This was the first Steampunk artifact that I built. It started from the broken remains of a replica flintlock pistol. A nice stock with a copper pipe for a barrel, a trigger guard but no trigger or lock.

The false ramrod was replaced with a brass tube entering the bottom of the barrel and some copper pipe fittings were used to create the “Pitchblende Tank” slung under the barrel.

The big question was what to do with the dark space left by the removal of the original mechanism. I decided a bit of lighting was required. Replacing the trigger with a momentary switch and using a rechargeable Lithium-Ion cell in the pitchblende tank I wired in a couple of high powered UV LEDs, one in the barrel and the other in the mechanism space.

Both the barrel and the intenal space have been lined with luminescent material which is then charged brightly by the UV light but soon fades to a dull “radioactive” green glow. This can be seen through the small glass porthole above the trigger guard and down the barrel.

To finish it off, I found some super little gauges from Heggartys Curios on Etsy

Radiation was first discovered in 1896 Henri Becquerel while his student, Marie Curie was first to give it a name. Radon was later discovered in 1899 by Earnest Rutherford.

The Red Weed from H.G.Wells’ original “War of the Worlds” novel, conveniently succumbed to the same bacteria that wiped out the Martian invaders in the book of course but as anyone that has had dealings with Japanese knotweed or Himalayan Balsam can tell you, invasive plants are often not so easy to eliminate. it seemed to me that radiation, in the early years of it’s discovery and before it’s harmful effects were understood, might be a tool used to fight such a plague.

As for the “Sterilisation of Imbeciles”, sadly this is reference to a very dark and shameful part of our history, the rise of the Eugenics Movement, something that modern society quite rightly considers abhorrent these days.