Collaborate Disseminate
When designing parts on a screen, it’s very easy to type in a bunch of nice round numbers and watch everything slot together in perfect harmony. Unfortunately, the real world is not so kind. A 10mm shaft will not readily fit in a 10mm hole, and producing parts to perfect …read more
Join us Wednesday at noon Pacific time for the All Things Enigma Hack Chat!
This week’s Hack Chat is a bit of a departure for us because our host, Simon Jansen, has tackled so many interesting projects that it’s hard to settle on one topic. Simon is a multidisciplinary hacker …read more
For most of human industrial history, the blacksmith was the indispensable artisan. He could fashion almost anything needed, from a simple hand tool to a mechanism as complex as a rifle. Starting with the most basic materials, a hot forge, and a few tools that he invariably made himself, the blacksmith was a marvel of fabrication.
If you have any doubt how refined the blacksmith’s craft can be, feast your eyes on [Seth Gould]’s masterpiece of metalwork. Simply called “Coffer”, [Seth] spent two years crafting the strongbox from iron, steel, and brass. The beautifully filmed video below shows snippets of …read more
Continue reading Blacksmith Elevates the Craft with this Fabulous Strongbox
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Similarly, where there’s a paying customer and a well stocked metalworking shop, there will also be a way. That’s about all the backstory you need to understand this latest creation from [Richard Day] of 42Fab. A customer asked him to build something that didn’t exist, and in a few hours he not only fabricated it from scratch but documented the whole thing for our viewing pleasure.
The object in question is a mount that would allow the customer to pull a “Burley Bee” kid trailer behind their electric scooter. The trailer is only …read more
Continue reading Scooter Hauls Kids With A Little Heavy Metal
If you are in the habit of seeking out abandoned railways, you may have stood in the shadow of more than one Victorian iron bridge. Massive in construction, these structures have proved to be extremely robust, with many of them still in excellent condition even after years of neglect.
When you examine them closely, an immediate difference emerges between them and any modern counterparts, unlike almost all similar metalwork created today they contain no welded joints. Arc welders like reliable electrical supplies were many decades away when they were constructed, so instead they are held together with hundreds of massive …read more
Oxford is a city world-famous for its university, and is a must-see stop on the itinerary of many a tourist to the United Kingdom. It features mediaeval architecture, unspoilt meadows, two idylic rivers, and a car plant. That’s the part the guide books don’t tell you, if you drive a BMW Mini there is every chance that it was built in a shiny new factory on the outskirts of the historic tourist destination.
The origins of the Mini factory lie over the road on a site that now houses a science park but was once the location of the Morris …read more
Continue reading Retrotechtacular: Constructing A Car Engine
We like it when hacks are literal hack jobs, put together with what’s on hand to do a specific job. This quick and dirty angle grinder circle cutter certainly fills the bill, and makes decent cuts in sheet metal to boot.
The build starts with an unlikely source for parts – an old automotive AC compressor. The one that [Made in Poland] chose to sacrifice was particularly nasty and greasy, but after popping off the pulley, the treasure within was revealed: the large, ring-shaped clutch electromagnet. Liberated from the compressor, the electromagnet was attached to a small frame holding a …read more
Continue reading Simple Jig Uses Electromagnet For Clean Angle Grinder Cuts
No microcontroller, no display, and not even an LED in sight. That’s how [Made in Poland] decided to roll with this motorized linear plasma cutter, and despite the simplicity it really gets the job done when there’s metal to be cut.
Plasma cutting makes slicing and dicing heavy stock a quick job, but it’s easy to go off course with the torch or to vary the speed and end up with a poor edge. This tool takes the shakes out of the equation with a completely homebrew linear slide fabricated from square tubing. A carriage to hold the plasma cutter …read more
Continue reading Linear Track Makes Plasma Cuts Neat And Simple
It may not be the typical fare that we like to feature, but you can’t say this one isn’t a hack. It’s a camp trailer fashioned from the back half of a wrecked Honda Civic, and it’s a pretty unique project.
We don’t know about other parts of the world, but a common “rural American engineering” project is to turn the bed and rear axle of an old pickup truck into a trailer. [monickingbird]’s hacked Civic is similar to these builds, but with much more refinement. Taking advantage of the intact and already appointed passenger compartment of a 1997 Civic …read more
Continue reading Wrecked Civic Rides Again as Cozy Camp Trailer
Working mostly in metal as he does, [Tuomas Soikkeli] has invested in some nice tools. So when his sweet magnetic-base drill was in need of a new home, he built this two-in-one drilling station to maximize shop space and add some versatility to boot.
For the non-metalworkers out there, a mag-base drill is basically a portable drill press where the base is replaced with a strong electromagnet like the one shown here. They’re often used in the construction trades to drill holes in steel beams or columns, and often include nice features like a built-in coolant system.
[Tuomas] effectively turned …read more
Continue reading Drill the Wet Side Wet and the Dry Side Dry