Tools

Beautiful overengineered tape dispenser

Beautiful overengineered tape dispenser

There’s a great thing that happens, every so often, when people have access to machine tools: They go a little bit nuts. They’re bumping along one day, doing what they do, and some mundane object crosses them for the last time. This or that thing never works as well as it should, or breaks too easily, or gets misplaced once too often, and it occurs to them: Hey, I could fix that–and not just for myself, for today or for the next couple of weeks or months, but for the rest of my natural life and possibly those of my descendants for the foreseeable future of the species. And something like this solid 6061 aluminum Scotch tape dispenser from Henry Herndon is the result. The sea may be vast, our boats may be small and constantly buffeted by the gales of an indifferent universe ruled by a howling demon of entropy, but that Scotch-tape-dispenser-problem is fixed now, by God. On to the next thing.

Hollow spy nickel conceals Micro SD card

Hollow spy nickel conceals Micro SD card

Brian Dereu and his family have a thriving cottage industry machining these pocket concealments from real currency and selling them online. I have one of their MicroNickels, shown above, and it may well be the coolest thing I have ever owned. It’s sized perfectly to conceal a Micro SD card, and when assembled it really is indistinguishable from a regular nickel. So, you know, just don’t lose it.

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.