Back in February, MachinistBlog contributor Mikey won an essay contest there with his post, Honest – all I ever wanted to do was make some stuff…, which is a must-read for anybody who’s thinking about getting into hobby machining. And it includes a picture of this beautifully rebuilt mower. Mikey says:
Fjr of Mobile, AL, wanted to build a trebuchet. He soon discovered that it was a huge hassle because the parts he could find weren’t compatible with each other. I was talking to my brother and as I talked I was frustrated at how hard it was to build things. The biggest problem in my […]
In 1942, shortly after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt committed the U.S. economy to the production of 60,000 warplanes that year, and suggested that as many as 185,000 aircraft might be produced by the end of 1943. He turned out to be almost correct. In June 1944, TIME reported 171,257 aircraft produced since Pearl Harbor. In 1942, however, those were Herculean goals, yet to be achieved, and as part of an effort to help Americans understand the task before them, a fleet of 4,500 model airplanes was suspended from the ceiling of Chicago’s Union Station. Once you absorb the spectacle of 4,500 planes, of course, then comes the whammy: That’s only 1/48th of the production goal. The image above is 600 pixels wide. At that scale, if your monitor’s pitch is 72 dpi, an image of all 185,000 planes would be 33 feet wide. [via NOTCOT]
What better way to explain the way complicated mechanical devices work than by using an animated GIF? [Via Core77]
A wooden body upon a welded steel frame, by Briton Steve Bodiley. Build details available at his website. [Thanks, Billy Baque!]
Mark just posted a link to this cool magazine how-to from 1961 (.pdf) by Roy L. Clough, Jr. It’s hosted at Cigar Box Nation. [via Boing Boing]
This trick actually came in really handy the last time reckless teenagers accidentally killed a member of my family. It takes several months for the pumpkin to grow into the shape of the victim’s face, but, that’s actually sort of useful because it gives you time to cool down and figure out if you really want to go through with the whole vengeance-from-beyond-the-grave thing or not. If you decide against it, you can always use your hellpumpkin as the world’s creepiest Jack-o’-lantern, which is what I ended up doing. It worked out great, at least until those same reckless teenagers kicked it into a pile of goo on my front porch. That’s irony for you! So now I’m growing another one…
