Toolbox

Typewriter repairmen on Wired

Typewriter repairmen on Wired

In Wired’s “Raw File,” they have a charming piece about typewriter repair shops and repairmen, profiling three shops in the Bay Area: Despite these inefficiencies, there are a few places where typewriters still clack away. New York City police stations, the desks of a few stubborn hangers-on, and, increasingly, the apartments of hip young people […]

Solid titanium dead drop spike

Solid titanium dead drop spike

Brain Dereu of Hollow Spy Coins has done it again. As if the solid stainless steel version of their original aluminum dead drop spike I recently blogged about weren’t cool enough by itself, the Dereu family is now offering the same product machined in solid freaking titanium. Incredibly, they’re selling it for exactly the same price as the stainless steel version.

RedBlueCNC: A modular CNC

RedBlueCNC: A modular CNC

MAKE subscriber Nick Santillan of Vancouver, BC, an ID student at the Emily Carr University of Art & Design, created this CNC for his thesis project. I decided to tackle on making CNC machine by allowing people to be more experimental with them to progress CNC technology from the bottom-up. The end result is a […]

Deluxe dead-drop spike in solid stainless steel

Deluxe dead-drop spike in solid stainless steel

For those who aren’t up on their tradecraft, a “dead drop” is a place where spies or other clandestine-y folks drop off items for later retrieval by other agents. A “dead drop spike” is a particularly ingenious little container devised for the purpose. Basically, it’s a hollow metal spike, with a threaded watertight closure at the top. You put your top-secret microfilm or whatever inside the spike, take it to your dead drop, and stomp it into the ground with your foot. Then you cover it up with a rock or a piece of trash or whatever. The lid has a pull-loop built into it, so that when your contact comes by later to clear the drop, he or she can grab the spike by the loop and yank it out of the ground again.