Awesome Making

We recently saw how a table saw could be pushed outside of its comfort zone by using one to create wood spindles. Now, woodworker French River Springs shows us how he was able to make a turned wood bowl using a table saw, a drill, and a custom jig. The fun starts at 8:21.

Builder Jimmy Diresta decided to toss his hat into the ring for Dirty Smith’s 2018 Zombie Apocalypse Weapon Challenge. His entry is a thoroughly nasty metal implement with spiky moving parts designed to ensure the permanent deadening of the undead.

Andy of How to Make Everything has long had an interest in extracting metals from rocks. In his latest video, he dug up some copper ore from an abandoned mine, and attempted to pull out a usable amount of copper via a technique called electrowinning.

For his latest creation, knifemaker Kiwami Japan decided to see if he could build a blade using FiberFix – the ultra-durable, resin-infused tape that dries hard as a rock. Given the fact that he previously made a knife from gelatin, we had no doubt he was up to the task.

Most skates and skateboards require a certain amount of balance for their wearer to use them. But The Q’s crazy homebrew electric skates are more like wheeled R/C tanks with a platform for each of your feet, making for an easy – if not very speedy ride.

Blacksmith and blademaker Jake’s Custom Knives shows us how he takes old coil springs from cars and turns them into shiny new weapons. In this case, he transformed a section of the suspension coil into an awesome little samurai sword.

Custom apparel printer Upstate Merch shared this video of the process of printing some awesome “Chewy” t-shirts using a six-color process on an automatic press, which helps create smooth and precisely-registered images. Buy the shirt from Wunderground Supply.

Maker of woo-den things Bobby Duke Arts shows us how to make a real work of art using something as mundane as the pine 2x4s that are used as wall studs in construction. The result of his creative efforts is a pair of wings that make a sweet wall hanging.

Nexi Tech shows us how to make some truly unique speakers using value-priced parts. The electronics are set into organic looking enclosures designed by Ondra Chotovinsky. The 3D printer he used is the $500 Creality3D CR 10S, which makes great big prints cheap.

Table saws were designed for ripping straight through pieces of wood or other building materials. But maker Izzy Swan decided to see if he could do something unconventional with his saw. With the help of a custom jig, he managed to create turned wood spindles on his.

Modustrial Maker teamed up with Chris Salomone (of LEGO river table fame) to create an impossibly thin modern bench from glass fiber reinforced concrete. It looks like it was a ton of work, and you’ll have to watch the video to see if the finished bench holds weight.

A wonderfully satisfying bit of engineering porn showing off a slick modular tooling machine. The Bihler Leantool system is used in factories to form and cut wire and rolled metal into precisely bent shapes, such as chain links, hooks, and other small, high volume parts.

The Hacksmith takes on Tony Stark’s lifesaving device with his latest build. This impressive arc reactor replica uses ionized plasma to achieve its electrified effect. It looks spectacular, but it’s terribly loud, and there’s no way we’d strap this thing to our chest.

While the weight of a suitcase made from wood makes it a bit impractical, we still love the look of this beautiful piece of luggage that Ollari’s created from bent pieces of 8mm thick plywood. It always amazes us the kind of things you can do with just wood, glue, and some skill.

Maker Allen Pan of Sufficiently Advanced loves the look of plasma blade style weapons found in science fiction. He teaches us a bit about the physics of plasma, and how electricity can be shaped and contained into a beam. Check out Tommy Callaway’s plasma sword here.

Change You Can Wear takes a momentary break from from crafting cool rings out of coins to transform a pair of U.S. half dollar coins into a tiny bell. It’s not exactly a useful thing, but it is a pretty nifty conversation piece.

Translating to “wood-grained metal,” Mokume Gane is an 17th century Japanese metalsmithing technique that fuses layers of nickel silver, copper (and sometimes brass) to create damascus-like patterns. Alec Steele shows off one of the ways to achieve the slick effect.

Mesmerizing footage from inside QSC Forge, as a large ring of molten steel is gradually spun, flattened, and widened to form a smooth and perfectly round circle. Combined with a perfectly soothing soundtrack, the clip doubles as your daily 9-minute meditation.

Suitcases can be made from fabric or even metal, but there’s no more satisfying way to produce a bag than to form it out plastic. This brief video shows off the process of shaping a suitcase by molding a thick polycarbonate sheet around a heated form. More here.

Smartphones and tablets pack computing power in a small form factor. But if you prefer the look of a desktop computer, watch this brief clip from Creativity Buzz, showing how to build a tiny PC with just a few inexpensive parts. Full build details here.

Wooden threaded rods are typically used for things like broom handles or decorative items. Toolify shows us how to make a neat variant of a pantograph machine which can be used for routing threaded wood rods at different thread densities. If you need a nut to go with…

We know it’s not a living, breathing creature, but we found the wobbly antics of Delta Hack’s low-tech robotic “dog” stumbling across various obstacles to be adorable. We couldn’t stop rooting for the little guy as it flopped and fumbled its way through the course.

Pask Makes likes to build objects out of scrap wood. He recently attempted to make his own LEGO-style building blocks, and came to find it’s much more difficult than you might think due to the precision required to make them stack. Watch his earlier attempt here.