In the run up to Christmas our family went to Dickens Faire, and my son really wanted to buy a wand at the wand shop. I told him we could make one at home. Now that the Christmas rush has passed we’ve finally gotten around to making one. We chose a length of dowel … Continue reading
After finally getting the last parts cut on Dec 23 I had to go into a fabrication frenzy. I was constantly ducking out into the garage to do the next round of glue and/or paint. One of the real tricks with these cutters was getting the push plate positioned really accurately inside the cutter walls. … Continue reading
In this project I only had two disasters. I often keep my projects in sewing boxes because they’re cheap, stack well, have semi clear sides (so you can see what’s in them), and have nice rubber handles. The down side is that they do not have locking lids. That used to worry me, but … Continue reading
Every year I do some sort of Big Christmas Project. This year I decided to keep it kind of low-key. We have some pastry cutters in the shape of leaves. They’re nice because they let you stamp the veins of the leaf on, and cut the leaf out in a simple sequence. When we … Continue reading
When I was young we used to spend time at my Grandparent’s house. It was a farm house with a porch swing and there were lots of fun things to do. My Grandfather would tell the story of my first trip around the yard on the go-cart. I was very young and when I came … Continue reading
There’s something cool about a mechanical iris. The opening expanding and contracting like magic, the nice radial symmetry. Very fun. Lawrence and I had built the Solar Plotter, and although the output was very nice it has some limitations. Because we were using a large cheap magnifying glass the output lines were pretty fat. I … Continue reading
Retro Tech Journal 