The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the industrial arts from metal and woodworking to CNC machining and 3D printing.
My brother Pat wrote me: Check out “Alone in the Wilderness” featuring Dick Proenneke living alone in Alaska. It’s on our PBS affiliates a lot here (in Florida). He is a true pioneer, a 1960’s “maker” at work, building everything by hand, using tools he made. He has no electricity. Shoots it all on […]
From Dutch designer Wouter Scheublin, who made a big splash in 2010 with his Walking Table. This pull-back-to-wind Toy Car, machined in stainless steel and bronze, with matching walnut box, was produced in a limited edition of twenty, and is still available in laser-sintered nylon, though it isn’t cheap. [Thanks, Billy Baque!] More:Seriously Overengineered MousetrapVery, […]
Positive response to the recent review of my antique Tapewriter label embosser got me thinking about lower-cost ways to make embossed aluminum labels. A comment from reader Rick Hyde (“Actually, the aluminum is so ductile that I bet any Dymo machine can emboss it.”) led me to wonder about feeding aluminum strip to one of […]
Cub Scouts race their cars on slick four-lane extruded aluminum tracks fitted with spring-loaded starting gates and infrared sensors at the finish line.
Ben Light made these simple and elegant “Clamp Lamps” for his workshop. The wooden bases attach easily to the end of a bench or table with a simple C clamp, and have gooseneck attachments upon the ends of which one can attach all manner of objects, such as a lamp or magnifying glass. These could be great accessories for your Helping Hands or Panavise, but also have a nice clean look on their own.
Last March, roboticist Eric Brown and co-workers at the University of Chicago made headlines with their new, unconventional robot gripper design: a balloon filled with coffee grounds or other grainy material and fitted with a vacuum line. At atmospheric pressure, the balloon is squishy and can be “mushed” around an object—even traditionally hard-to-grip stuff like […]
If you like giant machines—and who really doesn’t?—don’t miss Tim Heffernan’s wonderful new feature over at Boing Boing: The magnificent machine pictured above is a closed-die forging press, one of the biggest in the world. (For reference, check out the men standing at its foot, down there on the left.) It and nine other huge […]
