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Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.
Comparing Circular Saw Blades
In this Project Farm video, Todd tests 15 different circular saw blades to find out which ones are the best. He tested blades for performance in ripping 2×4 lumber (before and after striking nails) and compared for performance while cutting through oak and ripping an 8’ pressure-treated 4×4. Bottom line? The Makita blade ($10) was best overall. The Spyder also performed surprisingly well for its $5 price tag (at time of testing), although that price is currently over $12 each, so look for it on sale. Doing a web search, I see it’s available at some e-tailers for under $7.
Cutlist Optimizer
Speaking of cutting things. If you have a woodworking project that involves a fairly complicated cut list, there is a free app called Cutlist Optimizer. It allows you to both organize your cut list to better keep track of all of your pieces and allows you to optimize the parts you can get from your sheet goods.
How to Calculate 555 Timer Frequency and Duration
Ah, the venerable 555 chip. One of the most useful and popular ICs in electronics history. Invented in 1971, released in 72, it remains a go-to solution for a myriad of timer, delay, pulse, and oscillation applications. In this Digi-Key video, they cover the steps for calculating the necessary resistor and capacitor values needed to achieve the frequency and signal duration that you’re after in your project.
The Power of Great Reference Books and Knowing the Names of Things
As both a maker and a word nerd (I edited Wired’s “Jargon Watch” column for 13 years), I’ve always tried to impress upon people the power in knowing what something is called. Knowing the proper name for something allows you to look it up, learn about it, track it down (if it’s a tangible object). In this Adam Savage video, he harps on the same thing. He does so while extolling the virtues of a book he recently discovered and loves, the Backstage Handbook. This visual technical reference is for stagecraft, but most of its contents–divided into tools, hardware, materials, shop math, electrics, and architecture–can be applied to all manner of making. You you get to learn the proper names for all of the tools, hardware, and materials it covers. Magic!
TOYS! StylusReach Flexible Flashlight
Cool Tools has launched a new newsletter called Tools for Possibilities. Every week, subscribers get sent a page from the CT book: Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. I was tickled to see that the first page I was sent had a review that I wrote on the StylusReach flashlight. The Cool Tools catalog was released in 2013. Nine years later and I still have, use, and love this flashlight. Good tools do that.
Newsletter reader Paco Hidalgo sent this in response to the piece in the last issue on water and baking soda as a CA glue accelerator.
“I first tried the Zip Kicker CA accelerator and found its smell very disagreeable, nauseating, and the spray bottle made it very difficult to apply just a small drop. I later leaned that cyanoacrylate glues “set” (polymerize) by the mere presence of trace amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere. This infographic explains.
“So, I concluded that if that is the case, then liquid water would certainly accelerate the polymerization. I found that just a drop of water from a toothpick or needle onto a blob of the glue does indeed accelerate the setting process. I never heard of using baking soda but that would add a foreign material to the bond. Why do that? [See comment below] There would be no reason to mix baking soda with water since water alone does a good job.
“BTW: A ‘secret’ that I learned from the guy at the counter of a mall hobby shop, is that CA glues will keep indefinitely in the freezer. I think the dry environment prevents the glue from polymerizing. The manufacturers don’t want you to know that so they tell you not to freeze their glues. I keep partial bottles of different types of CA glue, including LOCTITE, sealed inside a ziploc bag in the freezer that are at least 10 years old. I can take a bottle and use it immediately without waiting for it to come to room temp. It is liquid and works just as fast. I wipe the tip with acetone after each use and keep a common pin in the narrow opening so it doesn’t clog.
“I keep all my solvent glues, including Lexel, E6000, and Goop in the freezer too, with the same result. I think the cold environment keeps the solvent from evaporating and escaping from the imperfect seal that normally shortens the shelf life. I keep epoxy glues in the refrigerator. This is enough to prevent them from self-polymerizing.”
[Just to clarify: Baking soda is commonly used by itself as an accelerator, especially in the hobby/modeling communities. Besides being an accelerator, it adds more structure to the join. Large amounts of baking soda can be added to CA glue to create a very hard material. This soda and CA combo as a structural material is common among luthiers repairing bridges and fret boards. It can be sanded, drilled, etc.]
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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’m so happy to see my modeling articles in the latest issue of Make:, the “Props, Models, and Miniatures” issue. I did a piece on “trashbashing” (making hobby models out of kitchen trash) and a collection of modeling, painting, and weathering tips. Bill of Bill Making Stuff has a wonderful sidebar in there, too, with his own trashbashing and modeling tips. These articles present many of my top-level takeaways on modeling for tabletop gaming. Here are a few tippy top tips:
One Brush to Rule Them All — New modelers get sucked into the idea that you need half-a-dozen different miniature-painting brushes, from sizes 0, 00, 000, down to ridiculously small ones like 20-0 and 30-0. These brushes have so few hairs that, by the time you introduce the paint to the model, it has already started to get sticky and dry. It’s best to learn how to use a single brush to do the majority of your miniature painting work. A Windsor & Newton Series 7 Size 1 brush is a perfect go-to brush. Use the very tip of it for fine detail work, apply more pressure for medium coverage, and even more pressure for full coverage. It’s made for water colors, so it can hold a lot of paint. It just takes practice to master. Keep it scrupulously clean and pointed, and it will serve you for years.
The beauty aisle is your friend — There are all sorts of tools and materials for modeling to be found in the drug story beauty aisle (or beauty supply stores): nail polish agitators (paint mixing), nail polish racks (hobby paint holders), fluffy make-up brushes (dry brushing), nail polish remover (acetone), cotton pads and plastic cotton swabs, and much more.
Chop up and recombine — In my trashbash piece, I talk about developing an eye for seeing models in your trash (and how I turned a single crudites platter into a derelict sci-fi outpost town). In Bill Mullaney’s sidebar, he talks about further developing your ability to see specific shapes or textures within those pieces of trash. You don’t have to use the piece as-is. You can cut-up and recombine. Super glue and baking soda go a long way to “welding” all of these recombined pieces together.
Quick lens and canopy effects — Painting a lens or glass canopy white and then glazing it with a colored glaze or art ink of a suitable color (blue, yellow, red, green, etc.) effortlessly creates a pretty convincing glowing lens effect.
Micro-pens for eye pupils (and other tiny details) — You can use fine tip India ink pens to add pupils and other super-fine details to models.
Use art pencils and art chalks — Edge highlighting a model can be hard and takes a steady hand. One way of cheating this is using art pencils. You can draw on edges and raised areas to introduce highlights. Just be careful not to scrape off the underlying paint with the pencils. Cheap art chalks can be ground up and used for dirt, dust, mud, rust, and other weathering effects. Just wear a mask when grinding and applying. That dust is not your friend.
DIY Precision CA Glue Applicators
In more hobby news, this video offers a number of really great tips and tricks for using CA glue in model-making (and beyond). The real aha tip for me is the idea of making your own precision super glue applicators by stretching the barrels of plastic cotton swabs (there’s that beauty aisle again). Plastic stretching is a modeling skill unto itself. I can’t wait to try this out.
https://youtu.be/gmg9GGJFznQ
Impressive Guide to Woodworking Screws
https://youtu.be/SMYbr93rsCE
Joseph of Five Duck Studio presents one of the best primers I’ve ever seen on wood screws. It’s practical, funny, clear, and no-nonsense. He breaks down why not all screws are created equally, how the tip, thread, shank, and head each play vital roles in the screws engineering, and why things like cam-out, wood splitting, and screw “jacking” happen. You’ll learn why drywall screws are woodworking’s guilty pleasure, when to pre-drill, and how to avoid crushed fibers or failed joints. Bonus: He introduces the “screw with the mullet.”
The big takeaway: When in doubt, pre-drill. When you don’t, you’re gambling with your time and materials.
Engineering… IN MY MIND!
Well, I guess this issue has taken on something of a modeling theme. I’ve been working on a trashbashed spaceship for the tabletop miniatures game, Stargrave. There are dozens of non-trivial construction issues to resolve. It’s covered in weird angles, and there are structural challenges and constraints imposed by the scrap materials I’m working with. I’ve been finding that most of the design work isn’t happening at the bench. It’s happening in my head, while in the shower, going to sleep, taking out the trash, etc.
This mental workshop, where aha moments happen before the glue ever hits the scrap plastic, is a place of true joy and discovery. It’s quiet, recursive, sometimes obsessive, and deeply satisfying when a plan comes together. By the time I sit down to build, my hands are just catching up with what my brain has already figured out.
Concealing Layer Lines in 3D Prints
https://youtu.be/pUabxkiJAdE
Via Donald Bell’sMaker Update comes this clever video about how to design various textures into your 3D prints to hide the tell-tale layer lines of FDM 3D printing.
Shop Talk
Tips & Tools readers join in the conversation.
Michael Butler writes:
Sadly, this doesn't work on typical amber prescription bottles, but works a treat for OTC meds like Tylenol and other granular things with the "safety sealed for your protection" sheets stuck on top. Use a utility/X-Acto knife to remove half or less of that sheet, and voila, you limit how many pills get dumped out at a go. I find this handy in general and suspect it'd be especially helpful for people with certain mobility limitations or difficulties such as tremor. I know it helped me when I was recovering from a stroke.
My old Make: colleague, Michael Colombo:
I saw the piece about Japanese hardware stores in your newsletter, and it reminded me of this piece just released in the New York Times about French hardware stores. I thought it may be of interest to you.
***
Hal Gottfried sent a link to this piece by Mike Smith, on his journeys through ham radio. I like Mike’s emphasis on the idea that ham radio is less about chatting and more about learning, tinkering, and building resilient systems that work when the internet doesn’t.
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Gar’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.
