Melted metal is hard to identify without a label—did that one come from a screen door or a piston head? The alloys they’re made of won’t be the same, and you might not want to mix them in later pours. Enter this brainstorm from bulletcasting forum member Centaur 1.
Alpha maker Craig Smith discovers the hard way that it’s a good idea to label paint and stain cans with the projects they were used on.
Developed during the heydey of the telegraph, the Lineman’s splice is designed for connections that will be under tension. It is commonly claimed that, properly made, a Lineman’s splice is stronger than the wires of which it is composed. In any case, it is a time-proven method, and, coolest of all, one of NASA’s Required Workmanship Standards. To wit…
Very clever trick from next month’s issue of The Family Handyman, submitted by reader Joseph Johnson. If you have “helping hands,” clamping wire leads against a washer, as shown, stabilizes the whole setup dramatically by connecting the two arms with a rigid member, so you can bear down a bit more with the iron without […]
In response to the Make: Newsletter Special Edition (on Tips) that we sent out yesterday, MAKE pal, and automata artist, Dug North sent us a link to a piece he did on Dremel tips. The article is part of Dug’s Automata Tips, Techniques and Tricks, a series he’s doing on Cabaret Mechanical Theatre. 10: Carving […]
Using a retractable-chain key ring to keep your chuck key close at hand.
A three-part series from Mikey over at MachinistBlog.com. Mikey has been a machinist for 15 years, and has come ’round to the belief that high-speed steel (HSS) cutters, rather than the pricier, lower-maintenance, carbide-tipped bits, are the way to go on a hobby-sized metalworking lathe. He also makes a compelling argument for using a belt sander, instead of the traditional bench grinder, for making, shaping, and sharpening HSS lathe tools.
