Makers

Maker Birthdays: Stephanie Kwolek

Maker Birthdays: Stephanie Kwolek

Born on this date in 1923 in the Pittsburgh suburb of New Kensington, Stephanie Louise Kwolek (Wikipedia) graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 1946. She would go on, starting in 1964, to discover the remarkable properties of paraphenylene terephtalamide polymers, research which would culminate in 1971 with the advent of Kevlar (Wikipedia), an entirely new field of polymer chemistry, and the countless remarkable applications thereof we now enjoy. Today Dr. Kwolek is 87. Happy Birthday!

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The unfinished dagger

The unfinished dagger

During the Second World War, Mr. Warther put aside his personal projects to make commando-style fighting knives for American servicemen. He was not a government contractor and therefore had to scrounge for materials; even so, with the help of the community, he was able to deliver more than 1,100 knives. He was a pacifist, but wanted American servicemen to have access to the best equipment. He was working on the knife pictured above when, in 1945, news reached him that the war had ended. He put the knife down, unfinished, and never picked it up again. The Warther family treasures it to this day.

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Zoho Artform #4

Zoho Artform #4

If I were forced to pick only one personal favorite of all the cool stuff I’ve blogged about while working for Make: Online, it would probably be Mark Ho’s original Zoho Artform figure. This is his latest version, made mostly from aluminum and available in ten anodized colors. I have no idea what they cost, and I’m sure I don’t really want to know, but I’d love to see more machinists following in Mark’s footsteps and making pure “machined art.”

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