Craig Smith, whose clever projects have been featured in MAKE and Make: Online a bunch of times (see links below) has written in again to share his excellent X-wing mailbox. I made this so long ago, it is actually in need of weathering repairs and repainting. I never expected it to survive vandalism or theft […]
Craig Smith of South Milwaukee wrote in to share his excellent hobbit door he built in his fence: At my backyard fence to the alley, I did something a bit different for the gate; A Hobbit door. The fence panels had higher and lower stringers added so the curved cut would allow the small segments […]
Craig Smith wrote in with a brush-cleaning setup he created: Did you know: (1) Most people buy the cheap disposable paint brushes because they don’t want to clean the expensive one-coat brush, or have been burned before by losing an expensive brush to improper cleaning. (2) Most people clean a brush poorly in a one […]
Craig Smith of the Firefly Workshop writes in: I had a $5 microwave cart from goodwill that ended up in my shop as a finishing table where I would paint, stain or varnish items on newspaper. It was bugging me that all the space underneath was unused, and my paints, stains and varnishes were in […]
While I love a good, messy workshop, I appreciate a clean one if only to get tips on organizing my own space. Craig and Cindy Smith’s shop, which they call the Firefly Workshop, offers some neat tricks. Also, what’s up with the astromech dome and Wall-E eyes? I am not a ‘green freak’, but I […]
Craig Smith, of Firefly Workshop, has been planning a home observatory and is working out the details of easily building a domed roof for it. He writes: Anybody with a decent telescope knows that a telescope should be cool as the night air to prevent heat radiant distortion. Aside from keeping it out in an […]
Reader Craig Smith sent me an email about this recent little fix he discovered for time-worn cassettes: I was in my basement shop when I found a box of cassette tapes that were the soundtrack to my youth. Since the seldom-used tape deck was removed from the upstairs entertainment center, I set it up in […]
