Beautiful staircase railing looks like a tree
It’s not, unfortunately, actually made of wood. Details are scanty, but I suspect wrought iron. It’s the work of Florida metalsmiths Imagination in Metals. [via Design You Trust]
Science
DIY science is the perfect way to use your creative skills and learn something new. With the right supplies, some determination, and a curious mind, you can create amazing experiments that open up a whole world of possibilities. At home-made laboratories or tech workshops, makers from all backgrounds can explore new ideas by finding ways to study their environment in novel ways – allowing them to make breathtaking discoveries!
Live insect bracelet-cage
Thingiverse user themauxfaux, who does seem to enjoy his word-play, just posted these plans for a laser-cut bangle that incorporates a hollow passage, complete with air-holes, so you can display your favorite live insect specimens on your wrist.
He calls it “Putrefashion,” which I think is a tactical error. I mean, I understand: I have a hard time resisting a good pun myself, but the whole point here is to keep the critter alive. And if you were to, you know, keep wearing it after it died and started to rot, well…just…ew. Even moreso “ew” than wearing bugs around on your wrist in the first place.
Now, apart from the name, there’s still plenty to criticize here, if I were inclined to do so. But I prefer to focus on the positive, and in spite of all my little quibbles with the design, I say this still counts as a win on the basis of originality alone.
How-To: Make high-voltage sparks using a spark-plug
We went to the hardware store and came home with lots of PVC bits that we assembled into a barrel and a chamber. Then we waffled for some time about how to hack together an electric ignition system. Our thoughts went immediately to using an automotive spark-plug, but none of us really understood enough about electricity to know how to separate the spark-plug from the car. We were pretty sure you couldn’t just take a spark-plug and wire it up to a car battery and expect results, but beyond that we were clueless. We ended up using a piezoelectric barbecue grill igniter, which gave satisfactory results but often required several “clicks” to actually fire the thing.
Yet more glass-cutting inspiration
Our coverage of glass-cutting continues to inspire inventive upcycling makers to dream up ways of improving the cutting process through various rolly jigs. Here, Adrian (“awalleigh” on Flickr) was inspired by Ben Light’s rolling pin rig to create one out of skateboard parts. Awalleigh’s photostream More: Glass-cutting rig from rolling pins How-To: Cut a wine […]
Tricks of the Trade video: Two bikes, one lock trick
One of our wonderful MAKE magazine illustrators, Tim Lillis, who does the Tricks of the Trade cartoon in each issue, did a video version. I really like it and hope we get to see more. Tricks of the Trade: episode 1 More: Indirect Collaboration talks to Lego Group rep
DIY Scraptacular at TerraCycle’s Green Up Shop in NYC
Tiffany Threadgould writes in: TerraCycle has a green up store in Port Authority during Earth Month in April. Every Thursday we’re hosting fun, free events. On April 8th we’re having a DIY scraptacular! Green-Up Shop vendors, RePlayGround and Garbage of Eden, along with craft superstar Megan Nicolay of Generation T and the supercrafty Etsy crew, […]
In the Makers Market: Golden ratio calipers
New Zealand-based Weirdsky Industries offers these unusual three-legged calipers which express the golden ratio (Wikipedia), dividing the distance they span into two sections such that
The golden ratio is ubiquitous in the natural world, and in art and architecture at least since ancient Greece.
The calipers are made from laser-cut stainless steel, hand-assembled using brass rivets, and are produced in three standard sizes, with custom sizes available on request.
