45 minute kayak paddle We recently moved to within a quarter mile of a public boat launch, so I ordered an inflatable kayak. I have to tested it yet, but I know that the 3-year old will want her own paddle. I took a cedar fence picket and some round paint cans. I used the cans to mark some… Read More
Friction folder knives I recently finished the second of two friction folder knives that I’ve been working on. They started as 1095 high-carbon steel blanks that I cut out with a jigsaw. I ground them on a belt sander with ceramic belts, then heat treated them. Here’s the batch right after hardening. After hardening, I tempered them in… Read More
Battery powered speaker We’ve all seen (and heard) the battery bluetooth speakers. I wanted to make one that was still portable, but a bit more serious. Here’s my drill-battery powered speaker. It all started with the drill battery. It’s just sitting there, high-powered and easy to recharge. I found a thingiverse file that fit my ryobi battery. I… Read More
The five board bench I visited my brother over the break. He, having recently moved, had only 2 chairs. So while the girls went out on the town, we trekked to the Home Depot and bought enough white pine for some benches. This is what the big bench looks like. We started by measuring the chairs he already had.… Read More
Turned and carved cherry cup Last night I wanted to make knives, but my belt sander is too loud. Instead I made this. It is a turned and carved cup in pincherry. This is my second cup ever and I must say it turned out better than the last one. An important focus for me here was to make the… Read More
Fancy shortlinks My most recent project is a bit more difficult to show. Instead of using steel tools to make wood a different shape, this one is all in bits and bytes. I wanted a simpler way to share links to this blog, so I bought another domain (I know, this hobby is getting expensive). After much… Read More
Meet the muddlers This is a mini muddler: for making short drinks. What is a muddler? A bartender’s tool for crushing leaves and berries so the juices can escape into your glass. Big brother muddler: for muddling or beating up intruders. Baseball bat muddler, for home runs. Carved muddler for hipsters, Or anyone who likes facets. Emergency muddler… Read More
Single serve mini speaker Today I opened a package that I had forgotten that I had ordered. It was a $0.76 mini chip amp from China. I wanted to test it, so I searched to see if I had any free drivers. Lo and behold I had a busted laptop from my brother’s college days. A few minutes with… Read More
Fixing my improvements In my last post I talked about upgrading my 3d printer to use a better hotend with interchangeable nozzles. Since then I have broken and fixed my printer again. First the break. The new hotend has one of those pipe fitting clamp things that grabs on to the bowden tube (the tube the filament runs… Read More
Faster 3D printing Let’s get this out of the way: 3D printers are awesome. I have had mine for about a year and a half and it has let me build fun and crazy things like my homemade keyboard. But 3d printers are obnoxiously slow. It makes sense; it’s the world’s tiniest glue gun putting down layer after… Read More