DIY - The Drafting Table

Assorted Links (Summer 2022)

Wow, it's been 5 months or so since my last post. I'm still here—in fact, I have 10 or more posts at some level of draft but time to write has been in short supply—and I hope to publish a bit more in this second half of 2022.

DIY

Tensegrity Footstool

This didn't take too long to build, but it was fun and unique. Tensegrity is a structural technique that relies on elements under tension for its integrity (hence the name). Tensegrity structures also have elements under compression, but their discontinuous arrangement gives a gravity-defying appearance to the whole. After seeing

DIY

Bangle Board

This post describes a couple of recent DIY projects I wanted to share. My wife has a collection of bangles and was looking for an efficient way to store and display them. I made a board with pegs to hang them on. Here it is after the main construction (which

DIY

Kitchen Cart

This post is a quick description of a recent DIY project I did. One of my first projects of 2021 was building a storage cart for my kitchen. Here's a picture of it: Finished cart (except for stain/varnish).The top surface has space for baskets of bread and fruit.

DIY

Greenland Paddle

In this post, I wanted to share a project I did this year: building a kayak paddle. The paddle I built is more-or-less in the Greenland style. I adapted the instructions/dimensions from here. Here is a summary of the steps I followed: Starting with a piece of white cedar

Science @ Home

(Rocket)ship in a bottle

It's hard to believe we're already a month into 2020. This post looks back at something I built as a Christmas gift for some kids. Bottle rockets are a fun toy. Unlike most rockets, they don't rely on combustion. This makes them safer to play with, and also means that

DIY

Concrete-Top Side Table

For this post, I wanted to share a recent piece of furniture I built. It is a small side table with a concrete top and an oak stand. Overall, the table is 22" high and the top is 10" x 10". The main oak post is 1.

DIY

Elementary Cellular Automata in a Hydraulic Computer

Despite the same word appearing in both titles, this post is quite different from the previous one. The inspiration for making the project described in this post came partly from re-reading Anathem last year. A couple of books on complexity I read last year had some discussion on elementary (1-dimensional)

DIY

Oak & Ash

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been pretty busy this fall. I took a longer hiatus from blogging than I had planned, but now I'm back at it. Earlier this year I moved to a new house and that has provided the opportunity to try making a couple

DIY

DIY Telescope, Part 2

There's a project I was working on and have written about before that I put on the back burner for a while but got back into this weekend. Here are the results. When I came up with the idea to try building a telescope, my goal was to use affordable

DIY

DIY CO2(aq)

This post is about a DIY project I just did to get carbonated water at home, without getting a Sodastream. I mostly followed the project description from this article, with a few small changes. Mainly, I got my CO2 cylinder from a home brewing supply store rather than using one

DIY

OBD2

This post is about an alternative to taking your car into the repair shop when the check engine light comes on. Six years ago, I bought an on-board diagnostic (OBD) interface tool (you'll find them for sale on Ebay, Amazon, etc. if you search for "elm327 obd2 to usb&

DIY

DIY Air Filter

This post is about one of the DIY projects hinted at in my previous post: an indoor air quality filter. Activated carbon can adsorb volatile compounds (such as odours)—see the discussion here. I wanted to rig up a means of blowing air past an activated carbon filter; it could

3D Printing

My Latest 3D Printing

A week ago, I was having fun on Prince Edward Island so I didn't have time to blog. For this week, I thought I'd post about 3D printing since it's been awhile since I've done so. In a recent post I mentioned that I had a couple of DIY projects

DIY

CD Stand

This post was 8 years in the making, in a way. It is a woodworking project I started in 2008*, but didn't finish before I left for my master's studies. I found the pieces that I had cut and drilled and stained, and decided to finish it. * The year 2008

Science @ Home

DIY Telescope Project

This post is about a project I have planned for the next several months (or longer), to try to build my own telescope. I'll try to write a follow-up post to share how it turns out. My goal is not to build a high-quality telescope, but rather one that can

3D Printing

3D-Printed Cactus Pot

This post is about one of my recent 3D-printing projects. Cactus I like having plants in my apartment, but anything that requires frequent attention would have a difficult time surviving under my care. I thought cactus would be a nice fit, due to their ability to withstand periods of water

3D Printing

Economics of 3D Printing

This is a discussion on the economics of 3D-printing based on printing the bookend from my last post. As shown below, this part (including auto-generated scaffolding) was approximately 100 grams. The print time was approximately 4.5 hours (plus time to set-up the printer, run the slicer software, and clean