Awesome Making

Designer Paul Braddock of the Mold3D Channel demonstrates how to use objects made with a 3D printer to create silicone molds for casting items from a mix of metal powder and resin, giving them a sturdy and substantial part with a weathered metallic look with actual rust.

Carbide3D shows us how to use one of their cool desktop CNC machines to carve upgraded wood and metal parts for a cheap Milwaukee Fastback knife. It’s a great demonstration of how desktop fabrication tools can make quick work of otherwise difficult tasks.

The Q shows us how with just cardboard, a knife, a ruler, and some glue, you can make a simple sorter for coins of any denomination. To make one for your country’s coins, you just need to tweak the widths of the openings.

I Like To Make Stuff built his own scoreboard using an Arduino 101, LEDs, MDF and a ton of 3D-printed bulbs. For such a simple device, it took an extraordinary amount of work to make. No wonder these things are expensive. We’ll stick to apps and monitors.

ApolloCrowe from Carbide 3D uses one of their Nomad desktop CNC machines to slice up soda cans, and transforms them into parts for a pair of robot sculptures. There’s a lot of handwork involved after the aluminum is cut, but it’s still cool to watch the machine work its magic.

Peter Brown and pocket83 teamed up to make a pair of replicas of the amber-topped bone cane owned by Jurassic Park’s creator John Hammond. Brown waited for over a year to capture crane flies for the amber topper. Watch pocket83’s part here.

Primitive Technology has almost exhausted his supply of clay from the nearby creek, so he tried using the clay from termite mounds to make pottery. He found out that the termite clay is too smooth and plastic, but is good enough for simple pottery.

Carpenter Theo Cook shows off just how tightly and precisely two pieces of wood can be joined together, using an ancient Japanese technique called a “sunrise dovetail” joint, which avoids the need for nails or other fasteners.

Think that old washing machine in the alley is junk? Just give it to Jeremy Fielding, and he’ll tear it down and reuse its components to upgrade power tools, build clock mechanisms, or even make desk toys. He also builds stuff from vacuums and microwave ovens.

Shnatko shows off one of the coolest coffee tables we’ve ever seen. It’s got a matrix of 512 RGB LEDs he’s programmed to display a variety of animations, and proximity sensors which can be used to detect movement and objects, and change the display accordingly.

Sit back and enjoy as Jimmy Diresta uses a slab of damascus steel and sticks of walnut wood to craft a cool cane with a rippled sword blade concealed in its handle. We love the locking mechanism he built, and watching it go from square to round is tremendously satisfying.

Man at Arms: Reforged made a replica of the Cancer Nameless Blade, the oversized katana wielded by the infamous League of Legends character Yasuo. Seeing authentic blade patterns being made never ceases to amaze us.

While the object being milled serves no purpose other than to show off the precision of its fabrication, we’re still mesmerized as a solid hunk of metal was carved into a tiny desktop sculpture using a Matsuura MX-330 5-axis mill driven by Autodesk’s PowerMill software.

“I designed and printed this nice little blade guide. It’s a little bit short though so I’m going to use this piece of wood to bring up the height.” YouTuber DangerousAndAwesome captures the spirit of the Internet – spending way too much time on something useless.

Those fidget spinner thingies are starting to turn up everywhere, but rather than buy some cheap mass-produced toy, our old pal Engineer BrunS decided to make some of his own. There are few things more satisfying than watching metal shavings go flying as it’s milled.

He’s that ninja! diegator spent about 7 months making a replica of the mask worn by Metal Gear Solid‘s cyborg ninja. The mask has light up parts and its front plates have servos to toggle them open and closed. He’s also planning to make a replica of Gray Fox’s body suit.

Appropriately named metalsmith Alec Steele starts out by welding 31 layers of steel together, then heats and repeatedly hammers them together so many times that he eventually hits one million layers. He later turned the resulting Damascus steel cube into a karambit knife.

Please forgive us for posting videos with Flight of the Bumblebee three times in the same week, but this clip that shows the process of crafting a Vincent Bach trumpet mouthpiece from a brass rod was too captivating to pass up.

Even though it sounds like a sci-fi weapon, vacuum cannons are actually easy to build. The only “hard” part is sucking the air out of them to reduce the air pressure. NightHawkInLight made one using a 4″ diameter PVC pipe and a 3″ diameter end cap as its projectile.

This Old Tony was in the mood for a cup of espresso, only he didn’t have an espresso maker around. So being a highly resourceful craftsman, he decided to grab a couple of hunks of aluminum, and set to lathing and milling his own from scratch.

His conversational tone makes this project sound easy, but I Like to Make Stuff actually makes us four-eyes thankful for mass-produced eyewear. We sure as hell couldn’t pull this off. First of all, we’d need glasses. Second, we don’t have nearly enough clamps.

Miller Knives walks us through the process of transforming an inert piece of rifle ammunition into another, even more versatile kind of weapon – a pocket knife. Needless to say, unless you’re 100% certain the bullet is defunct, don’t try anything like this at home.

Sure, you can buy a NERF blaster for less than $10, but there’s something rewarding about making your own stuff. Here, Astonishing Studios shows us how to make a working NERF gun using popsicle sticks, straws, a syringe, and an ample dose of hot glue.