Awesome Making

John Wick and Heath Ledger’s Joker have both proven that a pencil can be a highly effective weapon all on its own. But it’s makeITcool’s job to make things cooler, so they got to work turning a saw blade into a tiny sword that stows inside of the body of a No. 2 pencil.

Artist Blake McFarland previously impressed us with his sculpture of a bear that he carved from wood and epoxy resin. Now he’s back with another amazing animal sculpture he made with the same technique. The finished piece looks incredible and now lives at The Founders Room at The Beacon in Topeka, Kansas.

My Mechanics was inspired to create a unique circular lighter after seeing a similar design from fellow maker W&M Levsha. They built this one entirely from scratch using stainless steel. It has a donut-shaped body that hides a wick, cotton and lighter fluid inside. A fake wick sticks out in its see-through center.

We love watching rusty old objects get turned into shiny new ones. In this video from Random Hands, they transforming a weathered railroad track into an elegant Japanese weapon. The process starts by cutting off a hunk of steel, forging it into a bar shape, then gradually shaping and grinding it into its final form.

Over the course of four years Benjamin Workshop created his dream car – a working replica of Ford’s Le Mans-winning GT40 race car. He’s posted numerous videos of the design, engineering, and build process, and now he’s condensed that all down to a 17-minute time-lapse. The finished car is truly a work of art.

DiesInEveryFilm saw a video of workers swinging sledgehammers with a flexible handle that are supposed to optimize kinetic energy. Inspired by the unusual tools, he decided to apply the same idea to an axe to see how well it would work to chop wood. His version uses a piece of thick aircraft cable for the handle.

Musician Rob Scallon has been working on a series of DIY instruments that can be assembled quickly and inexpensively. For this build, he and his buddy Simon created a makeshift piano in less than a day, using a bunch of spare guitar strings, tuning pegs, door stoppers, and other bits and pieces from the Home Depot.

Keymacs makes high-end keyboards. In this video, they show how LEGO bricks and polyurethane can be used to create a double-shot keycap. They then use a CNC router to engrave the details and refine the shape of the mold, then make an additional set of molds to produce the contrasting letter embedded in each key.

This unique dress is worth far more than the sum of the 2652 pennies it’s made from. Textile artist Crescent Shay spent nearly a month collecting pennies and fabricating the copper and zinc dress by drilling holes in 1-cent coins and stitching them together like scalemail armor.

Russian bladesmiths Vasver Blades shows off the process of making one of their impressive handcrafted knives. This particular specimen is an imposing 20″ long bowie knife, crafted from D2 steel, with a titanium and Karelian birch handle and a mammoth tooth inlay. You can find a selection of their knives for sale on Etsy.

It’s easy enough to build a simple sorter that organizes coins based on size, but Daniele Tartaglia went the extra mile. The maker created an electromechanical coin sorting machine that not only separates and stacks coins based on denominations but counts and totals them as they drop through a curvy maze.

MR Custom Crafts shows how they made a keychain-sized hand grenade pendant by spinning a piece of wood on a lathe made from a power drill and shaping it with an angle grinder and a file. To complete the design, they machined a cap from a threaded brass pipe fitting and a lever from some scrap metal.

MR Custom Crafts created this miniature working crossbow with a design inspired by Batman. Powered by a rubber band, it can fire three tiny arrows at the same time, though we’re not sure of practical use for such a weapon unless you have three foes standing side-by-side, or you’re trying to hedge your bets on your aim.

Blackfish previously showed up how to make an Airsoft rifle out of plastic syringes. He also made a smaller weapon using the same technique. This plastic revolver fires pellets from its rotating cylinder and six chambers. A 9-volt battery drives its motor, and its projectiles are launched by springs.

Most axe heads look pretty similar – a thick, wedge-shaped piece of metal with a sharpened edge. But The Metalist wanted to build something a little different and set to creating a functional axe that looks like a human hand. This thing can dish out a serious knifehand strike. Karate chop!

You can buy oversize wooden dice on Amazon and Etsy, but none of them look nearly as rich or substantial as this handmade version by Gao Wood Lab. Watch as they transform a block of African blackwood and brass into a beautifully-inlayed jumbo die. Now, will you please make us a giant D20?

Woodworker Michael Alm previously showed us how he makes beautiful patterns from pieces of plywood. In this video, he shows how the technique can be used to create some truly extraordinary handle scales for axes and knives. We wonder if you could make a baseball bat using this method.

The Q decided that ordinary matches weren’t big enough for him, so he went ahead and made five giant-sized matches out of wood, rope, and a homemade mix of incendiary chemicals like the ones on a real match head. To complete the set, he built a wooden matchbox with a sandpaper striker on its side.

We’ve always wanted a proper cockpit for playing racing sim games, but most of the ones you can buy aren’t exactly living-room friendly. Maker Chris Salamone built this elegant sit-down racing rig from wood, and it looks like an expensive piece of modern furniture that doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

Modustrial Maker shows off how he built a sweet coffee table from concrete, wood, epoxy resin, and LED strips. The design is inspired by the lighting patterns found inside of the Death Star. Unlike the pure white lights of the movies, these ones can change colors to the beat of the music.

We have fond childhood memories of playing one of those tabletop hockey games and trying to smash the puck into our friend’s goal. Maker Sean Yan Muk of SeansCrafts decided to build himself a version of the classic game using cardboard, curtain rods, popsicle sticks, springs, and toy soldiers.

We throw out a whole lot of plastic, and very little of it gets recycled. Brothers Make shows us how they used ordinary kitchen appliances to melt milk bottle caps and other plastic bits to create a colorful and functional cutting board. They say the HDPE plastic they used is food-safe.

OUROBOROS ARQ loves to make miniature models of buildings and other structures using realistic construction materials. In this video, they show us how they built a modern multi-level house with concrete walls, brick details, a wooden staircase, and built-in lighting.