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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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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.
Now in its fourth revision, this remains the best guide for learning how to draw. I used it with my son, and his progress was remarkable. It has also helped my own drawing skills. I actually looked forward to the exercises which are brilliant and fun. In order to draw you must learn to see, and that’s what this book teaches: how to perceive. Because this perception training relies on strengthening right brain activity, it can be transferred to any kind of creative work. In each edition over the past 30 years, the author has widened the skills she is teaching, so that this current version will improve your perception skills — essential for any kind of innovation — whether or not you ever sketch. And still, it remains the best teacher for anyone — yes, anyone! — learning to how to draw. — KK
A caution: as all of our students discover, sooner or later, the left hemisphere is the Great Saboteur of endeavors in art. When you draw, it will be set aside--left out of the game. Therefore, it will find endless reasons for you not to draw: you need to go to the market, balance your checkbook, phone your mother, plan your vacation, or do that work you brought home from the office.
What is the strategy to combat that? The same strategy. Present your brain with a job that your left hemisphere will turn down. Copy an upside-down photograph, regard a negative space and draw it, or simply start drawing. Jogging, meditation, games, music, cooking, gardening--countless activities also produce a cognitive shift. The left hemisphere will drop out, again tricked out of its dominance. And oddly, given the great power and force of the left hemisphere, it can be tricked over and over with the same tricks.
Drawing is a curious process, so intertwined with seeing the that the two can hardly be separated. The ability to draw depends on one’s ability to see the way an artist sees. This kind of seeing, for most people, requires teaching, because the artist’s way of seeing is very specific and very different from the ways we ordinarily use vision to navigate our lives.
Because of this unusual requirement, teaching someone to draw has some special problems. It is very much like teaching someone to ride a bicycle: both skills are difficult to explain in words.
Drawing as a learning, teachable skill
I firmly believe that given good instruction, drawing is a skill that can be learned by every normal person with average eyesight and average hand-eye coordination. Someone with sufficient ability, for example, to sign a receipt or to type out an e-mail or text message can learn to draw.
These pre-existing skills have nothing to do with potential to draw well. What the pre-instructions drawings represent is the age at which the person last drew, often coinciding with the age at which the person gave up trying to draw.
To draw the Picasso upside down, move from line to adjacent line, space to adjacent shape and work your way through the drawing.
Ideally (in my view), learning in art should proceed as follows: the perception of edges (line) leads to the perception of shapes (negative spaces and positive shapes), drawn in correct proportion and perspective (sighting). These skills lead to the perception of values (light logic), which leads to the perception of colors as values, which leads to painting.
The iconic battery-powered Panasonic KP-4A, my previous favorite pencil sharpener, is no longer sold in the US. As it happens, I had been growing increasingly disenchanted by the noise and poor job the device sometimes provides. So I started researching to see what was out there in the manual small sharpener space. After ordering about six different models, I settled on the KUM Long Point Pencil Sharpener.
It’s different than other sharpeners in two respects. First, it has two holes: #1, labeled as such, trims the wooden barrel, and #2 hones the point. It also has an automatic brake built-in so you don’t waste time and lead after you’ve achieved a perfect point. Besides being silent and great fun to use, it produces a fantastically good point. There’s also a nice clear lift-up lid to easily empty shavings.
the Alvin Lead Pointer is the best way to keep this type of pencil sharpened. I am an architect and use these pencils every day. I’ve had this sharpener for more than ten years and it still works like new. The pointer is small, making it ideal to hold in your hand while rotating your lead holder around the pointer. Because your two hands are working together, I find I have more control and there are much fewer broken leads. The cutting head is sharp and lasts for a long time. It only takes a couple spins and your lead is needle sharp. Maintenance and clean-up is a snap. Take the top off the body and dump the graphite shavings into your trash and you are done If you do break your lead in the pointer, just remove the top and tap it on the inside edge of your trash can to clear the broken pieces. Lead pointers can be messy because of the fine graphite dust, but my pointer has never leaked the dust onto my desk. I have used many different types of pointers from desk mounted to ones mounted on the top of an electric eraser. The desk mounted pointers tend to break leads easily, since you are moving your lead holder in a circular motion around a pointer fixed to your desk, thus you may move in a direction that is not compatible to the pointer and will snap your lead. The electric eraser type is good, but it does not stay sharp for very long. It’s also difficult to empty the graphite shavings and jams when you break your lead inside it. This pointer really is the best way to keep you lead sharp! If you work in an office, you may want to buy two — because it is so small and useful, your pointer just might grow legs. — Donald Moore, Jr.
Mars plastic erasers are the best. Abrasive erasers tear up the paper surface too much, and unless you have mastered pressing really hard without breaking the lead a mechanical pencil doesn’t draw that deep anyway.
The plastic erasers can also be cleaned with a wet thumb or a rub on scrap paper for neat work. I always find the “gritty” or “gummy” erasers get so dirty you spend half your time rubbing out their own mess. The Mars compound is stiff enough that corners can be used for fine work, or large areas erased with the flat end. The dirty, used portions just roll off as you use it and are cleanly blown/swiped away. I like the idea of putty/moldable erasers, but they get filthy, crumbly and horrible if kept in a pocket or bag. — Alan
Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.
