MAKE contributor and Makeys stylist Diana Eng recently schooled me about the lost wax fabrication process, which she’s been using to craft her new Farfalle jewelry line (yes, named after, and shaped like, the pasta).
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I have before identified Instructables user Mrballeng as a craftsman’s craftsman, and this latest offering only serves to reinforce that opinion. His work is not flashy or complex, but it’s always thought out with exacting detail and does amazing things with everyday materials. Here, he uses a mini-lathe to bore, swage, and align two .30-06 cartridge cases before soldering them together, at the joint, and fitting the guts of a refillable plastic click-pen inside. Cool stuff.
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Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, this beautiful handmade watch from user gogglerman. A detailed tutorial has been posted on Instructables, as well, and it looks like it was all done without the use of machine tools.
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Chris Schaie just e-mailed me this picture of a recent commission. It’s a custom Nautilus-style submarine door that incorporates Chris’s familiar irising peephole as well as a new multiple bolt mechanism that locks and unlocks by turning the handwheel. Beautiful work, Chris!
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When I first saw Chris’s gorgeous brass-and-wood irising door peephole mechanism in the ShopBot booth at Maker Faire, I knew it was something special: A beautiful piece of machinery, designed and built solely for the pleasure of operating and observing its operation. When Chris contacted us wanting to sell them in the Makers Market, naturally I was excited, but I was also a bit skeptical. I couldn’t imagine that such a large, relatively complex machine of solid brass and wood could be manufactured and sold at anything like a reasonable price point. But the $285 Chris is now asking, while certainly not cheap, is about 40% of what I was expecting to see when I clicked on his listing. I will be surprised if he can afford to continue selling them at that price. Which is why I already bought mine.
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Keith Newstead has been refining this design for twenty years. It shows. It’s gorgeous just sitting there, but when it starts to move…well, I think I audibly sighed. [via The Automata / Automaton Blog]
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Brooklyn-based lighting designer Lindsey Adelman has published a great tutorial on the construction of this cool spidery brass light fixture from various commercial bits ‘n’ pieces. [via Readymade]
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