How-To: Build an oversized abacus

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How-To:  Build an oversized abacus

061010-abacus.jpg

Rachel sent me this link to an easy tutorial by Stephanie Lynn on building a large abacus suitable for wall-mounting. I’m pretty sure I’ll never need an abacus, but I gotta admit it looks like fun to build one. It would appear Stephanie is making the beads by cutting slices out of a closet rod and then drilling a hole in the center of each–I say save a step and use a hole-saw for both operations! [via Ohdeedoh]

2 thoughts on “How-To: Build an oversized abacus

  1. Dave says:

    Two thoughts there:
    1) Thickness – with the dowel slices, you can choose exactly what you want.
    2) Grain direction – with hole sawn lumber (1x or 2x), the grain runs across the piece, and it would be more likely to crack and break in two as it ages and dries.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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