Rebuilt Keys: Jimmy DiResta

Maker Jimmy DiResta shares his modded keys at World Maker Faire NYC. His collection of handmade keys are a combination of his problem solving skills and creativity. They are a great example of making art from everyday items without sacrificing functionality. Jimmy is a designer and fabricator who can make just about anything, from just about anything. He’s a woodworker, he sculpts in resin, he welds, and builds with plastics. His hammer and ax skull and crossbone belt buckle started as one of his wooden carvings before he cast it in metal. On a recent tour of his shop, I found the sewing machine he uses to add leather fronts to his pants next to the high-end wooden display he was building for a pop-up gallery.

Jimmy is perhaps best know for finding junk and transforming it on the Discovery Channel show, Dirty Money. He and his brother search the city for unusual and lackluster objects, then re-make them to be sold at the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market. It is hilarious to watch them banter and hassle each other as they work on projects, but the backbone of the show is what comes out of the shop. The shop with the most interesting keys in NYC.

Watch Jimmy’s show Dirty Money tonight on the Discovery Channel at 10:30pm Eastern, 7:30pm Pacific.

Watch more videos from Maker Faires in the Bay Area, Detroit, and NYC.

Subscribe to the Maker Faire podcast in iTunes

, or watch the video on YouTube and Vimeo.

0 Responses to Rebuilt Keys: Jimmy DiResta

Sean Michael Ragan on October 13th, 2011 at 5:43 pm said:

That’s a fantastic short vid, B.

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Brookelynn Morris on October 14th, 2011 at 12:22 am said:

Thanks Sean. When can we make one about you?

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Gordon Wrigley on October 14th, 2011 at 2:38 am said:

I only own one key… everything else I need access to is now on RFID (none of it installed by me or at my request).

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VRAndy on October 14th, 2011 at 3:55 am said:

Keys are like passwords. If they go to anything important, you probably should not be publishing pictures of them on the Internet.

It is absolutely possible to recreate keys from photographs.

(commonly cited 2008 paper on the subject : http://vision.ucsd.edu/~blaxton/pagePapers/laxton_wang_savage_ccs2008.pdf )

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Anonymous on October 14th, 2011 at 3:46 pm said:

Holy crap, did you look at his portfolio? Extremely diverse and prolific with incredible design and craftsmanship.

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