Tools Archive
Cutting Steel with a Skil Saw Blade
I’m am bolting a bunch of scrap steel together to make an anvil and I need the pieces to fit as tightly together as possible so I’ve been milling the surfaces on the CNC mill. I created a piece with a horn and step and I needed to create
DIY Table Saw Dust Collector
I am very careful with saw dust in my workshop ever since discovering that I was allergic to it several years ago. However, I’ve gotten tired of dragging my large shop vac from machine to machine in my workshop for dust collecting when cutting wood. I realized that I
Converting Welch Allyn Otoscope & Opthalmoscope to “C” Batteries
Like many small New England towns we don’t have curbside pickup for our trash, instead we bundle everything up and take it to the town dump on Saturdays. This would seem like an inconvenience but, also like many small New England towns, our town dump includes a “Swap Shop.”
DIY Vibratory Tumbler
My latest feat of post-apocalyptic engineering. Post-apocalyptic engineering is when you use parts on hand no matter what. There is no going to the hardware store because THERE IS NO HARDWARE STORE!! When I built the Girl Genius Radio Theater Microphone I had some brass plates water-jet cut and I
Car Carrier Trailer
If you’ve visited here before you know that one of my long term projects is to built a fully road-able steam powered automobile. In addition to requiring a great deal of research, such a project requires tools. I will need machine tools such as a lathe and a milling
Gas Mask Sawdust Respirator
Update: Sometimes when I'm working in the shop I just need to wear a respirator for a short period. For instance if I just need to walk into the paint area to shoot a second coat on a small part or make a quick cut on the table saw
How to Make a Large Flash Diffuser
Making nice photographs when all you have for lighting is a bunch of tungsten shop lamps can be a real challenge. It is particularly hard to photograph polished brass under these conditions. So this weekend I set out to build a flash diffuser to improve the quality of the photography
How to Make a Cheap Lightbox
For many of my recent projects I have found myself in need of a lightbox so I took a couple of hours from working on my latest project to put together this one. I used a piece of glass from the old Xerox machine that I bought for ten dollars