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Skill Set: Table Saw Safety

In response to our post Woodworking Tips from Laura’s Dad, there were several comments about author Craig Cochrane’s table saw not having a splitter on it to help prevent kickbacks, which can be dangerous. One reader, Mark Harrison, recommended a couple of table saw basics and safety articles on Popular Woodworking’s website. Here’s a link to them. Thanks, Mark!

The Mechanics of Kickback
Kickback occurs when a piece of wood is unexpectedly thrown back toward the operator. The lifting and throwing force of kickback starts at the back of the blade, not the front.

To get a better understanding of how this force is created, unplug your saw and mark any tooth with a felt-tip marker. Now rotate that tooth to where it just starts to rise above the table at the back of your saw’s throat plate.

If you follow this one tooth as it rotates it will give you a better idea how a piece of wood is lifted and thrown forward. When the blade rises through the table at the back of the saw it has an initial vertical lift. As the blade continues to rotate and reaches the top of its arc, the vertical lift begins to transform into a horizontal thrust. By the time the blade moves from the top of the arc back down toward the saw’s table, the horizontal thrust transitions back to vertical. By now all the force is moving down towards the table on its way to doing it all over again.

To help students understand how much lift a rotating blade has, I move them over to the 20″ disc sander (unplugged, of course). As the sandpaper disc rotates, you can safely sand wood on the side that is rotating down toward the table. But move the wood to the lifting side and the piece is immediately lifted up. A table saw blade works in a similar fashion.

Free Table Saw Safety Articles

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 9:30 PM

Categories: Woodworking | 5 Comments

Easy File Handles From Corks

This trick might have been around forever, but it was new to me: using wine and champagne corks for file handles. Ray Connors, a new member of the Hack Factory, was showing me his handcrafted lockpicks when I spotted his files. A very clever alternative to buying handles, plus you can use different corks for different kinds of files, to better tell them apart.

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 5:00 PM

Categories: Toolbox, Tools, Woodworking, Workshop & Tools | 6 Comments

Skill Set: Making A Butterfly Spline (Or "Arikata")


For our Woodworking Skill Set theme, we asked MAKE contributor Len Cullum to contribute some pieces on understanding basic tools and techniques. Here, he presses into service some of the tools covered in previous articles. — Gareth

Now that we’ve skimmed the surface of woodworking tools, perhaps we should put some of them to work. Below, we’ll outline the process for making the butterfly spline, known in Japanese as “arikata.”


When working with wider, thicker slabs of wood, it is not uncommon to have checking (cracks) in the surface, particularly at the ends. While there are a couple of ways of dealing with this such as filling the gaps with wood or putties or epoxy, I prefer to leave it as it is, treating it as a feature instead of a flaw. A bit of honesty about the nature of wood perhaps. But in order to be sure the checking doesn’t continue, it needs to be stabilized. A simple way to do this is to add an “arikata” or butterfly spline. Not only does this method keep the check from widening and lengthening, it also visually addresses the crack, showing that it was left open with intent. Arikata are fairly easy to execute and the end results look pretty cool.

What We’ll Be Using:

  • Cracked piece – Port Orford Cedar
  • Spline piece – 1″ x 2″ x 3/8″ cherry
  • Sharp chisels – 1/2″ and 1″
  • Marking knife
  • Sharp Pencil
  • Router with 1/4″ straight bit
  • Adjustable square
  • Angle gauge
  • Hammer
  • Glue and brush


The first thing you will want to determine is how many splines you need. Since I am a form-follows-function kind of guy, I try to use as few as possible, maybe one for every three to five inches of checking. Next, decide the size. Again, since I am driven by function, I like to keep them as small as possible while still doing their job. I’ll often cut a couple out of paper and lay them on the piece to find the right size. I have made them as small as 1/2″ x 1″ up to 1 1/2″ x 3″. When it comes to thickness, you want to keep it on the thin side, between 1/4″ – 1/2″. It doesn’t require any more than that to keep a check from running and more importantly, if you are using a different type of wood for the spline it might have a dissimilar shrink/swell rate. This is especially true when using exotics like ebony or cocobolo. The thinner you make the spline, the less likely it will stand proud of the surface part of the year, and below it the rest. So enough talk, lets get it on.

Read the Full Story

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 4:00 PM

Categories: Toolbox, Woodworking | 11 Comments

Make It Last Build Series: Robot plant winners!

Back in November, we launched a contest to build a robotic plant. We are finally ready to announce our winners!


The grand prize goes to Eric McKinley for his Robotic Fly Trap. This “plant” has a servo-actuated mechanical jaw that snaps shut when an unsuspecting bug lands on it. Eric’s contest page has lots of good information about how he built the project. He also has notes about some techniques that he tried using to detect bugs, including using the optical sensor from a mouse and a piezoelectric microbalance. Though he eventually settled on a distance sensor for this project, we could see these other techniques coming in handy on a future project. Great job, Eric!


Andrew Schamp came in a close second with his robotic plant, which is a solar plant that blooms when its solar panels get enough light. Eschewing a microcontroller for an analog circuit, his flower uses a straw for a stalk, with a small motor to raise it when the light becomes bright enough.


We’d also like to give mention to Tim Klein, who submitted a beautiful solar flower created out of salvaged material. His plant has solar panels to collect energy during the day, and glows at night.

Check out the Make It Last landing page to see all of the great stuff that Eric and Andrew won, from Microchip Technology, Energizer, and Maker Shed. And remember that there’s still time to enter the giveaway drawing for the third Make It Last Build, the Drawbot. To be eligible (for the same prizes awarded in this 2nd build) all you have to do it upload build images to the MAKE Flickr pool tagged “makeitlast.”

Thanks to everyone who participated in the build and the contest. We had a great time putting it together!

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 3:00 PM

Categories: Contest, Robotics | No Comments

Make It Last Build #3, Drawing With Your Drawbot


The latest Make It Last Build Series Dispatch, #6, went out today. It includes the last build instructions for this project. It covers understanding the parameters that you’ll need to consider in your machine (e.g. diameter of the spools you used and the size of your draw area), how to set up and calibrate your Drawbot, and setting up your first draw program. You can access the latest newsletter here.

And don’t forget to upload photos of your work to the MAKE Flickr pool (tag them: makeitlast) so you’ll be eligible for a chance to win cool prizes — see more details below and on the Make It Last landing page. Deadline for entries is 11:59 PST on Thursday, March 3, 2011. Any images are eligible, they don’t have to be of a finished, working drawing machine. We’d love to see your progress pictures, even if you’re just getting started!

Check out these great prizes you could win:

First Prize:
* MPLAB® ICD 3 In-Circuit Debugger
* Explorer 16 Demo Board
* F1 Evaluation Platform
* MPLAB® Starter Kit for PIC24F
* MCP 1640 Single Cell Boost Converter for Energizer® MAX AlkalineAAAA
* Energizer® Night Strike Swivel Light
* $50 Maker Shed Gift Certificate

Second Prize:
* F1 Evaluation Kit
* MPLAB® Starter Kit for PIC18F MCU
* MCP 1640 Single Cell Boost Converter for Energizer® MAX AlkalineAAAA
* Energizer® Night Strike Swivel Light
* $25 Maker Shed Gift Certificate

Check out the Make It Last Landing Page for more details on this project and all of the materials on our first two projects (the Datalogger and the Robot Plant).

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 2:00 PM

Categories: Contest, Robotics | No Comments

Two Open Source Hardware Makers Featured On Entrepreneur.com!

Big news in the world of Open Source Hardware! Two Open Source Hardware makers were featured on Entrepreneur.com! These are well known innovators in the maker community, Bre Pettis and Limor Fried. It’s fantastic to see OSHW folks getting the spotlight, not only because they make great stuff but they’re also doing great business. I’d like to see more videos like this and more OSHW makers featured and I bet you would too. Please share these links with anyone you think would find them interesting!

The Innovators: MakerBot’s Bre Pettis. The co-founder of a young Brooklyn company talks about innovation and open-source hardware.

The Innovators: Adafruit’s Limor Fried. The founder of the New York kit company talks about innovation, R&D and customer feedback.

Congrats to Bre and Limor!

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 1:28 PM

Categories: DIY Projects, Makers, Open source hardware | 1 Comment

Math Monday: Quilted Geometric Spheres

By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

Math_Monday_banner02_600px.jpg

Anabeth Dollind made this assortment of quilted balls, based on tilings of the sphere. These first two are spherical versions of Platonic solids: the dodecahedron and icosahedron, with twelve pentagons and twenty triangles, respectively.

Next are a spherical version of the icosidodecahedron, which has twelve pentagons and twenty triangles combined, and its dual, the rhombic triacontahedron, which consists of thirty rhombi.

And here are a couple that incorporate squares, the rhombicuboctahedron and the truncated octahedron.

There’s no limit to the possible geometric designs and fabric combinations. You just need a needle, thread, scissors, fabric, and stuffing. Choose a design, cut out polygons with a common edge length, and hand-stitch the edges. See what you come up with!

More:
See all of George Hart’s Math Monday columns

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 12:01 PM

Categories: Crafts, Science | 1 Comment

Hacked Clock Radio for Art Exhibition

Michael Colombo writes:

Recently I completed a hardware hacking gig for the French street artist Zevs. He wanted to take an old school Sony Dream Machine clock radio and enable it to play “Hip to be Square” by Huey Lewis and the News at a greatly reduced speed. The piece premiered along with several other works last night at Gallery De Buck in New York City, as part of Zevs’ “Liquidated Version” exhibition (running through April 7th).

I was excited to work on this project because it combined my skills in audio manipulation, hardware hacking, fabrication, and electronics.

The piece needed to look exactly like a standard Sony Clock Radio, except for two small buttons in the back to control an mp3 player and FM transmitter. The big challenge was to neatly fit all the hardware into the enclosure and make the design robust enough that the piece could withstand travel and continuous use both in the gallery and by a potential buyer.

You’d be surprised how many gigs there are out there helping artists and designers realize their visions. My tips for getting more of this kind of work: document your projects (and their impact) on your website, and keep your CV up to date.

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 10:30 AM

Categories: Art, DIY Projects, hacks | 3 Comments

Prospero, a Robotic Farmer


Dave wrote in with his intriguing agriculture robot. Are a swarm of robots like this the future of farming?

Prospero is the working prototype of an Autonomous Micro Planter (AMP) that uses a combination of swarm and game theory and is the first of four steps. It is meant to be deployed as a group or “swarm”. The other three steps involve autonomous robots that tend the crops, harvest them, and finally one robot that can plant, tend, and harvest–autonomously transitioning from one phase to another.

Prospero, Robotic Farmer

Posted by | Monday February 28th, 2011 7:00 AM

Categories: News from the Future, Robotics | 1 Comment

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From the Maker Shed

MSBUN36
Launch Price: $75.99

RedPark TTL iOS Cable Breakout Pack

Exclusively in the Maker Shed, this updated Redpark Breakout Pack for Arduino and iOS makes interfacing your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with the real world easy! This bundle includes the new RedPark TTL Cable for iOS so a TTL adapter (and soldering) is no longer required.

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