Awesome Making

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.

Maker Laura Kampf is always coming up with creative ideas for her workshop. This time she built something she can take with her – a battery-powered soldering station that looks like something cobbled together in the wasteland of a Fallout game. It has a removable storage bin, work surface, lighting, and a magnetic alligator clip.

Discovery UK digs into the How It’s Made archives for this look at the process that goes into creating magnets. After melting a cocktail of various metals in an electrical induction furnace, the fiery metal is poured into sand molds, then cooled, separated, and charged with multiple electromagnetic fields.

As we’ve seen several times in the past, metalsmith Shurap likes to make Damascus from various metal hardware. This time out, he used hundreds of skinny fishing hooks to make a knife. The fine lines of the hooks resulted in an interesting sort of crackle pattern on the finished blade.

We live in strange times – TV sets are getting larger, yet we watch much of our video on smartphone screens. The Q went even smaller with this build – a teensy working television set with a wood and metal cabinet. He used an Apple Watch as the display, and its curved corners make it look like an old-school CRT.