Awesome Diy

After building himself an F1 car out of soda cans, builder The Q decided to make himself another cool, but highly-impractical vehicle. This time, he spent over 200 hours building a bicycle entirely out of wood and glue – including the frame, wheels, chain, seat and pedals.

’80s kids might remember Atari’s classic Star Wars arcade machine. The sit-down cabinet version always had a line at our local arcade, and it’s become quite collectible, with prices upwards of $7,000. Retro Recipes decided to replicate the machine using parts from 1upArcade’s $400 standup version of the game.

Raphaël makes incredibly detailed papercraft models for his YouTube channel Epic Cardboard Props. In this clip he walks us through the process of building a miniature of Han and Chewie’s ship. He’s also made a cardboard Death Star and an X-Wing Fighter, among other things. He sells DIY templates for his models here.

There are countless lens add-ons for smartphones, many of which are under $10. But if you’re really, really cheap, or just like to hack stuff, Chris Notap’s video will show you how to recycle lenses from cheap thrift store cameras, with shockingly good results.

After building himself an huge 3D printer from scratch, Ivan Miranda thought he could do even better. The new version features a more reliable, and lighter weight bed mechanism, and greater rigidity for the carriage and printer base. The goal is cleaner and more reliable oversize prints, and a machine that’s easier to work with.

Over the years, The Hacksmith has made some pretty badass gadgets, often inspired by movie props and weapons. This time, they built themselves an awesome metal gauntlet that looks like Iron Man’s armor, then upgraded it with the ability to slice through metal with a plasma cutter. Every workshop needs one of these.

After building himself a rustic keyboard from wood, builder of things The Q decided to make a matching mouse. He started out with a hunk of nice hardwood, copied the shape of a plastic mouse onto it, then got to work cutting it down, sculpting its form, then carving out its center to make room for its mechanism.

There are lots of off-the-shelf accessories for improving smartphone photography, but if you’re the DIY type, check out COOPH’s tip video, which showcases a handful of low-budget, homebrew rigs you can make from stuff you probably already have in your closet or utility drawer.

There are plenty of kits out there that let you build a tabletop marble run, but Daniel de Bruin shows you how you can build your own marble track using a spool of picture hanging wire, some solder, and a few household tools. Daniel previously built a room-size marble machine as a demonstration of how economies work.

X-Creation likes to put speakers into a kinds of unlikely places. After building a wheelbarrow boombox, he created a stereo sound system by making cutouts in a pair of gas cylinder bottles, and installing speakers, crossovers, wiring, and sound-reactive lighting inside.

Rock’em Sock’em Robots have been entertaining kids since 1964. If you enjoy knocking your friend’s block off, along with the sense of achievement that comes with DIY, The Q is here to show you how to build your own using cardboard, popsicle sticks, rubber bands, bottle caps, and paper clips.

Adafruit Industries shares a relatively simple, yet very cool project – a wand which displays a persistence of vision illusion when waved in the air. Naturally, the build uses parts from Adafruit, including DotStar LEDs, and a Feather controller board. Check out the tutorial, files, and code here.

I Like to Make Stuff has another project that’s incredibly useful yet fairly easy to build. His take on the mechanic’s creeper is mainly made of plywood, casters and foam, though he did add a tray for tools on the side as well as small flashlights on flexible mounts.

At the end of the day, just about any hollow enclosure can serve as the cabinet for a speaker. Whether its acoustic properties are any good is another story, but we’re intrigued by this Bluetooth sound system that X-Creation built into the body of a wheelbarrow. The design certainly makes it easy to move around.

There are lots of ways to keep tools organized, but there’s something very satisfying about custom-cut foam dividers that hold tools perfectly in place. The guys at Shadow Foam make that kind of dense foam, and recently used a huge sheet of it to create an epic wall for mounting and organizing all their Makita power tools.

(PG-13: Language) A while back, Joel Creates built a dangerously literal weapon that actually fires hot glue as projectiles. He’s since gone back to the drawing board, revamping its design so it fires a stream of molten glue, and making it a lot cooler to look at.

The G-Boy is a handheld gaming system that can play classic Wii and GameCube games with actual Nintendo hardware. Shank Mods shows off the kit that lets you build your own portable using the actual circuit board from a Wii. GMan’s slick, professional-looking system simply trounces those that run emulators.

We’ve featured lots of DIY building videos over the years, but we’re pretty sure this is the first time that the entire process was documented in animation. Woodworker Willie’s birdhouse building instructions aren’t exactly precise, but Slouch Show’s animated short is endearing, and has an amusing punchline.

Carpenter Chris Salomone finds working with laminated bent wood to be one of his more intimidating pursuits, but from the looks of these shelves for his kicks, we think he’s mastered the technique. He first routed and assembled a bending template, then layered, glued, and clamped in sheets of wood veneer until they set into shape.

Cloud’s Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII is one of the coolest weapons in gaming history. While a real world version would be too heavy to effectively wield, one made from cardboard is totally manageable. Watch as Crafty Transformer turns a bunch of corrugated paper into a lightweight replica of the iconic combat tool.

Make It shows off a very impressive DIY build project – a substantial desk made from reclaimed pallet wood. It features a hidden compartment in its top for storing his laptop, keeping it out of sight when not in use. There’s also a space for hiding a power strip.

Maker The Q adds to his collection of homebrew toy weapons with a toy that rapid-fires pellets using compressed air stored in a backpack made from an array of plastic soda bottles. We’re wondering how much further you could scale this up with more bottles.

Thanks to hoarding and panic buying, it’s become much harder than normal to find toilet paper these days. Household Hacker thinks the solution is to split your 2-ply rolls down the middle, giving you two single-ply rolls instead. We’re not sure you’ll actually use less, but it might be a short-term solution if you’re desperate.