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MAKE Happy Yuri’s Night!
Yuri’s Night is an international celebration of the achievement of human spaceflight, named after Yuri Gagarin and in celebration of the 51st anniversary of his flight. Yay Yuri!              Adam Savage To Speak at Maker Faire Bay Area!
The Greatest “Show & Tell” on Earth opens in just 36 days! Early-Bird tickets are available here for a limited time. More:
         Want to Be a “Resident Goodnik?”
         Playing With UV-Cured Resin
[photos by Trammell Hudson and William Ward]          Honor the Exotic Pliers Wire strippers? On Brookelynn Morris’ video instructions for our zippy new Supercap Racer kit, YouTube user hevyAccel makes a thoughtful comment:
Thank you, hevyAccel — you are absolutely right. I am using the term “exotic pliers” from now on! (Check out the kit– these things are fun!) 
         The Concrete Lathe Project
The origin of mechanical precision is a classic chicken-and-egg problem: If you need a precision machine tool to make a precision machine tool, where do precision machine tools come from, in the first place? There’s the historical question—how did human beings go from sticks and stones to diamond-turning optical lathes capable of millionth-inch precision? And there’s the slightly humbler, more practical version of the same problem—if I don’t have access to a precision machine tool, for whatever reasons, how do I go about making one? Like maker patron saint Dave Gingery, septuagenerian Palestine, Texas, resident Pat Delany has a passion for that practical problem. Inspired by a WWI-era improvement in the expedient manufacture of machine tools by Lucien Ingraham Yeomans, Pat has been working since 2002 to develop a metalworking lathe design that uses concrete parts cast in wooden molds to achieve high precision at a rock-bottom price. Like $100-$200. Generally, the method involves casting the bed with slightly oversize voids to mount the ways and other parts requiring precision alignment. The parts are then carefully aligned using screws or shims, and fixed in place by pouring low-melting type metal into the extra space. Pat’s current design lives on Make: Projects, and you can check it out at the link below. [Thanks, Pat!] The Multimachine – $150, 12″ Swing, Metal Lathe/Mill/Drill More:          Open Source Hardware Association Announced!
Open Source Hardware Association.
And here’s a note from Windell, one of the OSHWA board members.
Exciting news and another milestone for open-source hardware! Related:
         Quick and Easy Drawbot For Kids
Artist Lorenzo Bravi ran a drawbot class for kids as part of the Minimondi Festival in Parma, Italy. His design uses a battery powered milk frother with pens velcroed to it, making some lovely Spirograph-esque art.          The Most Beautiful Homemade Device I’ve Ever Seen
I covered British electronics hobbyist Rupert Hirst’s lovely freeform headphone amp back in December, when it was still “just” a skeletonized circuit. Now he’s finished up by casting the meticulously-constructed electronics in clear resin, with equally meticulous care. He built a custom mold from 1.5mm cardstock, carefully sealed the jacks against resin infiltration, and mounted the wire frame inside the mold. After pouring the resin and allowing it to cure, he squared up the block on a belt sander, chamfered the edges with a router, and finally polished everything up with wet/dry sandpaper and Brasso. Rupert’s aesthetic—doing relatively simple things with extraordinary attention to detail—is always inspirational to me. Crystal cMoy Freeform Headphone Amp          More Recent Articles |
