Awesome Making

Ollari’s walks us through the process of transforming rough reclaimed wood into a gorgeous hand tool we’d be thrilled to have on our workbench. There are few things more satisfying on Earth than turning things on a lathe. Full build details on Instructables.

After showing us how to make a sweet cardboard Skee-Ball machine, Seanscrafts is back to build another fun machine to add to your low-budget home arcade. As an added bonus, you can just reach in and grab the prizes if you get frustrated with the claw.

Steel weapons are badass, but they’re not safe or kid-friendly, and they could get you in trouble at conventions or other public places. Foam swords are cheaper to make and easier to shape, but how do you make them rigid? Odin Makes has one answer: graphite golf clubs.

While you can buy an off-the-shelf wooden mouse these days, we much prefer handcrafted items, like the one that ThisWoodwork made from scratch, using an existing plastic mouse as a rough form for creating a sweet pointing device, complete with a wooden scroll wheel.

Do you love playing those Skee-Ball machines at Chuck E. Cheese’s? YouTuber Seanscrafts shows us how to build a scaled-down homebrew version of the game using sheets of cardboard and marbles. It looks like a simple enough weekend build, so get to it!

La Fabrique DIY made a simple tool to fish out the cork – or other small objects – from a wine bottle in case it falls in. It’s for a niche use case, but at least it’s easy to make. It’s basically three-armed tongs made from thin wire.

While we’re out here waiting for Flyknits and Primeknits, Primitive Technology took matters into his own hands and came up with the Protoweave. He made a pair of simple sandals out of loya cane so he can stunt in the jungle. And also protect his wrecked feet.

To celebrate the launch of Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Allen Pan of Sufficiently Advanced made one of the coolest – and hottest – gizmos we’ve ever seen: a flamethrower that spits fire when you throw a punch. Insure your fists, then find out how to make them here.

Prop maker David Guyton shares his favorite build yet: a steel replica of the Cirrus X-3 jetpack from The Rocketeer. It’s definitely not for beginners and takes a lot of time to build, but if you’re up to it keep an eye on his store for the free template.

A few years ago, Patrick Soriano made a replica of Thor’s hammer Mjölnir for a costume party, but he ended up using it as a headphone stand. He recently made a newer version that has an integrated USB hub, a headphone jack, a bottle opener and small shelves.

Porsche posted this cool behind-the-scenes video, which shows off some of the assembly process of its awesome gold and carbon fiber 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series. Watching the body meet the chassis was particularly satisfying, as was the Porsche logo on the wheels.

Make It Extreme doesn’t like drones spying on them, so they decided to do something about it, and fabricated an anti-aircraft weapon that uses compressed air to launch a net, ensnaring any pesky drones in its webbing. It seems a bit complicated, but it does the job quite nicely.

Sculpture_Geek’s latest project is a clay bust of Link – hero of time, wielder of the Triforce of Courage, and boy of few words. The actual sculpting doesn’t start until 1:25 in, but it’s worth watching from beginning to end if you’re a fan of the series.

Odin Makes shows us how to make cheap but great-looking replicas of the web shooters that Spidey uses in Spider-Man: Homecoming. They’re made mainly out of foam floor mats and craft foam. If you want to make your own, you can get Odin’s patterns here.

Oh goodie. Man at Arms: Reforged makes another weapon from Blizzard’s hit FPS Overwatch. Their replica of Roadhog’s signature weapon may be relatively simple, but they still painstakingly forged, shaped and sanded the hook instead of fabricating most of it.

A look inside the factory where craftsmen painstakingly select, attach, laminate, sand, shape, glue, and finish each piece of wood that goes into Bentley Motors‘ extravagant vehicles. We appreciate the lack of music or voiceover so we can focus on the work at hand.

CMM Laser shows off a nifty construction method which uses lasers to cut flexible corners into square steel tube, allowing them to be bent into custom shapes and angles all from a single piece, and without a bending machine.

Inspired by Jeroen Domburg’s tiny Game Boy-style retro console, Vincent Buso made an even smaller video game system. The Keymu has a clamshell design similar to the Game Boy SP. It’s powered by Intel’s Edison computer and runs emulators on Debian.

While 3D printers typically use filaments made purely from plastic, Make Anything shows off how a special composite filament called Timberfill can be used to create sandable, stainable wooden objects, like the cool acorn-shaped storage containers shown in the video.

A while back, How to Make Everything created every ingredient on a sandwich from scratch. However, he ran into a problem with items going bad, so he decided to see if he could make a sammie last for a year, using various preservation methods. We still wouldn’t eat it.

To show off his trip to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Piet Rullens Jr. fit a Raspberry Pi 3 and a screen behind a poster inspired by the series’ animated newspaper Daily Prophet, then programmed it so that the video plays when someone approaches the poster.

As long as you don’t get it wet or put it near fire, cardboard is a strong and versatile building material. The guys at Mini Gear show us how to make a number of nifty desktop vending machines using cardboard, rubber bands, and hot glue as their primary materials.

Get Hands Dirty made a beautiful two-player pinball machine mainly by carving wood and acrylic parts using the X-Carve CNC machine. It doesn’t have electronic parts, but the execution is still top-notch. Complete design files and parts list available on Inventables.