Tools

Guitar Slide from a Wine Bottle

One interesting historical example of upcycled crafting is bottleneck guitar– or as it is now widely known, slide guitar. The unique resonant sound of slide guitar was originally formed by playing with a glass bottleneck over one finger and running the slide up and down the strings. While the materials for making slides have evolved, […]

Mind-melting Moleskine sketchery

Mind-melting Moleskine sketchery

I’ve always been a big fan of artist Jim Woodring, and I’ve been keeping Moleskine Cahier sketchbooks for the past four years. So, I was completely jazzed to see these pages from one of Jim’s Cahiers. [via Boing Boing] The Salt-Blarsted Moleskine In the Maker Shed: Pick up The Maker’s Notebook ($19.99) for all your […]

Collin’s Lab: Kit-making

When recently faced with the dauntingly tedious task of assembling my first-ever batch of electronics kits, I was lucky enough to have the ever-helpful eye of seasoned kit-maker Becky Stern close by. While observing my one-man assembly ‘process’, Becky advised a more efficient, modular assembly line technique using intermediary storage vessels. Streamlining the process left […]

175 free woodworking ebooks

The Woodworks Library has a bunch of PDFs of woodworking books, mostly public domain materials from the late 1800s or early 1900s. However, some of them are more modern, like this US Army Corps of Engineers carpentry manual from 1995. [via open materials] Update to Previous Warning: We posted a warning about possible PDF-based malware […]

Small-space workbench

Make: Online reader Conor wrote in with a pic of his small, small workshop — on top of an old traveler’s trunk, underneath his loft bed in a 8×8′ room! Kind of reminds me of Adam Wolf’s closet workshop except with more Mexican candles. And what’s that he’s working on? An electric guitar slash bullhorn? […]

Custom DIY MIDI controller boards

Livid’s Builder series consists of a central USB-MIDI “Brain” board plus several input boards, each size-customizable for use with LED pushbuttons, rotary potentiometers, or faders. The system could definitely speed-up construction of that controller-of-your-dreams project – just be sure you won’t end up wanting a few more buttons after you’ve drilled/cut the enclosure (guessing I […]