Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.
I want to thank everyone who subscribed last week or convinced others to. I had a satisfying little bump in subs. Let’s keep it going! Please share with your social media feed and with friends. Thanks!****
Talk to me. Tell me a story. Share me a tip. A tool. * Support my work by buying my tips books (Vol. 1, Vol. 2). * Take out an Unclassified in this newsletter to reach fellow makers.
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
Become a Patron!Support our reviews, videos, and podcasts on Patreon!
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.
Government bureaucracy and “easy” don’t usually go in the same sentence, but we’re cautiously optimistic about the new digital nomad visa for Uruguay. You can apply online and there’s no income verification aspect, so right away this has leapfrogged over all others in attractiveness. Uruguay is one of the more expensive South American countries, but it is the most progressive, including a hands-off LGBTQ stance, full reproductive rights for women, and legal weed. Plus they have some nice beaches. See the details here.
The Joy of Home Exchanges
This past month I spent a week in a condo on the Athens Riviera coast of Greece, then a week in a fantastic house on the car-free island of Hydra, both times paying nothing but a small cleaning fee. Both came about because of my membership in HomeExchange.com, where I’ve belonged for years. We have done simultaneous swaps, non-simultaneous ones, and ones utilizing their points system where people can pay with points they have accumulated to stay in your house. Then we used our points to stay in both of those Greece places. It’s great for travelers who have a home base they’re often not in and it can save a small fortune on accommodation, with no pets to care for like house-sitting services usually require.
Laptop-friendly Public Spaces
File this under “work in progress,” but the site LaptopFriendly.co, mentioned in Recomendo by Mark F., highlights good places for remote workers to get things done. It’s mainly focused on big cities for now, with just 6 locations in Greece, 7 in France, and only one in a lot of other countries, but we hope they stick with it and widen the scope over time.
A Quick Overview of European Airline Fees
I could have made that headline a lot more provocative, with references to all kinds of things you are forced to do against your will, but I think we all now realize that budget airlines the world over are in the business of making money from gotcha fees added after the flight cost. You can figure out the rules and play them to your advantage, or you can come in clueless and get played instead. Here’s a good breakdown of what you’ll have to cough up after the initial fare that seemed so enticing. Add it all together to compare apples-to-apples when looking at other airlines or a train alternative.
