How-To: Hitchcock Halloween Decor
Meg on Decor it Yourself shows us how to turn your house into a haunted Hitchcock-inspired abode, great for that spooky Halloween party you’ve been planning!
Year: 2009
How-To: Embroidered Corner Bookmark
Here’s a brilliant way to incorporate a little embroidery into your reading routine. Kirsty of Kootoyoo shares how to make a corner bookmark from scrap cardboard and muslin. I love this alternative to the standard rectangle bookmark, and even more clever is the way she’s used the “X Marks The Spot” motif! [via @SisterDiane]
Very small hollow metal spheres
Tiny metal spheres are needed for tiny ball valves and tiny ball bearings, which are needed for all kinds of miniaturized machines. Hollow spheres are lighter, and thus have less inertia, and thus can be made to move faster in these very small applications, where response time is often critical. But how do you make a hollow metal sphere 2mm across? Turns out you can do it with one of the lost foam processes I’m always going on about. Tiny styrofoam beads are first coated with fine metal powder and a binder, then heat-treated to evaporate both binder and bead, leaving only a fragile hollow metal powder shell, which is then sintered into a continuous shell at higher temperature. The sintered shells can then be polished in a tumbler to the same exterior finish as regular ball bearings.
How-To: Dog as Grapes Costume
If your dog is docile enough (or even not?), you could try dressing it up as a bunch of grapes for Halloween. Might be good for just the photo-op, even.
In my day, we didn’t have oscilloscopes … we used fire!
If you should have the opportunity to visit Paris’ Musée des arts et métiers, you’d be wise to clear your schedule for the day. Even after reading Brian Jepson’s recent post covering this maker’s museum, I was unprepared for the sheer size, depth and general awesomeness of the collection. From early astrolabes and handmade scientific […]
24-hr Microchip Technology giveaway delta on Twitter – GO!
Tomorrow, Wednesday the 14th, at noon Pacific time, we will be giving away another prize bundle consisting of one Microchip Technology PIC10F Cap Touch Demo Board and one MCP1650 Multiple White LED Demo Board.
This time, the winner will be selected from among our Twitter followers. Follow us in the next 24 hours and you’re automatically entered! If you’re already following, send us a DM containing the phrase “GIVEAWAY DELTA GIMME” and your name will be in the hat, too.
The winner will be announced Wednesday afternoon through our Twitter feed.
Homebrew CNC hot wire foam cutter
I keep trying to persuade anyone who will listen that CNC foam cutters are dramatically underrated machines. People look at them and say, “That’s cool and all, but I don’t want styrofoam parts.” To which I reply, “If you have a styrofoam part, you can turn it into cast aluminum with an unbelievably simple garage process.” What’s more, styrofoam is ubiquitous, cheap, and so easy to cut that the CNC robot can be extremely lightweight and inexpensive, as for instance, this one submitted by reader Raul Aguaviva, which is hacked together from a coat hanger and junked scanner parts. Combine one of these with a Gingery-style charcoal foundry and you could conceivably produce a homebrew CNC system, that can produce aluminum parts, for less than $50.
