Welcome to Kinetic Steam Works [KSW]!
We can be always be reached at contact@kineticsteamworks.org or via phone at 510-681-3719 (John's cell phone) or 831-435-6412 (Troye's cell phone)
(updated 11 Jan 2023)
Upcoming Major Steam Events:
3-4 Feb 2023, The Edwardian Ball, The Regency Ballroom, 1300 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94109
Past Major Events:
10-11 September 2022, Roots of Motive Power Steam Festival (street printing, steam everything, static steam boat)
--- Location: Willits CA 95490 (Barbeque and raffle on Saturday, 10 Sep)
17 September 2022, 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm, Tinkers and Thinkers (foundry demonstration)
--- Location Pleasant Hill Park and Pleasant Hill Senior Center: 233 Gregory Lane, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
23-25 September 2022 B&W Steamboat meet
--- Location B&W Resort Marina: 964 Brannan Island Rd, Isleton, CA 95641
8-9 October 2022 Roaring Camp Harvest Faire/Steam Festival (Pappy, additional TBD)
--- Location: Roaring Camp Railroads, Felton CA
12 November 2022 (1-7pm) Pigeon Point Lighthouse 150th anniversary (letterpress)
---Location: Pigeon Point Lighthouse (Pigeon Point Rd, Pescadero, CA 94060)
1-4 July 2022, 150th anniversary of the Nevada State Railroad Museum (letterpress (coasters), running steamboat S.L. Victoria, Steam Powered Snow Cones)
2180 S Carson St, Carson City, NV 89701
29-30 May 2022 San Ramon Art and Wind Festival (Pappy, Letterpress (coasters), steam powered snowcones)
---Location 12501 Alcosta Blvd, San Ramon CA
22 Jun 2019 KSW Fun Day
---Location: KSW Shop and immediate vicinity (Mandela Parkway, etc)
4 Jul 2019 4th of Jul Parade
--- Location: Piedmont CA (44 Highland Ave is the approximate start location, approx parade route here)
7-8 September Roots of Motive Power Steam Festival
--- Location: Willits CA (if you have been through their class and are an active member, you can drive around their equipment!)
28-29 September Delta Steamboat Meet
--- Location: B&W Resort Marina, Isleton CA
5-6 October 2019 Roaring Camp Harvest Faire and Steam Festival
--- Location: Roaring Camp Railroads, Felton CA
6-7 Oct 2018 Harvest Faire and Steam Festival
---LOCATION: Roaring Camp Railroads (5401 Graham Hill Road Felton, CAa 95018)
21 Oct 2018 East Bay Mini Maker Faire
---LOCATION: Park Day School (360 42nd St, Oakland, CA 94609)
25-26 Jan, 9 Feb 2018Edwardian Ball SF and LA
---LOCATION: Regency Ballroom (1290 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA 94109) and The Fonda Theater (6126 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028)
17-19 May 2019 Bay Area Maker Faire
---LOCATION: San Mateo County Fairgrounds (1346 Saratoga Dr, San Mateo, CA 94403)
Recent Pics:
TreasureFest2021 (18-19Sep2021)
Edwardian Ball SF 2019 staff pic: (many more EB pics to follow!)
Maker Faire 2018 pictures (post event):
Skimming dross out of the cast iron before pouring (photo by Troye Welch)
Approx 700 pounds of aluminum scrap waiting to be melted (photo by Troye Welch)
Z! and Wes getting ready to pour (photo by Troye Welch)
The dross skimming tool has completely dissolved into the melt (photo by Troye Welch)
Wes and Z! getting ready to pour (photo by Troye Welch)
Z! getting ready to pour some iron (photo by Troye Welch)
Here is the ramming table showing some of the gears we made for the orrery and two cast iron bananas that we did earlier in the day (photo by Troye Welch)
Firing the furnace pretty hard- sand in teh bottom has turned to glass. The Mizzou refractory is holding up pretty well with only one crack. (photo by Troye Welch)
The traction engine ROSE made her debut at MF2018 (photo by Troye Welch)
Tracy by the calliope (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
Bryan talking about the finer points of steam engine operation and theory (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
Marsha going over press operation (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
If your hands aren't coverend in ink, you're probably doing it wrong. (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
Fire overflowing from the furnace (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
Stephen, next to Rose (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
Troye, blowing graphite powder into the pig mold to keep the metal from sticking (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
Z! pigs a small amount of remaining metal after filling the mold (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
Troye enjoying a cold drink for a moment (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
Tracy with peacock feathers (Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
(Photo courtesy of Aleksey Bochkovsky)
2 April 2018
please see our Maker Faire Prep page here. We are in the midst of a major shop re-organization and getting ready for Maker Faire 2018 at the end of May
Edwardian Ball LA 2018
Marsha at press
The flat earth Gorrery- first night
Troye printing
Sun glowing orange in Gorrery
view of the stage from one of the couches
another shot of the Gorrery shortly after doors
One of many amazing bands that played that night in rehearsal
Tracy out front on the piano
Reconfigured Gorrery in the main entrance the second night
Kate at the press
guests getting photos in the entrance
Stephen loads up an new piano roll
some happy coaster recipients
Marsha and Kate by press
Kate handing a coaster out
Marsha doing QA/QC on coaster
out front toward the end of the night
Edwardian Ball SF 2018
The ballroom floor
Kate on the press from above
Michael on the press
the red engine and its exhaust leaks
Bryan looking diabolical
Damien on the press
Bryan and Troye
Marsha, Kate, John, and Troye
Texx working in the back
Marsha showing off the finished product
Leah and her beau
Roaring Camp 2017
pics and content coming soon
-23 May 2017-
Maker Faire Bay Area 2017
Thank-you to all who came by and shared some of the magic with us, and especially the staff and volunteers that make this event possible. If you saw us and want to connect, our group email is contact@kineticsteamworks.org . We'd love to hear from you! Here are some pictures from the event while we get all the great video clips edited and thrown together...
-20 February 2017-
Event pics for Edwardian Ball (SF and LA) coming soon! We have put together a "Making of" video of the gears for Maker Faire and a webpage with stills here
-14 January 2017-
Join us at the 17th annual Edwardian Ball!
20-21 January 2017 (World's Faire and Edwardian Ball)
We are furiously getting ready for a great event! See you there!!!
Edwardian Ball 2016 from Blackbird Films on Vimeo.
Here are some shop pics of the prep process:
!
-10 October 2016-
With the 2016 Harvest Fair and Steam Festival at Roaring Camp behind us, we look ahead to Edwardian Ball 2017 (Jan 20-21) and Maker Faire 2017 (late May, dates TBA)
Here are some highlighted pics from Roaring Camp, in case you missed it (and mark your calendars for 7-8 October 2017 for next year's even more exciting event that we are already planning for!) Many thanks to Tyler, Melani, and the whole Roaring Camp crew for being such wonderful hosts!
Pappy running the newly spiffed-up AOK Baker Fan
Tracy cutting wood on the steam-powered buzzsaw. Courtesy of the Vennerbeck collection.
Kate printing coasters on our 1906 Chandler and Price 8x12 Old Series press. Kate designed the coaster and tirelessly did much of the printing at the event. Thanks Kate!
Bryan is showing the proper branding technique.
One of several group photos that we took. Thanks, Lin!
On the deck of Pappy, driving around and doing some free tree branch removal via the canopy
Inside the porthole in the side of Pappy's firebox. Unlike other events we've done, we actually worked Pappy pretty hard (the Baker Fan is a merciless load- smoking the clutches of less worthy gas tractors in the past). The chuffing engine exhaust creates an immense draft and literally sucks the flames from the firebox through the tubes. (Video coming soon!)
John driving Pappy to a safe area so we can drive a couple loops around the parking lot
We are doing mechanical, steam-powered refrigeration this year! Come by and watch us turn fire into ice! Also, we will have our usual 8"x12" Chandler and Price letterpress from 1906 and possibly a second 10"x15" unit. We'll have some metal type on hand that you can use to spell out a message and print it. Also, we'll be running one of our traction engines- Hopefully Hortense (if she's back from her mudring repairs by then) and if not, then Pappy. We'll update this page and our facebook page (see link below) with photos and video as the project comes along!
Pics from previous Maker Faires here: 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 (will get pics up and links working for the later faires soon@)
Also, we will be attending Edwardian Ball LA this year (though we're only involved in the stage production of "The Stupid Joke" and not bringing a bunch of steam stuff down this year- SORRY!). Saturday Feb 27th!
We have pictures from previous Edwardian Balls here and here as well as other general KSW pics here.
Please Join us on Facebook here.
HELP! If you know the server/administrative side of getting a PHP, MySQL, Apache, Perl, and Wordpress installation going from scratch on a dedicated CentOS (like Redhat Linux) server and think you can make/install/configure all this software and get it running with root access (or know someone that can!) please help us out and help us get this running again. We just haven't had the time. E-mail the address or TEXT the number below. Thanks!
UPDATE- we had a volunteer who was working on this remotely from Portland. She had made great strides, but it's not finished yet. When it is, it will replace this placeholder. If you want a preview (some of the pics and links are broken), it will look like this: http://kineticsteamworks.org/wp3.5/ If you contacted us about helping, and are still serious about it, hit us up again!
UPDATE- we're holding off on making the site dynamically generated- it makes it much less portable than flat files. We're working on redoing it, but it will be static (though very different looking than this one)
We apologize for any inconvenience. Please check back with us again. We can be always be reached at contact@kineticsteamworks.org or via phone at 415-716-0549. Thanks.
See our airship page here!
We are working on posting a selection of steam-related books that are out of print (expired copyright) and have some here
12May 2015