Woodworking

Crafting wood can be a complex and rewarding task, but often times beginners may find themselves frustrated with their results. But no matter where you are in your woodworking journey, there are always tips and tricks that can help you create something beautiful – without breaking the bank. We’re going to look at woodworking tips and tricks for makers of all skill levels so even if you feel like it’s too overwhelming to attempt your own project, we’ll provide some guidance so don’t give up just yet!

Pipe Organ Desk With Programmable Pneumatic Logic Controller, Secret Compartment

Pipe Organ Desk With Programmable Pneumatic Logic Controller, Secret Compartment

I first wrote about Denver puzzlemaker Kagen Schaefer’s gorgeous purpleheart butcherblock benchtop two years ago, and now Kagen’s knocked me out again with this nigh-unbelievable desk. It features eight working wooden organ pipes that play notes when when you push in the various drawers, and also a pneumatic computer that records the sequence of notes and, when the right melody is played, opens a secret compartment. The pneumatic lock can be reprogrammed to recognize any melody. Holy smokes.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan8
Cellular Automata in Wood

Cellular Automata in Wood

I believe Los Angeles artist Jeff Cook’s medium is correctly described as marquetry (“the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures”) rather than parquetry (“very similar in technique to marquetry: in parquetry the pieces of veneer are of simple repeating geometric shapes, forming tiling patterns”). But it’s an interesting question…

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan2
Digi-Comp II by EMSL (video)

Digi-Comp II by EMSL (video)

Wow, check out the video tour of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories’ functional recreation of the classic educational binary computer Digi-Comp II. Several weeks ago, we talked about bringing our giant Digi-Comp II to Maker Faire. But now we’re back, and we wanted to show everyone how it works– not just the many folks who came […]

Continue Reading Becky Stern6
Math Monday: The Squared Square

Math Monday: The Squared Square

If you are a cabinet maker, geometry is essential to all the lengths and angles that you calculate. The cabinet shown here goes further and presents the solution to a rather difficult dissection problem. This is the simplest perfect squared square. The entire area is a square and it is divided into squares of distinct integer sizes.

Continue Reading Gareth Branwyn10