Talk to me. Tell me a story. Share me a tip. A tool.
Support my work by buying my tips books (Vol. 1, Vol. 2).
Take out an Unclassified in this newsletter to reach fellow makers.
Which Ratcheting Screwdriver is Best?
There are few hand tools that people seem to have more opinions about than ratcheting screwdrivers. And, now we have some decent testing of this everyday tool by Todd at Project Farm. Todd tests 14 different brands for efficiency, precision, and durability. Tests included working arc swing, ratchet back drag, magnet strength, bit retention strength, build quality (shaft wobble), shaft rotation in the locked position, bit failure load, and screwdriver failure load. Bottom line? The PB Swiss screwdriver, at a whopping $144 (at time of testing, now $178!), performed the best. This was followed by the $70 Linus Tech Tips driver. The Megapro and Williams also performed well, at $34 and $36, respectively. I have the Williams driver and have no complaints.
Tips on Quickly Learning a New Skill
In this video, engineer Jeremy Fielding drops a ton of wisdom via 26 strategies for learning a new skill, fast. Many of these might seem obvious (you must be motivated, mistakes will happen), but it’s in the unpacking of these ideas and the case examples he uses that make this video most valuable. And, there are a number of tips that one might overlook or not consider, like asking family and friends if they have resources related to the skill you wish to learn, not being afraid to ask someone to teach you what they know, and the idea that you only need to learn the essentials first, then you can dive in and learn by doing.
Making Clay Out of Common Soil
As my Southern mamma used to say: “Put a new wrinkle on your brain every day.” Here’s today’s wrinkle: I had no idea that you could derive clay, suitable for making pottery, from common soil. I thought you had to find a vein of red clay and harvest that. Sure, such clay is obviously preferred, but you can also render out clay using reddish soil (which has high clay content) or really any type of soil. All you need to do is suspend the soil in water and filter out the heavy materials. After straining through a cloth, you are left with clay.
Maker Slang
Jargon, slang, and tech terms from the diverse worlds of DIY.
Hero prop – In movie-making, a detailed prop designed for close-up shots and closer scrutiny from the audience. In contrast, action props are used where the audience will not see the prop in close-up.
Scumbling – In painting, to soften (the color or tone of a painted area) by overlaying opaque or semi-opaque color applied thinly and lightly with an almost dry brush. I learned this one from my artist wife, Angela White.
Weeding – In vinyl cutting, the act of removing all of the unwanted vinyl around your cut design.
TOYS! Better Sink Strainer
I watched a video a few weeks ago on Cool Tools where Donald Bell extolled the virtues of this OXO sink strainer. Like him, I hate the design of most metal-basket strainers. I ordered one of these and was so impressed with it that I wrote a Boing Boing post about it. Hundreds of BB readers followed suit and many of them are as happy with theirs as I am with mine, so I thought I’d share it here, too.
I made two racks for my Stanley and Harbor Freight sorting boxes. One I welded and later decided it was way overbuilt. Too heavy especially once loaded with full trays of screws, etc. The second one I built a simple frame from 2 x 4s, then slid small shelves out of thin material like Masonite across both sides. It may not be as easy as baker racks, but I’m pretty sure it’s the cheapest way to build a rack in terms of materials. Plywood would be nicer all around, but 2x4s are cheap new, and almost free used.
***
Reader Jim Landis wrote:First, thanks for all the fascinating information you keep publishing. I’m a big fan. I’m sure others have discovered this, but some readers might find it useful. When I’m knocking together a quick model out of soda straws and paper clips, etc to get a feel for a project, 1 centimeter to 2 inches is a very convenient scale to use.
1. It’s easy to double or halve numbers without too much mental effort.
2. There’s always a ruler nearby with both inches and centimeters marked in parallel.
3. It’s very close to a 1:5 scale, so models are a nice size for desktops. For context, the original GI Joe dolls, -ahem- action figures, were 1:6 scale.
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.
There are good bars, bad ones, and then there are destinations. I’ve been to many tiki bars, but Smuggler’s Cove stands out. In the heart of San Francisco, Smuggler’s Cove is an oasis. From the outside it looks like a weird office building with blacked out windows. Yet when you step inside you are teleported to paradise. It’s small, warm, and since I left the Bay Area, I dream about their drinks. Without question this is one of my favorite places in the world, and this book manages to capture that.
The book has you drinking your way through tiki history, starting with the birth of tiki and moving to the modern tiki revival, with recipes at every step of the way. Topics include the importance of rum, getting the right tiki look and feel, and the creation of the Smuggler’s Cove bar itself. And then there are the drinks.
If you like a good cocktail you’re going to find something here that interests you. Grog, Scorpion Bowls, Mai Tais, punch, and Zombies all filled with fresh juice and booze. One thing you’ll learn from reading this book and trying their drinks is that a tiki cocktail doesn’t have to be sickeningly sweet. They’re balanced, delicious, and complex. If you’re into tiki, cocktail culture, or just delicious fancy drinks, you should get this book. No question. Beautiful photography, in-depth recipes, the book’s amazing. But… (pause for effect) they left out my favorite Smuggler’s Cove drink.
On various occasions I’ve worked my way through their menu, trying dozens of their signature cocktails. The one that always stood out was their Painkiller. It’s a coconutty, sour, sweet, spicy concoction that cures all ailments. It was the first recipe I looked for when I picked up my copy, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I wanted to cry. Buy this book for every other recipe, but until they unveil their secret formula, here’s the closest I’ve been able to get to replicating it.
1oz Smuggler’s Cove Coconut Cream (recipe found in book) 1oz Fresh squeezed orange juice 4oz Pineapple juice 2, 3, or 4 oz of Pusser’s Navy rum (depending on how much pain you’re in) Top with fresh grated nutmeg Serve in your favorite tiki mug filled with crushed ice – JP LeRoux
HIERONYMOUS BOSCH: COMPLETE WORKS – A VISUAL MARVEL, AN ENLIGHTENING READ
Hieronymous Bosch: Complete Works by Stefan Fischer (author) and Hieronymus Bosch (artist) Taschen 2016, 300 pages, 9.7 x 13.1 x 1.2 inches
It is, perhaps, fitting that we know the date of Heironymous Bosch’s death while his date of birth remains unclear. We know that Bosch died 500 years ago and so much of what he left us is directly concerned with the afterlife or at least the spiritual journeys that humanity takes to the endpoint of life. The artwork of Bosch is wholly concerned with Christian allegory of the most human, inhuman, and superhuman variety. When one comes to behold a Bosch masterpiece, the lives of saints and the woes of sinners are the subject matter, and sometimes they are one and the same. There is a complexity that is easily identified in any one Bosch piece, but unravelling the intertwined religious and cultural allegories is beyond most. In Heironymous Bosch, The Complete Works, we are offered a unique opportunity, not only to demystify singular works of Bosch, but to take in the entire life and progression of this artist’s journey.
Bosch is a subject of his particular epoch and circumstance, as well as an innovator that transcends both. Granted access to the scholarly resources of the Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in the late-medieval and Netherlandish-provincial town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the layman Heironymous was given a unique perspective that very few outside the clergy enjoyed in this period. To look upon his works, from The Garden of Earthly Delights to The Last Judgement, one is not just witnessing the depiction of an event from scripture but rather a studied worldview, laid out in full, of a transitional moment between the late Gothic and early Renaissance.
Heironymous Bosch, The Complete Works may be primarily an art book at which one can visually marvel for hours, but it is well worth noting that the textual journey is equal to the imagery on display. It is genuinely surprising that this book is so very enlightening in the text by Stefan Fischer that accompanies the works themselves. While our modern tendency might be to shallowly interpret the many impish grotesques that populate Bosch’s work as overt evil by their displeasing appearance alone, in doing so we would miss the deeper religious allegory, the intertextual allusions to a tradition of religious artwork, and the genius of the original hybrid drolleries that Bosch uses to symbolize, in sometimes quite elaborate visual metaphors, the vices of humankind. Fischer guides the reader through these works, adeptly identifying not just what is being displayed, but why these creatures exist on the canvas. As a result, Fischer’s text becomes profoundly useful for navigating and better appreciating the meticulous detail of Bosch’s overwhelmingly busy scene-scapes.
Take, for example, from The Temptation of St. Anthony the creature on skates with a note pierced by its beak and a funnel for a hat from which extrudes a branch with a red ball tied to it by a string. Whereas I would simply be perplexed by this odd monstrosity, Fischer explains these details fully. The devil messenger bears a letter of indictment for St. Anthony’s sins and he skates to invoke from the local vernacular an adage similar to “skating on thin ice” in relation to the saint’s carelessness in his prior ways. As for the hat, it is the manifestation of these past sins with the funnel representing drunkenness just as the red ball tied to the twig represents carnal desire linked to the withering of the soul. One quickly gains an extraordinary appreciation for the complexity of Bosch’s oeuvre and it is thanks in great part to Fischer’s guidance of the readers through this fraught terrain.
This volume has been thoughtfully compiled as it includes the complete works of Bosch lavishly reproduced in both their entirety and with detailed closeups of particular portions of each work. Moreover, there are inclusions of near-contemporaneous works that inspired or were inspired by Bosch, as well as his sketches and even works created by his workshop followers. The sheer number of visual reproductions in this volume is staggering, and the physical book is a hefty object. While this review concerns the 2016 new edition, due to the timeliness of the 500-year span from Bosch’s death, Taschen has also just released a size-reduced edition with an increased page count. Whichever format one chooses to take in the magnificently bizarre works of Bosch, these releases by Taschen with the meticulous guidance by Fischer are more than collectors’ pieces. Just as Bosch’s works sought to entertain the eye while also teaching the soul, so too do these editions of Heironymous Bosch, The Complete Works seek to reproduce the spectacle of Bosch’s genius and provide the explanatory text necessary to truly appreciate the power of these otherworldly delights. – Stephen Webb
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.
