DIY Projects

How-To:  Anodize aluminum

How-To: Anodize aluminum

Ron Newman’s fantastic page on DIY room-temperature anodizing of aluminum parts was last revised in 2007, and looks like it may be significantly older than that. Ron’s selling a how-to book, now, and a bunch of anodizing supplies, from the same page, but to me it looks like there’s more than enough free info there already for a savvy person to figure it out for him- or herself. And while Ron’s set-up, pictured above, may look intimidating, it’s actually possible to do this without a lot of expensive equipment.

How-To:  Build an oversized abacus

How-To: Build an oversized abacus

Rachel sent me this link to an easy tutorial on building your own wall-sized abacus by Stephanie Lynn. I’m pretty sure I’ll never need an abacus, but I gotta admit it looks like fun to build one. It would appear Stephanie is making the beads by cutting slices out of a closet rod and then drilling a hole in the center of each–I say save a step and use a hole-saw for both operations! [via Ohdeedoh]