The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the industrial arts from metal and woodworking to CNC machining and 3D printing.
Those of us immersed in the maker scene can’t help but wonder how it will all play out. Will we, at some point, return to the bad ol’ days of the last few decades when the word ‘crafting’ was associated with grandmas, ‘making’ with middle-aged shop teachers, and the closest thing to DIY was figuring […]
In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use OpenSCAD to produce a simple 3D model by extruding a part profile produced in normal drawing software. I use Adobe Illustrator CS3 because I have access to it and am familiar with its interface, but the popular freeware drawing program InkScape will read and write DXF files natively, and there’s no reason why it couldn’t serve just as well if you prefer it. There are a number of other free and low-cost programs that will export DXF files. OpenSCAD’s developer mentions QCAD, which is available from its developer RibbonSoft for 24EUR.
Turn an entire wall into an erasable whiteboard.
It takes a book like One-Yard Wonders to make you realize the potential of what you can make with simply one yard of fabric! Authors Rebecca Yaker and Patrica Hoskins fill the book with 101 sewing projects for you, your kids, and practically every room in your house. The spiral-bound book comes also with a […]
All of us here at Make: Online have banded together to produce this guide. Each of us has submitted at least one review of a favorite tool, which hopefully will help to inspire any of you who are still looking for gifts for the Makers on your list. They are arranged in order from least to most expensive so you can scroll as low as your budget allows! Happy Holidays from all of us!
Over the past few years, I have been fascinated by Michael’s Halo armor project. The piece that first caught my eye was his M6G pistol made of foam. Insulating foam is a fascinating material, due to its’ consistency, low cost and ease of tooling. Machined foam can be cut quickly, and can be finished with a variety of surface treatments from diluted white glue to some paints. He’s been posting to the MAKE Flickr pool for quite a while, allowing us to see what he’s up to as the projects evolve. Recently, we’ve had an email exchange where he has shared some of the process and techniques that he is employing on this masterful personal project.
Artists Chris Reilly and Taylor Hokanson appear to be getting some impressive results from their DIYLILCNC. They certainly aren’t the first to develop an open source CNC mill, however their build looks particularly nice.
