Gareth's Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales - Issue #20
Gareth's Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales - Issue #20
Creating a Sanding Mask
First off, you have to see this Clickspring video to believe it. Clickspring Chris fashions this mindbogglingly beautiful playing card press for magician Chris Ramsay. In the video, Chris demonstrates an ideal worth sharing here. After he hammers a few rivets on a piece, he wants to sand them smooth, but he doesn't want to potential mar the surface of the near-finished card press, so he puts a piece of masking tape over the rivet heads before filing them to protect the surrounding surface. Here is a video of magician Chris Ramsay upon receiving the press. Needless to say, he is gobsmacked.
Inside Foamcore
Those of us who do hobby modeling are already intimately familiar with foam board/foam core and its many versatile uses. In this video, industrial designer Eric Strebel shows you how this material is used in product design and prototyping and specifically how you can even use it to cover compound surfaces.
Folding the End of a Tape Roll
In my brief career as a tips maven, I've covered a number of techniques for terminating tape to make it easier to find the end of the roll the next time. This little Reddit video shows a quick and gestural way of terminating the end. Personally, I use a toothpick across the end to easily find my place (without having to waste any tape creating a little end tab). [Sent by Michael Colombo.]
CA Glue Experiments
The team at King of Random often do things the rest of us wonder about but don't have the nerve (or time) to try. In this video, Nate wonders what would happen if you combined large amounts of Cyanoacrylate (CA Glue) with baking soda (a CA accelerator and binder) or water. Or both. The results are interesting, but not likely useful for anything other than... SCIENCE!
The Maker's Muse
Eugene Oregon artist, Andreas Salzman, takes the irons from old block planes, carves his own ergonomic handles for them, and then epoxies them together. He uses them for gouging, planing, contouring, and scraping schmoo off of his workbench. [Sent by Michael Colombo.]
Life Hacks: Print to Edit
We've covered going from digital to analog writing tools (e.g. the screen to a notepad) to switch up your writer's mojo. Here's another tip. When you're ready to do a deep edit on what you've written, print it out, move to another space, and read the piece that way. Having it in print really changes your perspective on it. Bonus: Read it out loud. It will help you to compose a smoother flow. I have a popular piece on Medium, How to Be a Better Writer, with many more ideas for improving your skills of written self-expression.
Must-See Maker TV: BPS.Space
Having been a devout rocketry nerd as a teen, I am in awe of what amateur rocketeers are accomplishing with today's readily-available technology. And then there's this guy. Joe Barnard is really pushing the envelope as he tries to, among other things, create fully functional model rocket version of ships like the Falcon Heavy and experiments with vector thrust control, silo launching, and landing model rockets. Impressive, jaw-dropping stuff. Joe also sells model rocket flight avionics based on his experiments.
Joe is doing all of this, among other reasons, to try and show off his amateur engineering and rocket science skills to SpaceX. He's looking for a job. Years ago, Make:'s Dale Dougherty and I had a conversation about how precocious maker kids in the future will have a body of impressive projects online to use as a portfolio for getting into a college or seeking a job. This looks like that idea in action. SpaceX, hire this guy!