Here’s a good “instructable” on restoring an old coffee grinder. Like the Maker in the how to, I don’t like the electric ones, mostly because they seem to never work well, break, or somehow get lost every year. Next time I spot an old one at a yard sale, I’m going to restore it. Link.
Carl made a DIY Oriental Lantern from a “piece of junk shoe-rack” from a megastore, he writes – “I decided to turn them into an oriental lantern. It was really pretty easy and essentially free (minus the cost of screws, tracing paper, and glue, all of which I already had). Also I have a bunch of slightly warped dowel-type sticks left over.” Link.
For those of you who have Pocket PC, specifically the iPAQ – here’s a good how to on mounting your iPAQ in the car with washing line pegs in the ventilation outlet. I’ve seen versions of these sell for $30+ and this looks like it will work better. Link.
Logan writes “I was tired of waiting for the commercial manufacturers to ship their covers for the new iPod. So, I bid on an eBay auction for some remaindered clear static cling vinyl from Earl Mich Company and made my own cover. Total cost: $16. Total playtime: 3 hours” Link.
In MAKE 03 we showed you how to make a VCR into a cat feeder, here’s MSN’s article about the project and the decline of VHS – “Don’t tell English inventor James Larsson that a VCR is useless. He’s got an idea what to do with that aging video gear–turn it into an automatic cat feeder, using the VCR’s timer to dispense food on a regular schedule.” Link.
Piers writes “Daylight savings has started now, and it was still quite light, but not light enough, and I really needed to use a flash. The shadows cast from my built-in flash are really harsh and especially prominent in close-up shots, so I made a makeshift light diffuser out of the top of a slide box, lined on the inside with some thin paper. It worked pretty well, as you can see, the photos have a nice soft light.” Link.
Astrogoth writes “Thanks to Apple, I couldn’t pair my Bluetrek G2 bluetooth headset to my PowerBook to use with Skype, so I built my own headset from an old pair of Grado SR-80 headphones and an Apple iSight web cam. I described what I did so others could do the same.” Link.
