In this TronicsFix video, Steve buys 7 broken NES game cartridges, priced from $5 – $30, to see how hard it is to fix them. Most of the repairs come down to cleaning the “golden finger” contacts on the edge of the circuit boards and Steve finds that a combo of pink eraser, IPA on a Q-tip, and a metal polishing cloth does the trick. One game had badly corroded pins on a chip and was therefore DOA, another had a short in one of the chips (same), a few required jumping wires to repair broken copper traces. But, in the end, only a couple of the games were beyond basic repairs.
Awesome Woodworking Tips from Lloyd Khan
When I was a teen, I was obsessed with the Whole Earth Catalogs and completely enamored with the work of often-featured designer-builders like Jay Baldwin, Greg Baer, Malcolm Wells, and Lloyd Khan. Khan was responsible for the very WEC-like outsized Shelter publications, featuring crazy, cool, and arty owner-built dwellings. Lloyd is still around, still doing his thing. His Instagram is worth a follow. This particular post is loaded with a number of high-quality construction tips.
Getting to Know the 555 Timer Chip
In this DroneBot Workshop they provide a clear and concise 42-minute introduction to the ubiquitous and versatile 555 timer chip. They discuss how the 555 works, its various modes, and some of the basic projects you can use it in.
A Chemist Explains How Super Glue Works
Brent, of the excellent game crafting and miniature painting channel, Goobertown Hobbies, also has a Ph.D. in chemistry. In this video on his channel, he explains the chemistry behind cyanoacrylate (aka Super Glue) and how the glue actually works.
Electroplating 3D Prints
Via Donald Bell’sMaker Update comes a recommendation for this article on Makezine about how to create faux chrome finishes on 3D prints. The process involves lots of sanding and smoothing of the print, a spray with a copper conductive paint, then an electroplating bath. The results are pretty spectacular.
Testing and Ranking Heavy-Duty Staplers
In this Project Farm video, Todd tests out 14 different brands of heavy-duty staplers. He looks at units from Makita, Milwaukee, Ryobi, Arrow, DeWalt, WorkPro, Bauer, Neu Master, Ework, Bielmeier, Stanley, and Citadel. The staplers were compared for resistance to jams, stapling speed, capability to drive staples into spruce, oak, and composite decking. Bottom line? The Ryobi performed very well and offers the best value, at $84 (at time of testing). The stapler that tested best overall was the Makita, at a whopping $210 at time of testing.
Shop Talk
Newsletter reader Paul Cryan asks:“How do you know if a tip you’ve come across is original enough to report?”Good question, Paul. A lot of it comes down to experience and intuition. I’ve been writing in the DIY space for over 30 years, so I have some sense of the saturation of tips and techniques that are shared. But ultimately, I don’t sweat “originality” as much as I do practicality. If it’s a great tip, even if it’s been around for a while, even a very long while, it’s worth sharing with those for whom it’s new and as a reminder to those who may already know it. I see tips all the time that serve as a reminder for me to finally break down and try it out (or bring it back into my work flow).
***
I got a lot of responses to my “Shop Talk” post about areas of DIY where you say “Hell, no, get me a pro.” Everyone seemed to be on the same page. Reader Craig best summarized the responses I received:“My dad did almost no home or auto repairs. Not because he didn’t know how, but because he freakin’ hated doing them. Mom, however, might have been able to build a house with a pocketknife and a pair of vise grips. She just had skills…lots of them.”I have done a wide spectrum of things but as I’ve gotten older, I triage everything:If I want to try something, I do.If I don’t want to, I don’t.If it absolutely must be done and I don’t want to do it, I hire it out.No guilt, just a depleted treasury.”
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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.
How to Wrap Five Eggs: Japanese Design in Traditional Packaging by Hideyuki Oka (author) and Michikazu Sakai (photographer) Harper & Row 1967, 203 pages, 10 x 11.6 x 1.2 inches (hardcover)
This book is a museum of traditional packaging artifacts from Japan. Before the age of plastic, the Japanese perfected the art of packing consumables in incredibly ingenious ways. They excelled in using natural materials such as paper, straw, clay, and wood. Much of the packaging looks astonishingly modern, even though the form may be hundreds, if not thousands of years old. In fact, packages in Japan today often are wrapped in the same way. I recently received a gift from Japan that contained seven layers of boxes within boxes, wraps within wraps, each layer its own exquisite art, the packing at least equal to the cost and worth of the gift inside. There is a mesmerizing variety of packing collected during the last years of traditional Japan on display here. Each artifact is featured in stunning black and white photographs. It is a real inspiration for both designer and maker. Long out of print, this masterpiece of design was first published in 1967; used copies can be found today at rare book prices. It has also been republished in a modified paperback form, that contains some of the original content at a smaller scale. – Kevin Kelly
FROSTGRAVE – AN APPROACHABLE MINIATURES GAME IN THE SPIRIT OF OLD SCHOOL DUNGEON DELVERS
Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City by Joseph A. McCullough (author) and Dmitry Burmak (illustrator) Osprey Publishing 2015, 136 pages, 7.7 x 9.9 x 0.6 inches (hardback)
With the great success of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, the popularity of shows like Stranger Things riding a growing 80s nostalgia wave, and the success of game-based YouTube channels like Tabletop and Critical Role, there’s no doubt that we are in a tabletop/RPG gaming renaissance.
Two of the hallmarks of modern fantasy, sci-fi, and horror games are faster game play and more streamlined rules. The skirmish game, played with small numbers of miniatures, and the hybrid board game, combining miniatures and a game board, are all the rage these days. Into this moment of 80s D&D nostalgia and newfound enthusiasm for tabletop gaming comes a game that seems designed to hit all of the sweet spots: Osprey Publishing’s Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City.
Everything about Frostgrave is about economy. The book itself, gorgeously and profusely illustrated by Russian artist Dmitry Burmak, is compact, under 8 x 10, and only 136 pages. The backstory is simple, but highly evocative, the rules are basic and concise, trading off realism for fun. To play, you need only this inexpensive rulebook, around ten miniatures for your warband (taken from any 28mm fantasy range), and whatever terrain and random monsters you might encounter during the game. And some 20-sided dice and a tape measure. Frostgrave can be played by up to 8 players (2-4 are best).
In the world of Frostgrave, a thousand years ago, a flourishing city of magic, called Felstad, was plunged into a deep freeze after a spell massively backfired on a careless wizard. Now, a millennium later, the city has mysteriously begun to unthaw. Wizards from all over the land are flooding back, flanked by small warbands to protect them as they loot the city of its treasures and ancient magic. The Frostgrave game does an impressive job of boiling down the dungeon-delving experiences that many of us remember as D&D-playing teens. The goal of the game is to take your wizard (armed with a series of spells that you have chosen) and his/her warband into the city to try and recover as much treasure as possible. You have to locate the treasure and move it off to your table’s edge. Along the way, you fight competing wizards and random monster encounters and you overcome traps. There is no Dungeon Master in Frostgrave. The monsters are generated on a random encounter table. Even though the rulebook is modest in size, they still managed to pack in a campaign system and a number of scenarios. There’s a sweet little bestiary, too. Frostgrave gets most of it narrative/RPG elements through campaigning over multiple games. You also get to spend your acquired treasure between games so that you can hire better warband members, buy magical items, etc.
Frostgrave is not D&D. It’s a miniatures game, not an RPG. But it still manages to offer a lot of the essence of the retro fantasy RPG experience in a tabletop game that’s quick and easy to play, without a lot of upfront investment. If you’ve been thinking about getting into (or back into) tabletop gaming, Frostgrave is a perfect place to start. – Gareth Branwyn
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.
