Green

Recycling Paperbacks as Partitions

Recycling Paperbacks as Partitions

Diane spotted this interesting idea from London designer Lucy Norman, who writes: “There is currently no infrastructure set up to recycle the paper from books because the paper is low grade and the glue on the spine must be removed. The Paperback Partition is made from this waste, creating an aesthetically pleasing and interesting divide in a room. It provides both good heat insulation, and acoustic insulation…”

Car Tire Pottery Wheel

Car Tire Pottery Wheel

Mississippian Hillar Bergman is known, first and foremost, as a musician—he plays the fiddle. His YouTube channel, as catinnahat, has several videos describing his wonderful “apocalyptech” potter’s wheel, and demonstrating his skillful use thereof. It’s just an old wheel and tire, mounted on an oak stump with a pair of pipe flanges and a short nipple, and spun up to speed with a tire iron stuck through the holes in the hub.

Pat Delany’s Designs for Low-Cost DIY Machine Tools

Pat Delany’s Designs for Low-Cost DIY Machine Tools

We have covered septuagenarian Palestine, TX, resident Pat Delany’s DIY multimachine, which is mostly built from recycled auto parts, before. Following on the success of that design, Pat has branched out, researching and promulgating three more simple build-it-yourself tool designs: A treadle-powered electrical generator, a simple compound lever drill press, and—most interesting to me—a lathe made from cast concrete and aligned with wedges sawn flush after the concrete has set up. Engineering for Change has a good overview of the story and the available online resources. [Thanks, Jake!]