Workshop: Craig Cochrane
Take a photo tour through the 35-year-old hand-built workshop of general building contractor Craig Cochrane, and check some of his projects: a redwood cone carved newel post and a rampant lion stained glass window.
Workshop
The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the industrial arts from metal and woodworking to CNC machining and 3D printing.
MAKE Asks: Bucket List Builds
MAKE Asks: is a weekly column where we ask you, our readers, for responses to maker-related questions. We hope the column sparks interesting conversation and is a way for us to get to know more about each other.
Tool Tales: The Pump Drill
A pump drill is an ancient tool traditionally been used to generate friction heat for starting fires, as well as for boring holes. The principle of a pump drill’s operation is similar to the button spinner or whirligig, in which rotational momentum is built and maintained by repeated twisting and untwisting of a cord. After reading about them in a book about primitive technology, I got interested in the idea of a “modern” pump drill, operating on the same principle as the ancient tool but manufactured from industrial-age materials instead of wood, stone, and bone.
“People Who Buy Things Are Suckers.”
Fans of the television show Parks and Recreation may have caught this awesome scene at the very end of season 5, episode 14, where character Ron Swanson rips out a wall sconce and forges wedding rings from the metal in a cast iron waffle iron.
Shredding the Mountain on a Fragile Italian Glass Snowboard
Ever wanted to shred down the mountain atop a sheet of super smooth glass? The folks at Network_A and Signal Snowboards teamed up to make a real glass snowboard and see how it rides. This video is fun to watch — you get to see the entire build process and the exhilarating field testing afterwards. It looks like they had a blast.
Power Tools Retrofitted for the Amish
There was an interesting piece on NPR this morning about power tools for the Amish. The Amish have traditionally been farmers, but land has become prohibitively expensive to purchase, so many are turning to woodworking to earn a living. Since their homes are not wired with electricity, their table saws, drills and sanders are retrofitted with gas engines and compressed air tanks.
DiResta: Printing Press, Part 2
In each bi-monthly episode of DiResta (every other Wednesday at 2pm PT), artist and master builder Jimmy DiResta (Dirty Money, Hammered, Against the Grain, Trash for Cash) lets us into his workshop, to look over his shoulder while he builds whatever strikes his fancy. On this episode of DiResta, Jimmy continues with his restoration of […]