Woodbug: A Community Commons, Laser-Cut Building Set
Shaun Crampton’s Woodbug construction set may be purchased from Ponoko or you can download the files for free and mix it up yourself.
Workshop
The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the industrial arts from metal and woodworking to CNC machining and 3D printing.
Hand-Cranked Machine Blows Uniform Individual Bubbles
Others have remarked about the serene beauty of a complex mechanism precisely engineered to perform a single task, that would be simple for a person, just for the purpose of delighting its operator and/or audience. Witness Air Sculpture, by Japanese automatist Kazu Harada, case in point.
Text Tool: The Toaster Project
“Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.” Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams, 1992 That was the thought in Thomas Thwaites’ mind as he undertook a 9-month, £1187.54 project to recreate his own toaster as part of his Master’s degree at the Royal […]
The Sieg Mini-Mill: One Manufacturer, Many Brands
A full-size turret mill is, of necessity, a heavy, expensive piece of equipment, impractical for most individual owners due to space and/or monetary constraints. For hobby work, however, a so-called “mini mill” can perform very well. The chief limitation of a mini-mill is not so much the quality of the work it can produce, but the size of the work it can handle.
Tool Review: Fiskars ShopBoss
One thing I wrestle with in my day-to-day, sometimes literally, is shipping boxes — lots of shipping boxes: boxes of MAKE books and magazines, review books and hardware, and boxes of other cool stuff that shows up on my doorstep. And because I don’t drive and live alone, most of my shopping is on the internet. More boxes. So, my most frequent around-the-office tools are scissors and a box cutter. So, I was very interested when Fiskars offered to send me one of their new ShopBoss snips-based multi-tool.
Zero to Maker: The Tools They Are A-Changin’
Making is as much about exploring as it is about building. Exploring new ways of problem-solving, understanding how things are made, how machine components fit together. And this week, for me, about exploring new tools.
Water Cooler Bottle Blaster
British company BCB has developed what is essentially a potato cannon on steroids. Called the Wall Breaker, this pneumatically charged cannon launches water cooler bottles at 984 feet per second.
Need to break through concrete in a hostage situation? No problem. Want to rip a giant hole through a cargo van. They have you covered.
This was developed for the British military, so I’m not sure we’ll be seeing a consumer version available anytime soon. Impressive all the same.