Make: Online: How it's made Archives

Archive: How it's made

March 12, 2010

How ball bearings are made

Alan at Hacked Gadgets found this neat video that shows how ball bearings are made. All of that work to make what seems like a simple part! [via Hacked Gadgets]

March 6, 2010

SAMSUNG factory in Kaluga @ English Russia

These are where (some) TVs are made.. The SAMSUNG factory in Kaluga @ English Russia.

February 26, 2010

Use your drill press in reverse to make perfectly centered holes

Vik Olliver put up a great tutorial about how you can successfully drill down the middle of a shaft using a standard drill press and cheap vise. To do this, you drill the part backwards, by putting the drill bit in the vise and the part in the drill press chuck. The trick is that you can line up the vise precisely by placing the drill bit into the chuck upside down, lowering the tool, then using it to align and clamp down the vise. Once the vise is secured, you release the drill bit from the chuck (but not the vise), and put the part in the chuck. Of course, a lathe might be preferable, but sometimes you have to work with the tools you have! [via Hack a Day]

February 19, 2010

How-To: Make the key glowstick chemical yourself

I have lots of hare-brained projects involving chemiluminescence that are currently back-burnered because the chemical that causes the bright chemiluminescence of commercial glowsticks, i.e. trichlorophenyl oxalate (TCPO, shown below), is relatively hard for hobbyists to acquire. I've even gone to the trouble of setting up a business account with a major chemical supplier, establishing business credit references, and getting my residential address approved to receive chemical shipments from them. Just so I could log onto their website and order 100g of TCPO. Which I did many months ago. It's been back-ordered with their supplier since then. Who knows when or if I'll ever actually get it.

This video from YouTuber NurdRage comes with a lot of caveats: the synthesis of TCPO from trichlorophenol and oxalyl chloride is relatively straightforward as syntheses go, and the starting materials are much easier to acquire than TCPO itself, but they're still not at all grocery-store type compounds. And it's not a thing to attempt without the expertise, equipment, and facilities to do it safely. Plus the creepy "Jigsaw" voice effect that the narrator uses to disguise his identity doesn't exactly inspire confidence. There's nothing illegal about this procedure, as far as I know, but I think he wants to remain anonymous so nobody can sue him if they try to play along at home and end up burning it down.

Nonetheless, I was grateful to find this video in the tubes, and will probably attempt it myself at some point. Famous last words, anyone?

February 5, 2010

How vinyl records are made

For the last couple of years there has been a resurgence in popularity of vinyl records. Largely due to digital downloads rending the portability of compact discs obsolete, people are starting to gravitate to vinyl as the physical format of choice. In this short documentary from Nick Cavalier we get a behind-the-scenes look at the production of vinyl records at Gotta Groove Records, a new vinyl pressing plant in Cleveland, Ohio.

February 3, 2010

Lathing zen - making a vaccum hose adapter

I don't quite know why, but viewing detailed production process vids like this one, can induce a decidedly blissful, even zen-like state in my brain - and I've heard others report similar effects. Gfixler's above video, documents some quality time he spent with a Sherline 4400 CNC mini lathe - mistakes, mishaps, and all -

I needed a way to hook my shop vac hose to the square tube aluminum extrusion I recently made into a manifold for the Loc-Line tubing I'm using as a vacuum system for my mini mill. Here's how I did it.

Some might say it's a lot time to spend producing something as mundane as a hose adapter - but the satisfaction of using your own brand of hardware makes it very much worthwhile.

January 6, 2010

Wooden combination lock

Master crafter Matthias Wandel (famous for his homebrew pipe organ) made this clever wooden combination lock to demonstrate how combination locks actually work. He has a nice write-up at his site, and is selling detailed plans if you need them. [via O'Reilly Radar]

More:

December 30, 2009

How lumber is made

Ever wonder how you can get rectangular lumber from round trees? I figured that it involved a lot of sawing, but didn't realize how much handling was required. The video above is of the Jackson Lumber Harvester 3 Saw Vertical Edger. [via core77]

More:

December 29, 2009

How (analog) traffic lights work

MAKE subscriber Joe Kerman sent us a link to this video about how mechanical controllers for traffic lights work. This is from a Canadian kid's TV show from the late 80s (I think), called the Acme School of Stuff. I watched a number of other episodes on YouTube and found them pretty engaging and educational. [Thanks, Joe!]

Traffic Signals

December 13, 2009

Daft Punk helmet build process

Brandon has been doing some research into the manufacturing and design of a custom Daft Punk helmet. He points out this great build log on the project from Volpin Props:

Part one shows the process of creating the basic form out of cardboard, expanding foam, clay and other materials.

In part two, the process of making a mold of the original is detailed.

The Q & A edition is a response to a number of the questions fielded about the project and details a number of features of the electronics.

There is a lot to like here. If you've made an excellent object and want to have more, then check out Adam Savage's moldmaking primer from MAKE, Volume 08.

December 10, 2009

Signal Snowboards build video

Tons of snowboards are made in giant factories abroad by people who never snowboard. There are some fine exceptions, though, like my all-time favorite, Lib Technologies, based in Washington, and Signal Snowboards in California. Both offer boards handmade in the United States by snowboarders. Transworld Snowboarding is posting a 2-part series of videos featuring Signal owner/founder Dave Lee taking you on a tour of the factory and showing how they hand-make their snowboards. Check out Part 1:

Wanna take it to the next level and transform an existing snowboard into a backcountry splitboard? Check out Damien Scogin's DIY in MAKE Volume 20 and get your build on.

December 2, 2009

Hi-speed circuit bending

Klubmoozak posted this vid documenting a typical bending process, complete with scrap-paper schematics, enclosure dremeling, and a final product demo. [via Matrixsynth]

November 20, 2009

How PCBs are routed

One hour of PCB routing with EAGLE, compressed to seven minutes, over at adafruit.

October 21, 2009

Lego model of industrial pallet handler

OK, Jay, this clip takes a bit of set-up. Basically, it's a model of a factory-floor machine for moving pallets around a square assembly line. You put a pushing arm at each corner of the square and trigger them alternately in caddy-corner pairs. Some bright bulb figured out, however, that if you join two square tracks at one corner, you can do twice the work with only two more arms. Watch the intersection for a minute to confirm that the contents of the two square tracks are not mixed, which to me is counterintuitive. Here's a video of the simple, single-square case that apparently started the trend. [via The Automata / Automaton Blog]

October 18, 2009

Mark's violin update

Mark Williams' electric violin, which he has been building over the past few months, is nearly complete. Other than the neck and a few other items, the whole instrument has been scratch built, mostly at the Boston Fab Lab. He has a nice gallery of photos detailing the build.

I'm almost finished painting it, and I just string it all up for the first time since the project exposition to test out the new pickup magnets. It works GREAT! So amazing to play something I've built from the ground up. Just have to finish the fingerboard and bridge and then wait for the paint to finish curing so I can buff and polish it.

Most of the parts were designed in Open Office and cut on the lasercutter or Shopbot. To make his pickups, he created a magnet wire winder from lego parts and bench power supply.

Mark is a student at RIT and has been a youth leader in the Learn 2 Teach/Teach 2 Learn program operated out of the South End Technology Center with the help of the MIT Media Lab.

October 14, 2009

Very small hollow metal spheres

Tiny metal spheres are needed for tiny ball valves and tiny ball bearings, which are needed for all kinds of miniaturized machines. Hollow spheres are lighter, and thus have less inertia, and thus can be made to move faster in these very small applications, where response time is often critical. But how do you make a hollow metal sphere 2mm across? Turns out you can do it with one of the lost foam processes I'm always going on about. Tiny styrofoam beads are first coated with fine metal powder and a binder, then heat-treated to evaporate both binder and bead, leaving only a fragile hollow metal powder shell, which is then sintered into a continuous shell at higher temperature. Read more over at Science Daily.

October 3, 2009

The Mummy's "Book of The Dead" prop

We recently had a question from a reader about this prop. "Connie" wrote in wanting to know how to replicate the mechanism that, in the movie, is used to unlock The Book's cover. Never having seen The Mummy, I went into research mode and enqueued it from Netflix. Then I watched it. Big mistake.

But, you know, to each his or her own. And "The Book of the Dead," with its ornate clasps and intricate star-shaped key, is admittedly an awesome prop. The scene Connie is referring to, I believe, occurs at almost exactly one hour into the "Deluxe Edition" cut of the film, and shows the intrepid but remarkably foolish archeologists inserting the aforementioned star-shaped key into a correspondingly star-shaped opening in the book's cover, turning it, and thereby releasing the spring-loaded cover clasps and, with them, all manner of unpleasant whatnot.

So I started Googling around, looking for ~~dweebs~~ enthusiasts that might have already built such a thing. And while I did not find any working mechanical replicas of the prop, I did discover the remarkably beautiful static replica shown in the photo at the top of this post by Jeff Stelter of Stelter Creative Woodworks.

I also found this video by YouTuber oneandonlyJadedMonk showing his working mechanical replica of the star-shaped key used to open the book. Connie, if you're looking for a real expert, I think this might be the man to talk to.

But as for completely working cover locks, I'm afraid I have to admit defeat. Having watched the scene a few times, I'm completely confident that a suitable lockwork could be designed and built, but actually doing either is well above my pay grade. But something I've learned writing for this blog is what an incredible resource the MAKE readership can be, and so I'm going to throw the question out to them.

How 'bout it, folks? Anybody know how this thing works? Or know of somebody's who has built one? Or, even better, know anything about the original prop?

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

October 1, 2009

My people call them maize mazes

Cool post over on Hack-A-Day about corn maze entrepreneur Scott Skelly, shown above with his trusty GPS-enabled riding lawn mower. Scott explains his maize-maze-making process thusly:

A maze starts as nothing more than a large field of corn. The design is created using a computer, then translated into GPS coordinates by fitting it into a field whose outline coordinates were previously captured on foot. Once the field coordinates are reconciled with the map design the data is used in one of two ways; the routes can be made by tilling under a path when the corn is very young, or more commonly it is cut lawn-mower-style when the corn is anywhere from knee-high to full grown. This corn-meets-satellite hack makes for a whole lot of fun!

September 25, 2009

Fancy shmancy Coke can of the future

Never happen! But it's neat looking, and it uses some impressive sounding industrial process called "impact extrusion," and its proving to be a pretty effective advertisements for its designer Dzmitry Samal. [via Gizmodo]

September 17, 2009

Straw-bale house construction timeline

Peter Maltzan is building a passive solar straw-bale house, and has been at it since October of 2008. He's done a great job of documenting the construction process, which is now nearly complete, in photographs. Highly recommended if you want to get a feel for how it all goes together. Thanks to MAKE subscriber Pete Marchetto for suggesting the link.