Workshop

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

Gingery-style homemade metal lathe builds

Gingery-style homemade metal lathe builds

Throw a stone at any gathering of makers, and you’re likely to hit somebody who owns a set of DIY-savant Dave Gingery’s classic books on building your own machine shop by casting scrap aluminum, melted in a charcoal-powered bucket furnace, into sand molds formed by wooden patterns. I’ve owned a set myself, for more than a decade, and “at least starting on the lathe,” which is the first tool in the series, has been on my someday list since the first time I ever saw the books advertised in Lindsay Technical Books’ classic ad in Popular Science.

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Silver Skull Spoons

Sean @ Make: Online writes: It’s a portmanteau playground! “Skoons” is better than “spulls,” I think. They’re made from vintage silver by Tom Sale, aka Pinky Diablo, and are available in both tea- and table-skoon sizes. Of course, the numerous holes limit their utility as spoons; I wonder if the details could be embossed instead […]

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Secret knock-detecting workshop door

David Glicksman of LA, California, wrote in to share his Secret knock-detecting workshop door: This is (what I think is) a great example of the kind of fun, inspiring projects that come out of communities like Make, BoingBoing, and the DIY nerd world in general. I combined Chris Schaie’s beautiful Mechanical Iris, Steve Hoefer’s Secret […]

Continue Reading John Baichtal2