And please spread the word if you like what you see here. Thank you!
A Look at the Proxxon Motorized Angle Polisher
Last issue, I wrote about Adam Savage restoring the yellowed plastic cover of a vintage Nagra IV-S audio recorder. He ended up using a combination of a 12% hydrogen-peroxide bath and stages of a polishing compound to bring the cover back to its former glory. In this video, he talks about the Proxxon motorized angle polisher he uses while restoring the faded and scratched plastic dome on a spacesuit helmet replica and extolling the virtues of the tool.
Paint Coatings: The Great Weapon Against Rust
Grady of the fantastic Practical Engineering channel continues his series on corrosion engineering by looking at one of the great weapons wielded in the war against steel rust: paint (or more accurately paint coatings).
Next-Level Oscillating Multi-Tool Tips
Wow. James of Stumpy Nubs always brings the goods, but I learned so much from this video on improving one’s use of an oscillating multi-tool. I just recently bought my first cheap oscillating tool (to see how I like it) and am just beginning to learn how to use it properly. Even if you’ve had an oscillating tool for a while, I bet you’ll learn something here. How to angle your plunge cuts, pre-scoring cuts, holding onto the blade for better control (yes, it’s safe), using semi-circular blades for making straighter lines, so much more. Lots of tips for cutting metal with an oscillator, too. And, James has a good recommendation for an inexpensive blade assortment.
Quick ‘N Dirty Aluminum Casting
In this Daniel LupienYouTube short, he shows you how easy it is to create a simple sand mold and cast it in aluminum. All you basically need is a chunk of aluminum, a crucible and tongs, a source of heat, some kinetic sand (or regular casting sand), and something to press into the sand to create the mold.
No-Cost Stud Finder
When my wife and I moved to our new digs in Benicia, CA last fall, I needed to install a swivel-arm wall mount for our TV. I simply used a 1″ disk magnet I had on-hand to locate the stud. No fancy stud finder needed. In this Becky Stern tip, she shows the method of using a string and a magnet. Easy peasy. If you’re uncomfortable with this method and want to make sure to find the center of the stud and locate (and steer clear of) any wire runs, pipes, etc., sophisticated imaging scanners can be had for under $30.
Fixing a Leaky Faucet with a Ten Dollar Tool
We know that professional plumbing doesn’t come cheap. Doing your own basic maintenance and repairs may seem intimidating, but it shouldn’t. Jobs like clearing a trap, changing a toilet float assembly, or replacing faucet washers are relatively simple and easy. Years ago, I changed a toilet float kit. It was easy (after getting the very frozen-in old assembly out). And, I felt like I’d accomplished something and saved myself over $100. The replacement kit was $15.
Mark Frauenfelder of Cool Tools recently replaced the rubber washer in his shower. He writes in Recomendo: “Our shower head was leaking, even after I replaced the rubber washer. YouTube informed me that I had a scarred valve seat, which is the brass ring that’s supposed to form a tight seal against the washer. I bought a reseating tool for about $10 on Amazon, which smooths the surface of the valve seat. It worked, and saved me a $150 plumber visit.”
Notable Quotables
“Move carefully and fix things.” -Civic technologist, Bill Hunt
“Read your fear as excitement.” -Author and public speaking guru Scott Birkin [Said about public speaking, but applicable to many other, similar situations.]
Shop Talk
Reader Art Elliott shares this tip:
“My fav pencil is the tri-conderoga. It’s the best of both worlds. Three sided, so it doesn’t roll away, and thinner than a regular carpenters pencil, so you get sharper lines, but it’s also thicker than a regular pencil, so the lines are still nice and thick. My family got me a pack for Father’s Day and they’re my go-to in the garage.”
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On the issue of CA glue curing accelerated by water or baking soda or baking soda and water, reader Josh Martin writes:
“Setting CA glue with water makes an inconsistent, often crumbly consistency to the set glue. Baking soda improves on this, but nothing works as well as accelerator (or just time).”
In reference to storing CA glue in the freezer, reader KX4WD enthuses:
“The money I could have saved on super glues over the years with this storage tip!”
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A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
Boyd Linney, also known as the Cow Boy, is a 10-year old bounty hunter. Armed with a custom pop gun in the shape of a hobby horse, he roams the West in search of wanted criminals. Unfortunately, they just happen to be his relatives.
A cinematic western about a 10-year-old bounty hunter, Cow Boy: A Boy And His Horse is action-packed, kid-friendly, and surprisingly gritty. Light on dialogue, where guttural utterances and highfalutin’ 25-cent words like dadgummit, tarnation, and goldarnt are sprinkled amidst desert landscapes and frontier saloon interiors, each colorful panel dramatizes a simple Wild West story of a boy in search of his wayward, outlaw family, and he’ll find them at any cost.
Breaking up the storyline are brief, humorous vignettes, one of a gunslinger with no underpants, a laser gun showdown with enormous steampunk robots, a woman who walks miles through the desert to accept a marriage proposal from an outlaw, and a gun-toting heroine with a penguin as a sidekick.
Propelled by Peanuts-like drawings that evoke a Sergio Leone-esque, widescreen atmosphere, this graphic novel features a compelling tale that touches on themes of family, loneliness, slavery, abuse, and gumption that never feels heavy-handed. Appropriate for all ages, Cow Boy: A Boy And His Horse is an entertaining page-turner that gallops along. – S.Deathrage
THE ART OF CHARLIE CHAN HOCK CHYE – BUT JUST WHO IS THIS GREAT SINGAPOREAN COMIC ARTIST?
The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by Pantheon Graphic Novels Pantheon 2016, 320 pages, 7 x 1.2 x 10.4 inches (hardcover)
The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is one of the most intricate and impressive graphic novels I’ve ever read. It’s a biography of the great Singaporean comic artist Charlie Chan Hock Chye, and traces the evolution of Chan’s career by showing the wide array of artistic styles he experimented with. These range from Marvel-style superhero comics to celebrity caricatures, cartoonish science fiction, manga, noir, and more. All this is complemented by explanations and annotations of Chan’s work, which are also presented in graphic form.
The work is complex not only in style, but also in content. A driving theme throughout Chan’s career has been uncompromising political satire. Thus the survey of Chan’s work is also a dense and dizzying tour of 20th-century Singaporean history. The comics depict the complex Singaporean identity following independence from Britain, as the tiny nation-state struggled to define itself ethnically, politically, and economically.
While this is a weighty topic, there’s an ever-present humor in Chan’s comics. For instance, his superhero parody is called Roachman. Roachman worked as a human waste collector in Singapore’s pre-plumbing period, and gained his powers from the bite of a cockroach. His transformation into a superhero allows for commentary on the social ills of the day, as well as providing a snapshot of a country just before rapid urbanization and development.
The big conceit in all this is that Chan isn’t real. He’s a fictional character invented by Sonny Liew to take readers through a simultaneous history of Singapore and of 20th-century comics. One lasting impression from this book is that it must have been so fun to create: inventing not only an artist, but also his works, and the additional meta-layer of being a faux biographer/art historian. Only someone with an enduring love of comics could have produced this work. – Christine Ro
Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair.Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.
