Gareth's Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales - Issue #18

Wrapping a Molly, a Farmer's Eye, and other Wire Rope Tricks

Twisting up a "Farmer's Eye" from wire rope.

In another lyrical and informative Essential Craftsman, Scott talks about his time as a logger, the lingo of logging, and demonstrates how to wrap a "Molly" and a "Farmer's Eye" from wire rope.

A Tape and Glue Trick

Temporarily glue two objects together with masking tape and super glue.

Anne of All Trades posted this trick (which she got from April Wilkerson). If you want to temporarily join two workpieces, lay down some masking tape on each piece and then superglue those pieces together. This should be strong enough to hold them together but they can easily be pried apart and the tape can be removed without any impact to the workpieces.

Better Helping Hands

Sometimes you need lots of hands.

On the most recent Cool Tools "Show and Tell" with Donald Bell, Becky Stern shows off the her Hobby Creek Helping Hand Tool ($39 on Amazon). I love these helping hands made from Loc-Line. I did a Maker Faire workshop years ago on making your own using little more than a chunk of aluminum and some Loc-Line parts. Here's a Jeremy Cook video on making your own.

Router Bit Holder/Guide

Routers at a glance.

On the Facebook group, Shop Hacks, member Bob Commack shared this router bits storage rack that he and his young son made. They had the bright idea of edging the rack with the bits so that, at a glance, they could see the cut of each bit type.

Cooling Your Pi

Look how the Fan SHIM just plugs into the Pi's I/O pins.

On the ExplainingComputers channel, Christopher looks at a number of different cooling solutions for Raspberry Pi computers, from adding passive heat sinks, to cooling fans, to a full-on PC-like cooling tower. I really like the Pimoroni Fan SHIM solution (seen above). $17 on Amazon.

A Writer's Warm-Up Trick

I have learned a number of cool writer tricks from my friend, Richard Kadrey, over the years. Here is one he recently posted: "If I'm having a hard time getting started with work, I'll type a page or two from a book I like, just to get words running through my brain. For example, yesterday I typed a page from Charlie Huston's A Dangerous Man. This technique works 99% of the time for me." BTW: If you like urban horror, check out Richard's Sandman Slim series.

Must-See Maker TV: How Pencils are Made

That's not a pencil, that's a freakin' magic wand!

It's amazing how much we background so many marvels in our lives. You may not think of the lowly wooden pencil as being a marvel, but you might change your mind after watching this video and seeing the rather involved process by which they are made. In this Faber-Castell promo video, they run through all of the steps in making regular and colored pencils. It is oddly uplifting.