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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:
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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.
I just took four rides on Mexico’s new Tren Maya, traveling through three states and spending the night in four cities. The train has gotten more bad press than a misbehaving celebrity, most of it well-deserved, but the operation started to get its act together this month and my trips were mostly smooth—as was the ride itself on the brand new tracks. It’s a joy to get around Mexico by rail, even though the stations are way outside the cities and require a shuttle bus ride to the center. See the revamped booking site finally in English here, though sections beyond Playa del Carmen won’t be open for a while.
The Worst U.S. Airlines for Tall People
You probably could have guessed this already, but if you’re more than six feet tall (183 cms), you’re going to have a tough time getting comfortable on a Spirit or Frontier flight in the USA. Their average seat pitch is just 28 inches according to this study. It might be worth paying a bit more to fly on JetBlue, the highest at 32.3 inches or Southwest, at 31.8.
White Noise Machine With Low Frequencies
If you’re staying in noisy urban places and need white noise to block it all out so you can sleep, Austin Kleon recommends the Douni sound machine in his fun newsletter because, “It has has a lot of low end and a fan setting that masks engine noise pretty well.” Who is Austin? Two of my most-recommended books for creatives are his entertaining classics Show Your Work and Steal Like an Artist.
A Virtual Ride in an Elevator to Space
One of the coolest web pages I've seen in a long time is this "space elevator" one on Neal.fun. It takes you up in a hypothetical transport system higher and higher until you get into space, showing what creatures, vehicles, and atmospheric elements are or have been at that altitude, with explanations like this: "Most meteors burn up in the mesosphere. It's estimated that over 48 tons of meteors hit the atmosphere every day."