The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the industrial arts from metal and woodworking to CNC machining and 3D printing.
Make: Projects contributor Josh Burroughs has posted an excellent handsaw restoration how-to. Why bother to take the time to restore an old, rusty saw? Josh explains: Modern saws found at the big box home centers usually have induction hardened teeth that can’t be sharpened – they are meant to be thrown away when dull. They […]
We asked another woodworking maker we admire, Ben Light, of B.Light Design, to come share some of his expertise with us. He wrote this wonderful introduction to lathes. Thanks, Ben. -Gareth The Lathe The lathe is often an overlooked and under appreciated piece of hardware. I find this hard to believe, because it can produce […]
In response to our woodworking skills theme, a shop teacher, Mr. Patrick, aka the WorkshopCowboy, sent us a link to this article he did on his blog about teaching safe sawing to young people. The one-handed technique is great for students to gain a “feel” for cutting the wood correctly. A saw should glide through […]
Master woodworker Len Cullum shows you how sharpen, or “tune” your woodworking chisels and planes.
I returned home from a recent trip to a tragically non-functioning espresso machine. When I powered it on, I could hear a relay clicking, probably trying and failing to turn the pump motor on. On a commercial-grade machine like mine, a Fiorenzato Bricoletta E-61 design, this often means your microcontroller box, or brain, is kaput. […]
Just saw these in a magazine and, although have never tried a pair, I am intrigued. If, like me, you’ve spent a lot of time fumbling with cheap tweezers, I might humbly suggest that, like me, you will discover that a bit of extra scratch spent on a quality pair will prove well worth it. And if, like me, you’ve ever ruined a pair of nice tweezers by tossing them carelessly in your luggage, you may, like me, also be curious about these folding precision tweezers from pocketweez.com. I’m gonna spring for a pair, I think, and I’ll let you know how it works out. In the meantime, if anybody’s got any first-hand experience or opinions, kindly let us know, below!
OK, that may not be the most exciting headline I’ve ever written, and I’m not sure the exclamation point really helps all that much. But I am, personally, nonetheless very excited about cardboard bins right now, because thanks to them, for the first time in almost five years, I am no longer burdened by a giant unsorted junk parts bucket. I have tried a lot of organizational systems, over the past few years, and I’ve finally decided that bins are where it’s at. Unfortunately, professional parts bin systems are prohibitively expensive for the number I need to satisfy my organizational compulsion. But these fold-up corrugated bins I bought off Amazon only cost 69 cents apiece, including shipping. I took an old bookcase and added an extra “halfway” shelf to each level; 6″ per shelf leaves plenty of room to toss parts into the bins without wasting space. The finished unit holds ninety 4 x 4.4 x 12″ bins, which are labeled with a thermal-tape printer and arranged alphabetically. You can see the whole enchilada in my Flickr set.
