Awesome Making

While we all know that plastic drinking straws are bad for the environment, it’s also true they’re good for making art. YouTuber Imaginative Guy shows off his crafting skills by turning a bendy green straw into a very convincing grasshopper fishing lure. He also made a shrimp using the same technique.

Luthier and carpenter tchiksguitars recently injured his wrist and spent 8 weeks wearing a cast that prevented him from using his left hand to grip things. But that didn’t stop him from building this beautiful ash wood guitar, which he made almost entirely with hand tools, with no CNC machining or resin casting.

Hungry for just a little pizza? Tysy Tube Constructions might be able to help. Watch as they build a teeny tiny oven using miniature real bricks, and is capable of cooking actual pizzas. This is so much cooler than an Easy-Bake Oven.

Artist Jason Freeny is best known for his anatomical cutaway figures. He’s also sculpted a number of other characters, including some goofy toilet plungers. In this extensive video, he walks us through the complete process of sculpting one of his plunger monsters from start to finish.

Tens of millions of golf balls are made every year. In this clip from Golf Town, they take us inside one of Titleist’s factories to see how they make their Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls. The process starts with a rubber sheet, which is formed and smoothed, then encased in a dimpled urethane covering before painting and packaging.

Inspired by the tiny plastic helmet on a LEGO minifig knight, maker agepbiz wanted to see if he could make himself a version that he could actually wear. He took close up photos to guide the creation of a 3D model, then gradually upsized the design it to a whopping 2020% to render its components on a 3D printer.

We love furniture that folds to get out of the way when not in use. In this video from builder Izzy Swan, he shows off a wall-mounted Sapele wood cabinet that unfolds into a small table. The items stored on its shelves stay flat as the table is extended, and he says it’s sturdy enough to hold a 5-gallon bucket of water.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a morning star is one of those ancient weapons that’s basically a spiky metal ball on a stick. It’s definitely not something you’d want to ever encounter on a battlefield. Though this teensy version that Koss Workshop made from a ball bearing and some screws is a little less deadly.

If you’ve ever walked through an outdoor sculpture garden, you’ve probably seen sculptures that move when the wind blows. Artist Anthony Howe is known for creating kinetic sculptures like these. In this video, he provides a glimpse into the painstaking process that’s involved in making these dynamic and precise works of art.

The pulp that goes into making paper comes from trees. But there’s a big difference between the way a paper mill churns out bleached white sheets, and the steps required to make paper from scratch. How To Make Everything walks us through the process. It took about 28 hours of labor to produce their first crude sheet.

Most airplanes run on some kind of fossil fuel. But physics expert Tom Stanton recently built an airplane that runs entirely on compressed air. The model plane is based on the diaphragm air-powered engine that Tom previously built, and its fuel tank is an ordinary plastic soda bottle.

Woodworker Frank Howarth likes to celebrate Christmas by making his own ornaments. This year, he took some wood from a maple tree and turned it into a segmented sphere on his lathe. He then used his CNC mill to cut the “X” pattern into it. The 6″ wood ball has a smaller wood ball inside that makes a rattling sound.

If you want an impressive work of glass art, you turn to Jack Storms, but his works take months to complete and cost thousands. After seeing one of Jack’s amazing Spectrum Cubes in Guardians of the Galaxy, ResinAce tried to approximate the effect using resin and dichroic film. It’s not as intricate as the real deal, but still very cool.

New York City sees many of its stop signs and other street signs vandalized or stolen each year. Between replacements and other projects, the Department of Transportation’s Queens sign shop makes over 100,000 new signs each year. Insider takes us inside the facility for a look at the work that goes into this laborious process.

Last Christmas, maker Jiří Praus decided he wanted a unique ornament. So he set about building a light-up sphere that can display colorful patterns. He built the orb using meticulously-soldered brass wires, 194 individual RGB LEDs, and an ESP32 microcontroller. Check out the full build details on Instructables.

After playing around with the insane 100,000 lumen Imalent MS-18 flashlight, the guys at The Hacksmith wanted to see if they could make something even brighter. Using 300 ultra-bright LEDs, they created a giant, blinding light that kicks out more than 1.4 million lumens. It isn’t particularly portable though.

The stuff in Spider-Man’s web-shooters is strong enough to hold his body weight as he swings from building to building. While we wouldn’t trust hot glue to do the same, we still wouldn’t want to be a criminal on the business end of Joel Creates‘ web-slinger, which can even be worn while pulling off Spidey’s acrobatics.

If you’re going to park your butt on an outdoor bench in the winter, it can be a jarring experience. HomeMadeModern wanted to improve upon the basic design, so he embedded a heated rubber mat in a DIY concrete bench. Heated seats are great in cars, so we imagine they’d be just as pleasant outdoors.

Maker Ivan Miranda’s electric off-road vehicle is built more like a tank than a skateboard, riding on motorized, 3D-printed tracks instead of wheels. The drivetrain engineering is impressive, but is it powerful enough to climb a hill while he’s riding on it?

A truncated icosidodecahedron is a polyhedral shape made up of hexagonal, decagonal, and square faces. Maker Michael Mikkelson shows how he made one of the polygonal globes from laser-cut birch plywood, 3D-printed connectors, and 360 screws. Up for the challenge? Head to Instructables for the full build instructions.

Most books have covers made from thick paper, though you might find some vintage ones made from wood. What you won’t find are any books with covers made from cast aluminum. Black Beard Projects teamed up with Nerdforge to create just that, and the result is a impressive work of readable art. Watch part two here.

You’d think that creating a badge for a car would be no big deal, but in the case of UK luxury automaker Aston Martin, every little detail matters. Car fanatic Mr JWW visited Vaughton’s, the factory where they meticulously create each badge, and got to help make a custom badge for his special-edition DBX Q SUV.

Among his many creations, Paul from Jackman Works has made some ridiculously large hand tools. Now, to show off his new X-Carve Pro CNC machine, he built a pair of giant hands. We were hoping he might try and use them to pick up his oversize tools, but they seem pretty awkward to wield given their weight.