![\"Steampunk](\"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/steampunkheels.jpg\")
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Now here’s an interesting DIY project: Steampunk-esque heels, complete with LEDs.<\/p>\n
These are the work of the now-defunct Etsy shop HotAirBalloonRide; Fashionably Geek has several photos<\/a> taken from different angles.<\/p>\n These really wouldn’t be too hard to replicate. The gears are just clock parts, which are pretty easy to find: There are pre-packaged collections available from Amazon<\/a>, and you can also find loose gears (often advertised as “steampunk”) on eBay<\/a>. A much cheaper eBay option, however, is to look for clock movements<\/a> and then take them apart yourself (watch out for the mainspring!). That way you get a lot of interesting bits besides just gears, like lever arms and tiny screws and whatnot. If there’s a clock-repair shop in your area, you can also check there for leftover or non-functional parts.<\/p>\n The little glass tubes on the back are just vacuum tubes. You can find plenty of those in many different sizes at specialty vendors like Tube Depot<\/a>, or at Amazon<\/a>. They’re still used in professional audio equipment, so you can also check at electronics repair shops to see if they have any burnt-out ones (since they’re just for decoration they don’t need to be functional). The tubes appear to be seated in a bit of copper pipe of the sort used for plumbing: That’s available at any hardware store.<\/p>\n It’s hard to tell from the photos, but I think<\/em> the LEDs are a single strip (sometimes called rope- or ribbon lights), which can be purchased in custom lengths<\/a>. If you want a little more flexibility in light placement, it’s easy to wire up single LEDs to a small, flat battery. Evil Mad Scientist Labs has a large selection of LEDs<\/a> and their blog<\/a> is a great source of information about wiring and using them. (There’s also a nice beginner’s guide here<\/a>.) <\/p>\n There’s a lot of fairly heavy stuff on these shoes (although you could cheat a little and use plastic gears spray-painted metallic), so you’d need to choose a style that’s fairly sturdy; the ones in the photos appear to have thick wedge-type heels. You’d also need a heavy-duty adhesive; something like Gorilla Glue might work, but epoxy or Sugru<\/a> are other options. Be careful to attach the batteries to the shoes in a way that allow them to be replaced when they run out (not to mention be unhooked or switched off when not being worn).<\/p>\n Fill in leftover space with metal studs, chains (both available at craft stores), and anything interesting-looking from the hardware store. For extra credit, decorate a matching purse. They’ll certainly get you noticed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Now here’s an interesting DIY project: Steampunk-esque heels, complete with LEDs. These are the work of the now-defunct Etsy shop HotAirBalloonRide; Fashionably Geek has several photos taken from different angles. These really wouldn’t be too hard to replicate. The gears are just clock parts, which are pretty easy to find: There are pre-packaged collections available […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paint-it-black"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17432"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17615,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432\/revisions\/17615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}