Toolbox

Gingery-style homemade metal lathe builds

Gingery-style homemade metal lathe builds

Throw a stone at any gathering of makers, and you’re likely to hit somebody who owns a set of DIY-savant Dave Gingery’s classic books on building your own machine shop by casting scrap aluminum, melted in a charcoal-powered bucket furnace, into sand molds formed by wooden patterns. I’ve owned a set myself, for more than a decade, and “at least starting on the lathe,” which is the first tool in the series, has been on my someday list since the first time I ever saw the books advertised in Lindsay Technical Books’ classic ad in Popular Science.

Make and Mend tricks from Tim Anderson

Make and Mend tricks from Tim Anderson

When I was editing The Best of Instructables, one of my favorite authors in the book was Tim Anderson, who also edits our regular “Heirloom Technology” column in MAKE. Tim has hundreds of Instructables, many of them collections of time-saving, energy-saving, make-do, and kludgey-cool repair tips. Here are some excerpts from his Tips articles related […]