From the MAKE Flickr Pool: user fibra has refilled dental floss containers with soldering wire! Perfect for keeping your shop organized, but be sure not to mix it up with the one in the bathroom. For all the time it must take to wind this, I dare say there's a market for these things.

On Street Use, Kevin Kelly has a few pics of hand-made bike-building tools, spotted in bike shops in Rwanda.

Rwandan Hammers

Now you can add "grinder/sander" to the list of goofy things you can do with a corrupted hard disk drive.

Turn a Dead Hard Drive into a Grinder or Sander

The fine fellows at GeekDad wrote a lovely review of the Maker's Notebook. Here are some excerpts:

The front and back cover are pure cyan with a white dashed grid -- basically, a canvas for your creativity (see photo). Maybe you want to color-code the covers by topic or date, maybe you just want to make it pretty. In any case, you can customize your notebook like it was a Guitar Hero controller: the Maker's Notebook comes with tons of stickers to help you personalize it.

In classic composition book tradition it has reference charts in the back. But forget kiddie helpers like multiplication tables and classroom reminders. This is grownup stuff: it is a section of handy reference material for makers, hackers, tinkerers and scientists. A multimeter how-to, sewing needles, LEDs. Can't remember Asimov's Laws of Robotics? It's in there. Need a Morse Code chart? Got it. There are twenty pages of this reference material. The book even has a bookmark ribbon and comes with a giant rubber band to help keep it closed....

...Your thoughts are important; treat them that way.

GeekDad Review: Maker's Notebook Justifies Its Price

Related:

• Maker's Notebook online home
• Maker's Notebook Pocket - CRAFT Video Podcast
• Maker's Notebook released at Maker Faire
  
• More on the Maker's Notebook
• Cats like the Maker's Notebook too!

Pick up The Maker's Notebook ($19.99) for all your ideas, diagrams, patterns, and great references in the back.

About 20 dollars worth of Fisher Price Construx from ebay A drill (DeWalt's fit nicely, but anything should work) A few wood screws to hold down the Construx A piece of scrap wood

More about DIY: Rotational molding

Related:

DIY Rotational Molding

I love all of the beginner electronics kits, components, and building systems that cottage industrialists are developing. Here's an early prototype page for a component system being devised by Media Lab grad and Eyebeam-er Ayah Bdeir and NY interaction designer Jeff Hoefs. The project is sponsored by SmartDesign. I love the use of magnets to make the power and mechanical connections and to ensure polarity. Looking forward to seeing further developments of this tech. We'll keep you posted.

littleBits. [via]

Lady Ada Rants:

Yes, you could always use the datasheet and a calculator. But this sucks so much less.

http://www.wormfood.net/avrbaudcalc.php

Pair it with a AVR fuse calculator and you've solved 99% of your problems!

Owners of UV coated plastic lenses take note -

The last time I got glasses, I let the salesman talk me into the UV/Anti-Glare coating, which I'd never had before. After time, the coating began to develop tiny, really fine scratches, which kept building and building. They got so bad, I was going to get new glasses -- until a friend recommended Armour Etch, a glass etching cream you can get at art/craft stores like Michael's or Dick Blick. The way it removed the coating, leaving me with a perfectly unscratched lens, was phenomenal!! I do experience a little more glare without the coating, but I can live with that -- having the scratches was driving me nuts! Instead of having to spend $100+ on new lenses, I got away with spending a little over $10!

Related:

HOW TO - Remove eyeglasses coating with sunscreen

In the last few years Rapid Prototyping(RP) has become more automated and much cheaper. Machines suitable for offices and academic environments have appeared on the market and have been christened 3D Printers. A range of different RP technologies exist and two companies have come to dominate the market, Stratasys & ZCorp. A quality 3D printer from either of these two will cost in the order of £30,000. Each has its advantages but to me the color capabilities of the ZCorp 510 makes this easily the most desirable machine. It is the machine currently used by the majority of the top UK 3D print bureaus. Also Bristol Fine Print Research have a couple of ZCorp machines. If you had a larger budget (£100,000+) then you could look to go to the high end Rapid Prototyping machines again from Stratasys which can build to a much larger size and precision and also use a bigger variety of build mediums. There are also some cheap and cheerful approaches you could take with a budget of a few thousand pounds.

Read more about Building your own vacuum form machine

Related:

Learn more about Vacuum thermo-forming in your kitchen...

We all like getting free stuff, and as any electronics geek can tell you, you can usually get free IC samples from most vendors. But you may not be aware that you can sometimes get other free components too, such as LEDs, switches, project boxes, and other parts, if you're a qualifying entity (business, student, etc.) and know where to look. Over at HacknMod, they've compiled a list of some of the freebie sources they're aware of.

If you've had success getting free component and hardware samples from other vendors, tell us about it in the Comments.

How to Get Free Stuff for your Projects

Every year the Crest Hardware store in Williamsburg Brooklyn hosts a collection of work from local artists. The entertaining and often humorous art is displayed along side a familiar selection of tools and supplies. Store manager Joseph Franquinha explains -

My father, Manny, has always impressed upon me the importance of community. As manager of Crest Hardware I am thrilled to provide a unique non- traditional atmosphere to showcase the art work of the creative and vibrant community we service. I have such a love and appreciation for art and I am fascinated with seeing the transformation of basic hardware materials into something other than what they are intended for.

The Crest Hardware Art Show is a real down to earth experience appealing to a broad range of people that live in the community. The ideas and concepts in the show are rendered on a silly and theatrical level allowing for an accessible experience. From previous art shows I remember walking through the store and seeing the "Brawny" paper towel display and had to take to a second look to see that next to it was packages of "Scrawny" paper towels. Surprises and laughter fill the shelves. You may come to run a simple errand but you leave with a little bit of culture and a big sense of community.

With a substantial crowd and well over 150 pieces on display, I wasn't able to see them all (yet) - but my early favorite is Gregory Barsamian's Running Man, seen in action below -

see more photos - Hardware Art Show on Flickr

Crest Hardware Art Show
June 7 - July 11
Crest True Value Hardware
558 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211-3596

O'Reilly's FYI Blog contest to give away a Maker's Notebook is over. 22 people posted ideas of what they'd do with their book or to improve their book. Several of the ideas for improvements are already included:

1. Several people mentioned rulers. The Maker's Notebook has inches and metric rulers on the book's end papers. One cool thing about these rulers is that the 8ths, 16ths and the cms are written out at each mark (1/16, 1/8, 3/16, 1/4, etc.) for other dyslexics and slow people like myself who can't easily identify these marks at a glance.

2. One person wanted a place in the front for "This book belongs to" type information and a place for emergency numbers. We do have a page for "This book belongs to" info, as well as title of volume, volume number, date, etc. The emergency numbers page is a good idea. We do have a blank, lined two-page Table on Contents. It has ruled margins where you could list emergency numbers.

3. Place-marker ribbons. The book has one red satin marker stitched in. You can easily add more simply by putting a spot of glue on the end of a ribbon and sliding it between the cover and the binding. PaperSource and other craft and stationary stores sell the same ribbon as our printer used.

4. Closure. If you buy the Maker's Notebook from the Maker Shed, you get a 1/2" red rubber band that serves as a closure. If you want to attach it to your book, you can hot glue it at the top or bottom of the spine.

5. Some way of marking spines to differentiate notebooks. If you buy the Maker's Notebook from the Maker Shed, you get two bonus sheets of pressure-sensitive stickers. On one sheet, there are a series of icons that we included especially for this purpose (some of them are above). If you have more than one Maker's Notebook, you can use these on the spine to tell at a glance which book is which.

Here's one of my favorite entries:

When asked what five books he would take with him to a desert island, George Bernard Shaw replied that he would take five blank books. With my Maker's Notebook, I would seek out a desert island to crash my plane on and start documenting my survival and escape attempt. I would embed shards of mirror from the wreckage in the electric blue cover to use as a signal when a rescue craft approached, use the sturdy cover to help dig an SOS message on the beach, and start to sketch out designs for a boat using bits of the plane and the inevitable palm tree. Local flora & fauna would be documented (before being eaten...) as I would eventually use some of my notes to write my O'Reilly Desert Island Cookbook. Since the desert sun might eventually begin to bake my brain, the handy reference pages would undoubtably help when I needed to know what size fishbone needle I would need to create my palm-frond sail. With luck I won't manage to escape until the notebook is completely full, giving me a decent income afterward when I publish the notes to my adventure.

Get your Maker's Notebook, with bonus stickers and band, at the Maker Shed.

The Maker's Notebook webpage.

When hanging drywall, it can be tough to get the holes for the outlets in the perfect spot. Danny Lipford's home improvement site has a tutorial up for using lipstick to transfer a location marking right from the outlet box to the back of the drywall for perfect positioning every time. I knew there had to be a practical use for this stuff.

Paul Julius Martus designed this "hand" wrench and cast it out of bronze. Creepy and lovely! Via Core77.

Hack-a-day's new contributor Jason Rollette has a nice overview for the why-and-how on using lead free solder. I certainly learned a thing or two!

DIY: Manual vacuum pump

Related:

HOW TO - Build your own Vacuum pump

Over at Telstar Logistics, MAKE contributor Todd Lappin has a write-up and some pictures of this past weekend's 2008 Power Tool Drag Races.

Power Tool Drag Racing 2008: The Photos! The Fashions! [via]

Just don't stick yourself!

The tip is razer sharp, easily digging far enough into a pin to hold its place. A finger's weight on the plunger keeps the probe in place; it has never once slipped to short two pins, as my multimeter's probe is wont to do.

Syringe Logic Probe [via]

How funl is this: A migrating mystery box o' electronics junk that may show up on YOUR doorstep. EMS Labs explains how it works:

The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk is a progressive lending library of electronic components. An internet meme in physical form halfway between P2P zip-archive sharing and a flea market. It arrives full of wonderful (and possibly useless) components, but you will surely find some treasures to keep. You will be inspired look through your own piles, such as they are, and find more mysterious components that clearly need to be donated to the box before it is passed on again.

The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk

Michael at Do Design DIY made a set of instructions for constructing this hand tool holder perfect for makers and crafters.

Make handles from half-inch plastic water pipe sawn into 5" lengths. My local Lowe's sold me six feet of pipe for around $3 and you can use any wood saw to cut it. You may feel this is a luxury, but if you want to protect your hands from the edges of the plastic tape, handles are nice to have.

Thread tape through handle.

Turn box upside-down and cross the tape ends.

Turn box right-side-up and thread one of the returning tape ends through the handle.

Add the buckle.

After pulling the tape tight, your box is now very easy to carry.

Moving Tips

Have a home improvement project with some strange tasks? Nicholas writes in with this guide to unusual tools that could save you a few day's work, and keep you safer by using the proper tool for the unusual job. I learned a few things about trench and hole digging, as well as cutting tile.

Via hack a day - Make your own dyno

A great collection of mechanics tools. Includes 300 pc. Base Essentials Set (33300), 198 pc. Professional Essentials Set (33198), 189 pc. Specialized Essentials Set (35189), 204 pc. Advanced Access Pro's Set (33204), 106 pc. Advanced Professional Tool Set (35106), 89 pc. Specialized Access Professional Tool Set (35086), 83 pc. Ultimate Fully-Polished Ratcheting Set (35183), 77 pc. Heavy-Duty Mechanic's Set (35079), 94pc. Auto Specialty Professional Tool Set (35098) and 130 pc. Professional Impact Set (34130). Catalog# 34131

Have you ever wanted to make or repair your own tarp? Or maybe make a professional-looking flag for your kids' treehouse? You're going to need grommets. Nat @ CRAFT writes:

ModHomeEcTeacher has a great DIY with her Ten Minute Grommet Workshop, showing you all the great tips for getting a grommet on right!

Hack n Mod has a round-up of useful information and how-tos related to Bondo, the wondrous auto body filler with hundreds of other uses.

The Power of Bondo: A Comprehensive Tutorial

Learn how to make your own Drill Press

Related:

Make a $30 High-speed PCB drill press

If your all-time favorite simple machine is the helical inclined plane, if words like "panhead," "countersink," and "Pozidriv" have a mysteries hold over you, if your idea of fun is looking at vintage YouTube footage of Soviet-era screw-drive vehicles (and whose isn't?), you'll want to bookmark the singular hardware high weirdness that is the Screw Asylum.

Screw Asylum [via]

And with that, we've finally reached some sort of pod people (pod kitty?) singularity/assimilation situation in which every product in the known universe has been Hello Kitty branded.

The outrageous Hello Kitty Power Sander [via]