Marking pen

Carve a Stone Bowl

Carve a Stone Bowl

Ever thought about trying to make something to last? It’s a hard problem: moths, rust, fire, thieves, and time versus the works of the mighty. Take a walk through an old cemetery. The Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass., is one of my favorites. Acid rain is dissolving some of the marble and limestone headstones […]

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Mechanical Image Duplicator

Mechanical Image Duplicator

Before Chester Carlson invented photocopying, inventors engineered various mechanical devices to replicate images. With a few everyday items found in the home, you can make a pantograph, an image duplicator that allows you to use one pencil to trace an image while another pencil follows its path in parallel to produce a near-identical copy.

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Chladni Plate

Chladni Plate

Use a broken speaker, bits of wire, and tape to prepare a coneless voice coil driver, then use it to generate standing waves on a sheet of metal, making sound visible. Magic! My knowledgeable friend Robin once said that you don’t need to worry about having too big an audio amplifier, because speakers are usually […]

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The Flame Tube

The Flame Tube

Fiery devices have always fascinated me. From Jam Jar Jets (MAKE Volume 05) to Fire Pistons (Volume 19) to Faux Flames (Volume 25), I’ve built all sorts of fire-related projects. So when a friend told me about a device that lets you visualize sounds using fire, I knew I had to make one. I found […]

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