Awesome Making

For the 2022 Great Guitar Build Off, artist Uri Tuchman set out to create a unique musical instrument that looks like the iconic Les Paul electric guitar, but it’s emerging from a solid rectangle of wood. In keeping with the motif, he made custom square brass knobs for the dials. We love the engraved details on the pick guard too.

A hovercraft might sound like a complicated piece of equipment to build from scratch, but Project Air shows us how it’s possible to build one at home using wood, foam board, a plastic tarp, and duct tape. The key to the build is the powerful lift motors. He also had some help from his dad and fellow maker Matt from DIY Perks.

We’ve never seen a slingshot that looks quite like this one. Wood Art TG made this unique and elegant weapon from scratch. It has an elongated body, an elastic launching mechanism, and a finger trigger and can dish out some seriously destructive power.

Maker Maciej Nowak is back with another awesome miniature weapon. This time, he shows how he created a tiny crossbow that’s powered by a spring and a length of skinny sailing rope. The crossbow has an aluminum body for strength and fires skinny projectiles made from wooden skewers and nails.

Ank Creative makes miniature cars out of plastic. We’ve seen the DeLorean they made from a cigarette lighter, now here’s another movie-inspired ride. This time we’ve got a recreation of the Batmobile from Tim Burton’s Batman, carved from black plastic scrounged from a speaker cabinet and a few other bits and bobs.

Like many of you, we enjoy spicy foods. In this wonderfully satisfying video from a factory in China, we see how they combine spices, oil, herbs, sugar, and even beer to create mass quantities of delicious chili oil for hot pot cooking. While we couldn’t find where to buy this exact product, there’s a similar hot pot base available on Amazon.

Creative Workz takes us inside a factory where workers make beautiful chess sets by cutting, milling, and polishing marble. Each piece – from the squares on the boards to the individual game pieces – is made by hand. We’re guessing OSHA wouldn’t approve of the lack of respiratory and eye protection, though.

Black Beard Projects shows us how he created a unique weapon that looks like a single blade but can become two for dual wielding. Its halves required great precision to interlock and sandwich together so well. The design was inspired by Blade of the 47 Ronin, in which a mythical sword is split in two.

Despite its outrageous product placement, Pepsiman was a shockingly fun PlayStation game. Its protagonist was a metal superhero who had to run through towns gathering up cans of its sponsor’s soft drink to save the day. Minimaus Crafts created his own model of Pepsiman using skinny Pepsi cans as his medium.

Scott from Wonder World was fascinated by a video that showed how large metal spheres are made using explosive hydroforming. Here, he dives deeper into the process, along with other methods used for making spheres from steel, such as the shiny art pieces made by Shenzhen Maoping Sculpture Arts.

Adam from North of the Border was trying to come up with a way to sculpt Sonic the Hedgehog that was different from what’s already out there on the internet. So he created a clay sculpture of SEGA’s mascot in his iconic “Naruto run” pose, then covered the figure with flocking to give him a delightfully fuzzy blue finish.

Ghost in the Shell fans will recognize this spider-like mech as Tachikoma. The walker-roller tank turned up in the Stand Alone Complex universe, offering personnel transport and a mobile weapons platform. DanCreator built a giant cardboard version of the mech. Like his Scopedog, it’s big enough for him to ride inside of.

Concrete seems like a strange material to build a boat out of. But apparently, they are a thing and can float if they displace enough water to keep them buoyant. Peter Sripol and his pals attempted to build a remote-controlled boat out of the material with the goal of making the fastest concrete jet boat ever.

Basketball shoes are meant for playing basketball. But Marko took the concept literally and crafted custom sneakers out of a Wilson basketball. The leather and rubber from the ball look like they were difficult to work with, but the finished shoes look like they were worth the effort. That flame paint job is sweet!

Placing a one-way mirror in front of a regular mirror can create an infinite reflection illusion. It’s typically used to make glitzy disco-style lighting, but in this video from Wiz’s Woodwork, he shows us how to use the effect to make it look like his coffee table leads down a very long mine shaft.

Making things from wood takes time. But if you’re a stop-motion animator like Omozoc, everything goes much, much faster. In the latest video from their Stop Motion Woodworking series, they created a small tray using nothing a thumb and an index finger as tools.