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I got a phenomenal response to my request for input on this newsletter. Thanks to all who messaged me. Turns out, an overwhelming number of you like the newsletter the way it is and simply offered encouragement. I also got several excellent suggestions for new features which I’ll be rolling out in the coming weeks. Keep those cards and letters coming!
How to Restore Yellowed Clear Plastic
In this quick Tested video, Adam Savage sets out to restore the lid of a gorgeous vintage Nagra IV-S audio recorder he recently acquired. The machine is in surprisingly good condition, but the clear plastic cover was scratched and badly yellowed. Doing research, he found many recommendations for using 12% hydrogen peroxide. He tried it with partial success. He discovered that finishing it up with plastic polishing compound returned it to something close it is original glory.
Making a Cheap, Simple Air Cleaner for a Small Shop
In this I Build It video, John shows how he made a simple and inexpensive air cleaner for his small woodshop. The air cleaner was made from little more than a small fan, a piece of duct piping, some scrap ply, and a several shop vac air filters. I love the way it can be expanded (with additional filters) via a threaded rod that holds the filters in place.
IKEA Wrenches on Your Pegboard
I just discovered a use for all of those hex wrenches that come with IKEA and other flat-pack furniture. They make perfect pegboard pegs!
Oil Can!
The tin man in dire need of maintenance.
The other day, while oiling a squeaky hinge with some lithium grease, I flashed on my granddad. A consummate tinkerer and inventor, Gramps was obsessed with maintenance. He frequently had his spring-bottom oiler in hand, blue shop rag tangling from his back pocket, going around the house, the yard, his backyard workshop, the car, lovingly maintaining the machinery of his life. I decided in that moment to try and be better at doing the same. Moments later, on Twitter, I saw this Kurt Vonnegut quote: “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.” Exactly. OIL CAN!
Maker Slang
Slang, jargon, and technical terms for the realms of making things.
Crown pulley – A pulley designwhere the center has a larger diameter than the outer edges, thus a “crown.” Perhaps counter-intuitively, the belt on the pulley will always seek the area of highest tension, returning it to the crown. Via Maker Update.
Promptcrafting – In AI art, it’s all about the quality of the prompts you craft. The better your invocation, the better the magic that gets returned.
Rewilding your attention – Writer Clive Thompson has been promoting the creative benefits of exposing yourself to the novel, the offbeat, the serendipitous. Look beyond what the online algorithms feed you – rewild your attention!
Shop Talk
As stated in the intro, I received many fabulous emails from you, dear readers. Here is one from Paul Cryan. Look for some tips from Paul in a coming issue!
“Thanks for doing all you do. Your tip books [Ed: Vol 1, Vol 2.] are great and I’m really enjoying the newsletter. I bought and devoured both of your books, in Kindle and PDF formats. I refer to them often and having the search function (via either the Kindle app or iBooks, respectively) is really handy. Every few days, I find myself looking at objects in new ways and going back to your references. This past Friday, I didn’t have a clamp within getting-up-from-my-chair distance at my office desk, so I ended up using a pair of pliers and a rubber band to hold together a plastic part I was gluing. Thanks for putting that seed in my head.
“The only problem I have with the weekly newsletter is that it gives me way too many things to think about and try per unit of time!
“With your tips books, I’ve got months to read through them and try things out. This week, I experimented with the lanolin mineral oil mixture to rustproof tools out of your latest tips book and it seems to hold much more promise than Johnson’s Paste Wax for keeping my old restored Shopsmiths looking and working great. I still need to test whether the stickiness can be buffed sufficiently off the power-tool surfaces to avoid particles grabbing, but so far so good. And who doesn’t like that faint smell of ungulates on their metal? 😉
“With the newsletter, I’m interested in just about everything you cover, which leads me to a weekly frenzy of investigation and implementation. Within the past month I’ve upgraded our broken sink strainers to the OXO type (love them), picked up a Williams ratcheting screwdriver (my new favorite ‘good enough’ tool), and bought Fat Boy pencils and FastCap markers that have me wondering how I didn’t know about these things before. And now I’m browsing saw blades!”
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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite: I was stuck in a helluva queue the other day—one of Ibiza’s biggest hardware stores, peak summer. Our tiny island of 142,000 residents suddenly swollen by 3 to 5 million tourists, with infrastructure snapping under the strain. Queues like this? A full-body test of patience. I grinned, reached into my bag, pulled out my Kindle Paperwhite—and got lost in Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It.
Anker Soundcore Space A40 Earbuds: Cicadas start singing above 28 °C—these days, they’re at it before sunrise. By the time I step out to work the land, the heat’s brutal. Sweat streaks white on skin and clothes. Even ears sweat. I like to catch up on podcasts while I work, but most earbuds haven’t survived my summers—until the Anker Soundcore Space A40s. Brilliant sound, unbeatable battery, and sweatproof enough for Ibiza. Bonus: noise-canceling so good, I forget the cicadas exist.
Apple iPad Mini: Each morning, I check messages from friends around the world—fellow animal carers, often living alone and off-grid. These check-ins matter. If something went wrong, the animals would suffer. So we message morning and night, sharing news, stories, and quiet reassurances. I press play on my iPhone, pick up my iPad Mini and Pencil, and scrawl notes as I listen—fast, paperless, and grounding. It's the first of many ways I use my iPad Mini each day—for journaling, photo edits, and staying connected. But it starts with knowing my friends are safe. And letting them know they’ve been heard.
DIGITAL
Routinery: We wear a lot of hats—family, work, home, life admin, pets, plans, people. It’s a lot. For me, it’s also six-plus projects a day. A schedule built for burnout—if not for Routinery. Designed for ADHD brains (mine isn’t), it’s hands-down one of my favourite apps. My day starts in it—make bed, feed pets, make coffee, write—and ends in it. Every time block, every task. No wobbling plates, no dropped balls. Just flow.
Readwise: I read eBooks and paperbacks, annotating like a magpie hunting gold. When I find a nugget—a line that lands, a thought worth keeping—I don’t toss it aside. I store it in Readwise. eBook highlights sync instantly; paperback quotes I type in by hand. Revisiting what once stopped me in my tracks is one of the best parts of my day.
INVISIBLE
"Do the next right thing the right way."
My life is built upon two guiding principles. The first—impossible to achieve but wonderful to aspire to—is "To help; not to harm". But in moments of overwhelm, of doubt, of confusion, "Do the next right thing the right way" steers me true.
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The tin man in dire need of maintenance.
