No matter what the clean freaks out there try to tell me, I still drink my Los Angeles tap water without a care in the world. I figure that I've already consumed much more heinous things in my lifetime. Street vendor "steak" burritos comes to mind.
In a previous article, I demonstrated an Arc Welder made using parts from old microwave ovens. Video: .
CONTEST ENDED: WINNERS ANNOUNCED This contest has ended and winners have been announced. To see who won, check out our quick winners post. Thanks to everyone for submitting their ideas!
Matte and flat colors have became quite popular. I was surprised to see how many cars used these colors at SEMA 2011.
Having a flash drive is more or less a must, but the biggest downside is that they often get stolen, and it's not hard to figure out why. They're small, so they easily fit into pockets, and a lot of people store valuable information on them. Want to pretty much guarantee no one takes yours? Disguise it as a broken USB cable like Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Science Labs so it just looks like a piece of junk to would-be thieves. The materials are pretty simple: a flash drive (the smaller the bett...
Jake von Slatt of The Steampunk Workshop kept breaking the rear glass panel on his iPhone. So, he ended up making his own gorgeous replacement out of brass to replace the standard Apple logo ones who kept getting. The only problem was that it made his signal strength super weak, so he figured out how to transfer the etching onto a glass back. Here's the basic rundown of how he accomplished this feat...
If you’ve got a minor cut or nasty sunburn you may reach for the aloe vera for the soothing and healing qualities. You don’t have to buy aloe, it is easy to extract the aloe from the inside of the leaf of a living aloe vera plant.
Using epoxy glue and some cheap materials create a quick waterproof case for your iPhone or other mp3 player.
Build a kiteboard in multiple steps. This is a construction video that uses boat and epoxy techniques to perfect the product. BE SURE TO CLICK ON EVERY CHAPTER TO SEE EVERY STEP OF THIS PROCESS!
Laminate floor planks look beautiful and add elegance to a home. However, if a plank gets damaged, it detracts from the beauty of the flooring. Do you call in a professional and pay tons of money to replace the plank? Thankfully, no. There actually is an easy way to replace a damaged laminate plank if you are ready to spend some time and have a little bit of patience.
In this project, you'll learn step by step how to modify a microwave oven transformer into a high-current device that can pump out 800 amps of electrical current, which is enough amperage to melt metal. If you liked the Metal Melter you saw in my previous project, here's how you can make your own!
What's the first thing you would do once you realized you were lost in, say, a desert? If you're like me, you would immediately pull out your cell phone and start dialing every number. But what if you have no service? What if your battery is dead?
Say whatever you want, but Steampunk is primarily a maker culture. Consider that Steampunk has existed since the 1960s and yet more or less languished in obscurity until approximately 2005, which is when it made the leap to costuming. That costuming was what provided the leap to the tangible, despite the fact that Steampunk art had also existed for years.
Before painting your vehicle, you'll want to sand down the primer coat. This automotive video will show you how to block-sand the primer to prepare you for the actual paint job. It's actually a pretty simple step in auto painting.
You may or may not have heard the term "greebles" or "kit-bashing" before, but if not, they may sound like nonsense. Particularly 'greebles', which sounds more like the name of a small, gremlin-like creature. However, I assure you that they are very important in prop-making, and if you can master them both, you'll be able to make intricate, great-looking props in hardly any time!
Life is too chaotic to be organized all the time, but little steps in the right direction make things easier overall. File folders keep paperwork from spiraling out of control. Spice jars take the clutter out of cabinets. Storage totes keep basements neat and tidy. But to find what you're looking for faster, you need a label maker.
Acetone-based nail polish remover is great for removing nail polish, and it's also great for some DIY uses around the home. From eliminating scratches to fixing the consistency of correction fluid, its uses are varied but all effective. With nail polish remover, you can also clean your computer keyboard, get rid of ink stains, and even remove leeches from your skin. Talk about versatile!
In this video series, learn how to fix a broken piece of furniture you may have kept for years. Our expert will guide you step-by-step through a wood chair repair. Learn how to remove broken spindles and replace them with wooden dowels. Tips include using an epoxy glue, drilling the holes out, positioning the clamps, and more.
Recycling your garbage is noble and, in many places, mandatory. But it also can be very confusing. This guide will clear up the rules.
Before you figure out how to strip the paint on your car to bare metal, you should should first ask the question, should I strip all of the paint off. Depending on the type of job you're doing, it may actually be better not to strip all of the paint off.
I love making my own printed circuit boards. It really gives a professional look to a finished project, and having all the design files means I can whip up another batch whenever I need to. However, when I need to make, say, three thousand swarmbots or fill an order for a dozen PCBs, the traditional etching process can slow down the operation to a crawl.
When you think about car customization, you think about installing a stereo or a turbocharger or something like that, but Joe Harmon and gang have gone a step further and built their own custom car - literally woven out of wood.
Technology in computers these days are very favorable to the semi-knowledgeable hacker. We have TOR for anonymity online, we have SSDs to protect and securely delete our data—we can even boot an OS from a thumb drive or SD card. With a little tunneling and MAC spoofing, a decent hacker can easily go undetected and even make it look like someone else did the hack job.
A coat of resin soaks in.
Korean artist Osang Gwon creates more than just alluring paper-made girls. Gwon has moved past traditional papercraft, taking volumes of photographs of his subjects and constructing sculptural forms from the carefully arranged 2D images. Gwon shows in galleries, and has done commissioned projects for both Fendi and Nike.
Tin cans have resin linings that contain bisphenol-A (BPA), which has been linked in animal lab testings to a number of ailments that include reproductive problems, heart disease, and obesity. Tomatoes are high in acidity, which means that the content of canned tomatoes eats away at the resin lining, which causes BPA to leach into what you eat. Long story short: avoid canned tomatoes at all costs.
Elderly man shows how to repair chips in his China wear. He explains how epoxy, pastel chalk, a knife, and toothpicks to repair the chip. Step-by-step process takes a bit of time and patience in video, but ultimately repairs the china. Repair chipped chinawear.
For those of you who enjoyed the oogoo tutorial we did, this tutorial from instructables shows you how to make molds from 100% silicone gel for casting resin! I wonder if you could also cast other silicone shapes using a silicone mold...
For any of you aspiring to enter the league of Broadcast News, this unique instructional will make your newscast look totally professional. The mike flag (or mic flag) is that box that surrounds the microphone and has the call letters of your tv station or network. ABC, or Fox, or Ch 5 is the typical type of lettering. (Its origins seem to be from the early days of radio: call letters were not required for an audio-medium except for requisite publicity shots.) Occasionally a triangular shape ...
If you liked the idea of cutting duplicate keys from a personal 3D printer, then you might be interested to know that researchers at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria have successfully designed the smallest 3D printer to date. The prototype device is smaller than a shoebox and weighs only 3.3 pounds. It uses stereolithography compared to the RepRap's extruding molten plastic, and it's not a self-replicating machine and costs a bit more, at nearly $1,800 each. But compare that to ...
Planting roses can make your home beautiful, but there is more to planting roses than just picking one from your local nursery. Selecting a rose that will stay in scale with the container without much heavy pruning can make all the difference in having healthy, long-lasting, producing rose bushes.
Hydrogen gas has been a front runner in the alternative fuel debate for decades now. It is plentiful, inexpensive, and the only byproduct of its combustion is water vapor. In the following video, I demonstrate how hydrogen can be produced in large quantities using very inexpensive and common chemicals. Materials:
9:fish Surfboards are clutch for anyone looking to actually surf LA summer mush. Sunny Trinh and Co. make a line of incredibly versatile fish, starting with the 4'11" Pufferfish and going all the way up to a 12' paddleboard. The thing about 9:fish is that they make boards you can ride!!! Save your performance thrusters for that one day in December and get a 9:fish for the rest of the year.
So simple yet so brilliant: Designer Jung Soo Park found a way to improve a “run of the mill” hammer by incorporating a magnet at the end of the handle. It holds a few nails while you’re working and if you drop a few on the floor, the magnet makes it easier to pick them up.
From sewing machine to scroll saw, check out Instructables member bongodrummer's in depth HowTo. Says bongodrummer,
Hello, potato plastic -- goodbye, petroleum plastic! Watch carefully, treehuggers.
If you found the world renown Body Worlds exhibition gnarly and perverse, perhaps you'll find this latest parade of plastination a little less so—considering we don't share the same DNA as these specimens of jerky-in-the-name-of-science. The Koerperwelten der Tiere—or Animal Body Worlds–doesn't showcase preserved corporal matter, but rather 20 odd plastinated mammals, currently on display at the Cologne Zoo in Cologne, Germany.
No matter if you've used one or not, you've got to admit that 3D printers are pretty darn awesome, especially the self-replicating ones that extrude molten plastic and the shoebox-sized versions that use mesmerizing stereolithography to build tiny objects layer by layer. But what's even cooler? A solar-powered printer that uses the sun's energy to melt sand and make 3D objects out of glass.
Nothing is more relaxing than the sound of moving water in the garden. Here's how to build a one-of-a-kind water feature in a weekend.
Giveaway Tuesdays has officially ended! But don't sweat it, WonderHowTo has another World that's taken its place. Every Tuesday, Phone Snap! invites you to show off your cell phone photography skills.