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 grow my subscriber base. To aid in this, I’m announcing a Holiday Giveaway Challenge. I’ll be giving away a bundle of inscribed copies of both of my tips books (Vol. 1, Vol. 2) and three of my favorite everyday tools: The Williams ratcheting screwdriver, the Canary cardboard cutter, and a plastic razor blade. To be eligible for the drawing, you need to convince three people to sign up for my newsletter (and then email me their names). If you sign up 5 (or more), you get two entries in the drawing. Contest ends Midnight, Dec. 11. Sorry, but this contest is US-only!
Force Conversion Calculators
On Digi-Key’s website, they have a set of calculators for converting between various units of physical force (newtons, gram-force, metric ton-force, and others). So, the next time you need to covert between Sthène and Poundal…
Torture-Testing Bench Vises
Bench vises are one of those common tools where people rave about the cheap ones available at Harbor Freight. I’ve always wondered how true this was. So, seeing this Project Farm video, I was anxious to know how the Freight would fare. Todd tested the following brands: Heuer, Ridgid, Yost, Wilton, Baileigh, Irwin, Forward, Central Forge, Olympia, Myoyay. Vises were tested for clamp load, durability from impact, anvil durability, and clamp load failure point. This is one of the few Project Farm videos I’ve seen where Todd pushed the tool to complete failure.
Sure enough, the $69 (at time of testing) Harbor Freight vise (Central Forge) performed amazingly well. Not surprisingly, the $500 (at time of testing) Heuer was best overall. Now that I see this testing, I’m definitely going to grab a Harbor Freight vise. When we moved to California last year, I left my two vises on the east coast and I’ve been missing having one (beyond my Dremel hobby vise).
The Basics of Photochemical Machining for Precise Parts
In this Applied Science video, Ben provides a nice and thorough introduction to photoetching small, precise metal parts, aka photochemical machining. The process is involved, not really for beginners, and this is a work-in-progress video. But, because there aren’t any vendors out there (that I’m aware of) providing this service for small-batch photochemical machining, this video is a way in if you need to consider creating such small, precision metal parts on your own.
Bringing a Rusted Cast Iron Skillet Back from the Dead
Over on Boing Boing, Mark Frauenfelder shared this video on one of the many processes (basically they’re all the same with some variation) for reviving a completely rusty cast iron skillet. Years ago, I decided to revive the 3 very rusty skillets I had in the bottom of my pots and pans cabinet. I watched several videos and followed a similar process. It was so satisfying to bring these decades-old kitchen tools back to life.
The Existential Pleasures of Restoration and Repair
Good as new!
Speaking of kitchen tools, my wife’s handheld mixer died recently. I heard it seize up as she was making something downstairs. We could’ve just bought a new one (this thing is ancient), but I really wanted to fix it, especially as she told me of its lineage. This is the first and only mixer she’s ever had. Every holiday feast was made with this mixer. She raised her kids on this mixer. Her sister gave it to her. As I like to say, tools always come with stories, and this one has great stories. I took it to my workbench, took it apart, and had a look. I quickly discover that the wormgear that transfers the motor’s spin to the beater gears was frozen. Some WD-40 and and few gentle twists with the needle nose and it was working again. Easy! The beater ejector had long ago broken, so I fixed that, too. The mixer was filled with decades of dust, batter gunk, and thickened oil. I took everything apart, cleaned it, inside and out, and put it all back together. This process was an act of love, for my wife, and also for the stories this mixer tells. And now, will continue to tell.
Noteable Quotables
“I always work at the edge of what I understand.” -Musician, artist, Brian Eno
“There is nothing worse than a brilliant beginning.” –Pablo Picasso
Shop Talk
Paul Cryan writes:
Watching the Stumpy Nubs vid on oscillating tools, I thought about getting mine out and seeing if it could solve some of my “learning issues” with 3D printing. Not only did my Dremel Multi-Max MM40 fit with a Diablo HCS flexible adhesive scraping blade do beautiful work cutting away support material from PLA prints, but I’m pretty sure it will work to get those stubborn PETG prints to release from the PEI print surfaces I’ve got on all my printers. To my surprise, at a shallow angle of attack (e.g., < ~30 degrees) the oscillating adhesive blade doesn’t seem harmful to the print surface, despite its keen front edge, and it wiggles under really stuck PETG. As pointed out in the Stumpy Nubs video, the oscillating blade can be grabbed without danger. I think it might become my new favorite way of releasing sticky 3D prints so that I don’t damage the surfaces of my printers.
***
Reader Kristian Reinhart (who was the winner of last year’s holiday tips challenge) sent a batch of new tips. Here are a few:
* The quickest non-chemical way I’ve found to clean up the surface of 3D prints (especially flats or edges on FDM prints) is using a snap-off blade and scraping over the surface. Much less hassle than sandpaper. Card scrapers, especially small ones, also work great, and depending on their shape and the shape of the print, shape do so far better than the snap-off blades, but they’re not as ubiquitously available and require maintenance.
* When lending tools or other things, I take a picture and edit it to write down the name of the recipient, then I store those pictures in a separate folder on my phone. That way, I always know exactly what I lent out to whom, and from the date of the picture, when.
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.
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.
Good as new!
