Masking tape

Homemade Frame

Homemade Frame

Some scrap plywood and a sheet of plexiglass fitted with a few cents’ worth of hardware is all it takes to get those must-frame items out of your drawers and onto your walls. This framing project can be built to suit, but for the sake of a starting point, I’ve sized the frame to accommodate […]

Continue Reading
Fabric Masterpiece

Fabric Masterpiece

When it comes to decorating, I picture exactly what I want, then refuse to settle for less. Take my living room. After a year of finding the perfect furniture, I wanted to craft one last piece to complete my vision. I was inspired by a gorgeous print I saw in a restaurant, a colorful, cubist […]

Continue Reading
One-Ton Linear Servo

One-Ton Linear Servo

RC hobby servomotors were just made for hacking. What’s not obvious is how much you can hack them — with a few tricks, you can use a servo to control almost anything. Hobby servos consist of a DC gear motor, a potentiometer (usually 5K), and a control circuit. The output shaft is the output of […]

Continue Reading
Carbon Fiber Primer

Carbon Fiber Primer

It seems as though nearly everything “high performance” these days boasts some amount of carbon fiber in its construction. Originally used in aerospace, carbon fiber has moved into the mainstream and can be found in luxury automobiles, mountain bikes, and sports equipment. Some laptops and cellphones even use printed decals to simulate this lightweight material’s […]

Continue Reading
Urban Guerrilla Movie House

Urban Guerrilla Movie House

Rather than lamenting the slow death of drive-in theaters, I decided to build my own, mount it on an adult tricycle, and take the movies anywhere there’s an AC outlet. Vibrant online communities of DIY projector enthusiasts have ironed out the kinks and built the focal calculator software tools, and they’re building homebrew machines with […]

Continue Reading