Mothmyth's mad scientist page





1 Like


A meeting was deranged between them and they found common ground.

did either of them find any yellow shinny stuff…???

Ahh yellow shiny ? Wot about stuff that makes yer fingers go yellow. Tomacco ? Two back oh ! Yes thats it.
Well todays discovery was that after Contemplating traditional clay pipe manufacture for a very long time and watching many videos about traditional pipe making and thinking " that looks impossible" when i finally had a go at it it turned out to be way easier than i had imagined.

Ok
Turns out bowls are the same as eardvark ears and long hollow stems are made by forming a long sausage around a bamboo skewer and rolling it by hand on a wooden board before removing the skewer.

Unbelievably, this is a hollow stem.

And here are the stem and the bowl before joining.

1 Like


Pipes !
Here is a step bice tep guide to constructication…

First make a thin bulgy thing.
Bulgy (the right hand blob is hollow underneath)

Algernon met a bear
Soon the bear was bulgy,
The bulge was Algie

Then roll it into a bowl


Is almost identa-the-same-as an ear from an Eardvark

Next make a tapered sausage

And take a bamboo skewer

And flatten it.
By this I mean that the tapered sausage, and not the bamboo skewer, is the thing that should be flattened.

Now make a groove

Now hide the skewer in the sausage, not hide the sausage or fetch the stick, but hide the stick in cider the sausage.

Untill this

Then roll very slightly, gentley and evenly with the fingers to get a long tapered tube. With a small amount of compression the hole in the middle opens up enough for the skewer to be slid out.

And now the stem may be curved , and when dry enough to hold shape, joined to the bowl.


Final result

The most coherent explanation i can come up with is this…

I was watching pipe making vids and watching unbelievably skilled craftsmen use moulds and perform impossible feats like roll out a taper and then, by hand, insert a springy wire perfectly up the center. I thought it all looked way to difficult until i had a go and came up with a handbuild technique that produces a very similar result. I was surprised how easy it was. Then after a while i realised that the pipes were first made by hand one at a time by less specialised potters. Then, once the design was established, the cast iron moulds, vices, special tools and mind boggling specialised skills were used to vastly speed up production until small factories with a handful of staff were turning out nigh on a million a year from each factory and exporting whirled-wide.

1 Like

and there you have it the mack ohh pipe that leaves a yellow stain and aint so shinny but thoe creatures may well have been using those pipes for a little more the yellowie stain fingers that to bark ohh leave behind on all creatures that dare to smoke it constantly in might be that these brilliant creatures were smoking wackkky tar backy in them pipes and planing a revolution

1 Like

But i saw some rather weird and wonderful pipes that were part of a manufactures showoff collection and they really caused my phylosilicate mind to buzz.

Watch this space to see if anything comes of it, because when its all said and done, there tends to be more said than done.

When i was a small buoy i watched a television programme with Bill and Ben, Flowerpot men. They had a great friend called “little weed” the voice actors on this program were wonderful. To this day i can hear them calling “little weed.”

1 Like

brilliant i remember the flowerpot men … i will be watching this space for sure i always do and enjoy the heck out of your little cool creations…

Oh yeah flobberpob men, little weeeed !

Oooh look, where this nude eardvark appear from ?

Still plenty of ears and legs about

Eyboils anyone ? Or cheap generic larger, surprisingly good for the price.

Its that time of the year
When one gets very thirsty
Bitter hits the spot !

Tempted to offer a prize to anyone who guesses what this thing i made today is.

Currently on the drying rack AKA the top of the coffee machine

A view threw the eardvarks n things

1 Like

Its a chemical reaction
Its got bubbbles.
It started out as a lump of pale green yellowy dry clay.
It was suspended in water, tumbled with stones and paper pulp until well fermented (anerobicly fermented until nearly black) treated with vinegar, flocced out, boiled and treated with citric acid and ammonium sulphate. Bubbles everywhere. Its grey, sometimes almost slightly green. When it dries it goes grey-white. Needs a wash, test tile shown below, shows soluble salt discolouration.


I will put it in a 3 liter bottle with water and let it flocculate and settle out to get rid of disolved iron and other salts and solubles.
Then i might possibly resuspend in dilute sodium carbonate (a deflocculant) hopping to settle out grit, silt (and possibly calcium citrate) leaving the clay in the solution. Maybe im a mad scientist.

Here is the first washout of the solubles released by the citric acid and ammonium sulphate…

Ferrous ammonium citrate and ferrous ammonium sulphate i presume. Possibly some similar ferric salts too ?

Further updates
Final test square dry colour

The wet clay, and its dry colour in a blue i scream container.

Update on the dissolved iron solution


Converted by bacterial action to magnetite nanoparticles.

Hello my name is squeaky

and im a bit freaky
Im a work in progress so i have no eye dear, but i can hear your hair growing.

Family portrate

1 Like

A mutant turtle, possibly ninja
Or perhaps a cross between a tortoise, a spider and a stilt walker.
Something that might chase you in a rather fisturbing i mean disturbing nightmare. All keys i mean small keys, big fingers.
(see rant below regarding farts-moans i mean smartphones)

Its particularly irritating that advancing age brings four things…
clumsy fingers
failing eyesight (arms too short)
smaller phones
Touchscreens

The nett result is that the M key is too close to the backspace key so messages have missing "m"s and the preceeding letter also becomes lost in translocation.
“small” becomes “all”
“and my messages” becomes “and messages” or “andymessages” or even “anessages”
Its enough to drive aan to drink !


My flatmate has excellent discernment in holy water.

A Haiku is here
Its for those who are patient
Leigh weigh tin frit

Yes, that was the effect i wanted.

Yes he is now a dodekapod.

Yes was the answer although there was a bit of a delay.

Well that post didnt end up where i thought it would.

It was a reply to a question posted long ago about could i make traditional tobacco smoking pipes.

More pipes in the “pipeline”


Presenting pipes partly painted

And a selection of recent creatures…

I am calling this one bigfoot.

1 Like