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A User’s Guide to Screws and Tap & Die
In these two clickclackclunk tutorials on Instructables, he offers an excellent beginner’s class on screws and tapping of screws. Knowing how to tap threads for fasteners gives you a new kind of superpower for your projects. It’s one of those skills that seems complicated and intimidating, until you do it. With a few specialty tools, some lubrication, and few important techniques, and you’re in like Flynn.
Making a Camera Tracking Shot Slider from a Measuring Tape
Via Maker Update comes this very clever project to 3D print a housing for a measuring tape and some ball bearing wheels so that you can use it as a non-motorized camera slider for creating linear tracking shots with your phonecam. You can even adjust the speed of the tracking by adjusting the pressure on the tape measure.
Which Rattle Can Paint is the Best?
In this Project Farm test (which took a year to complete), Todd tested rattle can paints that cost from $1 to $15. The paints were tested on a vehicle hood and on metal panels kept outside for a year and then compared for chip resistance, paint fade over a year, scratch resistance, and rust blocking. In the end, the winners were Rust-Oleum Pro ($6 at time of testing), Valspar ($10 at time of testing), and Seymour ($11 at time of testing). The big loser was the most expensive of the lot, Sherman-Williams ($15 at time of testing).
How to Create a Steam Box for Wood Bending
Xyla Foxlin recently made a cool bass guitar that used steam-bent wood in its construction. In this video, she shows how she created the steam box.
TOYS! DiResta Ice Pick
I’ve written about Jimmy DiResta’s ice pick before, but I can’t believe I’ve never recommended it as a tool. I use mine almost daily and am always surprised at the different uses I discover for it. There’s even an Instagram tag to document them. Sure, it’s not cheap, and yes, part of the allure is the hip maker cred, but buying one supports an indie tool maker and they’re beautifully made and hand-crafted by Jimmy and his crew. I’ve given several as Christmas presents and my recipients enjoy them as much as I do.
Maker’s Muse
A Roman “Swiss Army Knife,” some 1700 years old. Complete with three-pronged fork, spatula, pick, spike, and knife. Probably something of a luxury item, made of silver, and likely used by the wealthy Roman on the go.
Shop Talk
In response to a question in the last issue about ready-made racks for portable storage cases, specifically Stanley cases, I got a lot of responses sharing projects on how to build them. The person asking the question wanted to buy vs. build, saving him time for more pressing projects. I swear I saw a project years ago to quickly modify baker’s racks to use for this purpose. If anyone knows a link to such a project, please share.
In the meantime, for those looking to build a rack, here are a few projects that reader Craig shared:
Making a Small Parts Storage Rack
Making a Rack for Small Parts Storage with Stanley SortMasters
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Cool tools really work.
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.
It's been so long since I've used a portable transistor radio that it feels like advanced technology. The Prunus J-166 is an impressively capable pocket AM/FM radio for $10. It's about the size of an iPhone and has just three simple controls (tuning, volume, band switch) that make it intuitive to use. It also has a tuning indicator light, headphone jack, and battery indicator. Requires 2 AA batteries (not included). — MF
True country sizes
My mental image of country sizes has been wrong. The True Size Of... is an interactive website that lets you drag countries around a world map to compare their actual sizes without the distortion caused by standard map projections. It's shocking to see how countries change shape as you move them — drag Greenland into Africa and watch it shrink to a small fraction of its map projection! — MF
101 Rules of Effective Living
Esoteric author Mitch Horowitz recently launched his Substack newsletter, Mystery Achievement, where he shared a list of 101 rules for effective living, distilled from more than 30 years of reading “nearly every major work of inspirational literature produced or translated into English.” You can find the full list here. Below are some of my favorites.
6) Be willing to clean toilets and wash floors. 20) Get away from cruel people—at all costs. 38) Look people in the eye, recognize them, acknowledge them. 65) “To feel brave, act as if we were brave.” (William James) 69) Know your preferences, even if you cannot act on them. 77) Do your absolute best to carry your own load before bothering another. 81) “Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” (Christ) 83) Boredom invites trouble. 94) Accept paradox.
— CD
AI domain name generator
Name Wizard is an AI for generating new domain names based on your idea or concept and finding out if they’re available to register in one click. It’s fun to play with, and free to try out 5 searches without a subscription. — CD
More quotes to ponder
I am always on the lookout for sentences that make me think. Here’s a recent collection:
If you want new ideas, read old books. — Shane Parrish
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion. — Stephen Hawking
Thousands of people don’t like what I do. Fortunately, millions do. — James Patterson
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again. — André Gid
Scarcity is the one thing you can never have enough of. — Marc Randolph
The most selfish act of all is kindness, because it's payback is so much greater than the investment. — Tom Peters
The illiterate of the 21st century will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. —Alvin Toffler
Time exists in order that everything doesn't happen all at once… and space exists so that it doesn't all happen to you. — Susan Sontag
There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns. — Octavia Butler
I write these down to be reminded. — KK
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