like a chump. There are actual cyanotype prints available as well, but the one’s I’ve seen all look rather bland and low-effort. Bah.

 Posted by at 1:09 pm

New Cyanotypes

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, CAD diagrams, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, ships  No Responses »
Jan 202023
 

I just sent files to the print shop to get transparencies of two new cyantypes. One will be a pair of 18X24 SR-71 CAD drawings by yours truly, and one will be a 12X38 vintage USS Monitor diagram. I kinda plan on doing a range of ships and submarines, based on vintage blueprints and Booklets of General Plans, if they prove popular. If interested in these, or interested in suggestions something, let me know.

 Posted by at 8:30 pm

APR rewards: December (and November) 2022

 aircraft, CAD diagrams, drawings, history, Monthly Historical Documents Program, new products, Patreon, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Jan 022023
 

The December 2022 rewards are available for APR Patrons and Subscribers. This latest package includes:

Large Format Diagram: AWACS model diagram

Document: “Preliminary Design of a Mars Excursion Module,” 1964 conference paper, Philco

Document: “Astronauts Memorial” 2 diagrams

Document: “Patrol Reconnaissance Airplane Twin Float,”  Convair brochure (via photos), 1944. Two piston engines, two turbojets

Document: “Hard Mobile Launcher,” Martin Marietta PR, two images. One photo, one artists impression

Document: “JVX Space Proposal” apparently a fragment, 1984 Bell maps of manufacturing facilities for what would become the V-22

Document: “Minimum Man In Space,” 1958 NACA memo describing proposals made to Wright Air Development Center for what would become the Mercury program

If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.



 

And because I forgot to post about it at the time, the November 2022 rewards were made available a month ago:

Large Format Diagram: B-50A Superfortress Model Diagram

Document: “Design Study of a One Man Lunar Transportation device,” 1964 North American Aviation conference paper on a rocket “hopper”

Document: “Project EGRESS (Emergency Global Rescue, Escape and Survival System),” 1964 Martin conference paper on ejection capsule for aerospacecraft

Document: “The Hydrogen Fueled Hypersonic Transport,” 1968 Convair conference paper

CAD Diagram: Mach 3 turbojets: Allison 700 B-2 (J89), GE YJ-93-GE-3 (cutaway), P&W J58

If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program. Back issues are available for purchase by patrons and subscribers.



 Posted by at 10:54 am

Cyanotype test 4

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, Hmm..., spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 182022
 

Ran two prints today. The second one, the 4th test of the new setup, turned out to be pretty much there with just a few minor issues. The main issue I’m looking at now is getting proper coverage of the paper. For whatever reason, the cyanotyping fluid doesn’t really like the vellum paper and you get occasional blotchiness. This was a constant problem before, and was solved largely by tossing prints that weren’t up to code. Experiments will continue…

 Posted by at 12:46 pm

Cyanotype: Test 2

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, news, rockets  No Responses »
Dec 162022
 

Todays test involved mounting the UV light bar to a crude frame and just letting it run, not waving it over the print like an idjit. As you can see most of it is pretty uniform; the end of the print that was furthest from the light bar wasn’t adequately exposed. However, come the weekend two more UV lights will arrive and will extend the reach.

 

The learning curve this time around is going *much* faster than the first time. This should probably not be a surprise, but it’s nice to see that things are trending quickly in the correct direction.

 

 Posted by at 6:32 am

First cyanotype test

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, Hmm..., news  No Responses »
Dec 152022
 

The cyanotype setup in Utah relied on direct sunlight to process the image. But the sun is difficult to find here in Illinois in December, so I decided to give technology a try. When I originally set up in 2014, this wasn’t really an option, but Amazon now has 100 watt LED UV light bars for only $30, so I decided to try one. The result is shown below:

 

 

Clearly, it looks terrible. But I judged it to be a rampaging success: this was achieved via the crude process of simply waving it over the paper and the transparency by hand for five minutes. My goal was not a pristine cyanotype, but  proof that the UV actually worked to process the image. Where it shined adequately brightly for long enough, it really did the job. So I went ahead and ordered two more. I will build a framework to hold them over the print, boxed in with reflectors. Some experimentation to dial everything in, but at this point I’m quite optimistic that a technological solution will make this work reliably repeatably.

 

On the other hand: the UV light bars are Chinese. So… explosions? Sudden random changes in wavelength? Burst into flames? Microphones directly to the MSS? Who knows.

 

Bonus wisdom: if you put a rectangular piece of paper on the floor, a cat *will* occupy it.

 

 Posted by at 9:51 am

Yup: Cyanotypes

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, news  No Responses »
Dec 092022
 

I am going forward with the return to cyanotyping. I’m gathering the supplies needed to rebuild the capability; learning some lessons from before, this setup should be a little better and a little bigger. I should be able to make prints 24 inches by up to 7 feet. It’s a bit of a chore and certainly an expense, but the end results will, I hope, be an improvement over what I produced before.

 

As before, I plan on taking commissions. I don’t care what it is… aerospace diagrams, ships, architectural diagrams, sci-fi movie prop diagrams, gay wedding cake layouts… if it can be blueprinted, I’ll do it (for a fee). So if you have anything along those lines you’d like blueprinted in the old-school cyanotype fashion (white lines on a Prussian blue background), made by hand using chemicals, sunlight and effort rather than hitting “print,” let me know. Something I will try again is blueprinting onto linen. I ran off a few back in the day; interesting, but perhaps a bit niche.

 Posted by at 9:17 pm
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