Hunter McCurry brought the Pullcordion to Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. This handmade mechanical musical instrument is played by pulling on strings that are attached to pieces of dryer ventilation tubing with harmonica reeds mounted on them.
Joe Sooch designed and built the New Music Box, an automated musical instrument that blends old and new technology that produces percussive music through solenoids and a sequencer. At Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, the Music Box drummed rhythms, noise, and musical notes for passersby.
This film canister bobbin organizer tutorial from Meream at Bored and Crafty combines my three favorite things: it’s totally creative, kind of geeky, and very, very orderly! This would be a great tool to keep on your sewing table, especially when working on a project that requires multiple colors, or in case you wanted to […]
A mathematical haircut makes an unambiguous statement to the world that you love math. Here, Nick Sayers is sporting a rhombic coiffure with interesting geometric properties.
Unless your application is critical, cheap liquid paint stripper from the hardware store (not the gel, paste, or color-changing varieties) is a fine substitute for commercial acrylic solvent cement. Comparing one MSDS to another, we see that each product is about 75 wt% dichloromethane (AKA methylene chloride), which is the “active ingredient” that softens the plastic and allows it to weld. Purpose-made acrylic solvent is a bit thinner, in my experience, and evaporates a little faster, and contains trace amounts of acrylic monomer that may result in a slightly stronger bond, but for most practical purposes I have not found these qualities to justify paying twice as much for it.
Whenever there’s an available surplus of watch parts it seems that makers tend to gravitate toward constructing vehicular creations: motorcycles, mopeds, etc. We’ve covered these kinds of slick, brassy machines in the past, and Blogger user 2nde VIE (2nd Life) follows where other such makers left off, but then veers into creature territory. He uses the discarded parts to make clockwork owls, turtles, and other entities that have a whimsy that’s all their own. [via Recyclart]
In this tutorial I will show you how to make your own spider loom. With this loom you can make round and square pieces of delicate lace. I’ve also included the original instructions from my amazing find to ease you into the process of learning to use the loom!
