Heat Shrink Tool Grip
Check out this quick way to add a durable grip to your favorite tool using heavy gauge wire and some heat shrink tubing.
Hacks
The Many Uses of ShapeLock
ShapeLock is an amazingly useful polycaprolactone plastic that starts to melt and become moldable at 160ºF. When it cools to room temperature it becomes rigid and tough with qualities similar to nylon. By heating it in water with a microwave or using a heat gun, you can easily hand form it into almost anything.
Using Liquid Paint Stripper as Acrylic Cement
Unless your application is critical, cheap liquid paint stripper from the hardware store (not the gel, paste, or color-changing varieties) is a fine substitute for commercial acrylic solvent cement. Comparing one MSDS to another, we see that each product is about 75 wt% dichloromethane (AKA methylene chloride), which is the “active ingredient” that softens the plastic and allows it to weld. Purpose-made acrylic solvent is a bit thinner, in my experience, and evaporates a little faster, and contains trace amounts of acrylic monomer that may result in a slightly stronger bond, but for most practical purposes I have not found these qualities to justify paying twice as much for it.
Toilet Paper Printer
Built as a submission to “Mach flott den Schrott”, a hardware hacking contest put on by German technology magazine c’t, Mario Lukas’ Toilettenpapier-Drucker (Toilet Paper Printer) combines parts scavenged from surplus CD-ROM drives, an Arduino, and some miscellaneous bits to create a printer with a unique output. Supplied with an RSS or Twitter feed, the device will inscribe up-to-the-minute news on your favorite 2-ply.
Schuyler Towne’s 24-Part Online Lockpicking Course
Schuyler Towne, the locksport aficionado who rode the Kickstarter wave to the tune of $87K, has uploaded a 24-part lockpicking course to YouTube. I can’t wait to dive in!
How-To: Drifting Robot Car (video)
Learn how to make a drifting robot car with a few cheap components and some simple code in this tutorial episode of The Latest in Hobby Robotics.
“18650 Things To Do With An Old Laptop Battery”
As much as I enjoyed this unusual technical info from GeekDad contributor Roy Wood, I was disappointed to learn that not all 18,650 things you can do with an old laptop battery are specifically listed in the article. Moreover, by a truly amazing coincidence, “18650” turns out to be the part number for the most common size lithium-ion cell used in assembling laptop batteries.
