Workshop

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the industrial arts from metal and woodworking to CNC machining and 3D printing.

Tenor Wolfelele Ukulele

Tenor Wolfelele Ukulele

It took me about 45 minutes (not including glue drying time) to put together a service-able ukulele from Wolfelele’s precut wooden components. The well-designed parts fit together in a way that ensured it didn’t end up crooked, and the triangular instrument sounds better than any other $100 ukulele I’ve played. The kit has everything you […]

A Machine That Paints What It Hears

Check out this incredible Interactive Robotic Painting Machine by artist and composer Benjamin Grosser. The machine takes in sound as an input and outputs paintings: This machine uses artificial intelligence to paint its own body of work and to make its own decisions. While doing so, it listens to its environment and considers what it hears as input into the painting process. In the absence of someone or something else making sound in its presence, the machine, like many artists, listens to itself.

All-Glass Steam Engine

Czech maker Michal Zahradník built this steam engine entirely out of blown glass. The crankshaft is glass. The piston is glass. The counterweight that makes the wheel spin evenly is glass. Imagine that everything is made out of glass. * There are no sealants used. All is accomplished by a perfectly snug fit. The gap […]

How-To:  Mini Metal Lathe

How-To: Mini Metal Lathe

Back in Plastics Month, we featured a simple shop-made plastics extruder built by Instructables user Random_Canadian. Now the arbitrary Canuck returns with this pint-sized metal lathe built with a 14″ piece of precision aluminum T-slot extrusion, and some characteristically resourceful salvage including an electric motor from a cordless weed trimmer, a variable speed switch from a cordless drill, and a tailstock center improvised from a countersink.