Fun

• Magnetic Storage for Models

  

• Halloween Pressure Plate

  It’s a pressure plate used on halloween to make lights go on and off. Like this

• Halloween Boards

  This year we’re looking good for halloween with some brightly lit panels on the front of the house.

• Forging a Knife

  For my birthday this year the family paid for me to go on a course to forge a knife. It was the Foundations of blade smithing course from blacksmith Douglas Morlock. I really enjoyed it.

• Halloween Snake Candy Chute

  It’s halloween in 2020 so that means better safe than sorry. So why not make it fun? I like the idea of candy chutes but they look so boring. Here’s my take on how to jazz them up a bit.

• Tie Fighter

  My daughter got me another Metal Earth model for Christmas 2016. Took me a while to get to it, but here it is now, the Rogue One Tie Striker.

• Balance Scales

  Home made balance scales for kids’ play.

• Jigsaw Conversion

  Adding grip handles to a kids jigsaw

• Tiger Moth

  Fancy something crafty to do for a few hours? There’s a few of these kits from Metal Earth, which in these parts you can find in most hobby stores.

• Howls Moving Castle 1

  More paper craft! A little bit more ambitious, this one is the castle from Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s a big project and since I only work on it now and again it’s taking a while.

• Fish Tank Stand

  

  Fish Tank Stand

• Death Eater Papercraft Mask

  Paper craft seems to be the just the thing for those evening winters when the family gathers around the tv to watch the latest singing related reality competition.

• Killa Kan

  Time for paper models. I found some plans for three Killa Kans on 4chan and thought I’d give them a go. Here’s the data sheet

• Some Like it Steady

  Earlier this month I became a bemused and first time owner of a smart phone; an iPhone to be exact. It turned out to not be quite as bad as I feared and one of the useful things about it is the video capability.

• Piggy II

  We last left Piggy encased in plaster. Obviously he couldn’t stay there forever.

  Step 5 - Prepare Molds for Paper Mache

  After the bottom mold had dried it slipped right off the pig without any problems. Well, not quite. Actually the pig had stuck quite fast in this one too. Never mind, I know how to deal with these kind of situations.

• Piggy I

  Making a plaster of paris mold is something I’ve wanted to try for a while. The idea is you take an object, encase it in plaster, then use the hollow space in the plaster to make a copy of the object with the material of your choice.

• Sugru

  Let me introduce you to Sugru, it’s a slightly weird silicone based putty that air dries into a rubbery type thing. I brought some through the website and after the initial tests it stayed in my drawer until I could think of a good use for it.

• Ant Fail II

  After the last ant entry I felt inspired to make just enough changes to get the ants moving. It’s still a pretty dumb algorithm but at least it doesn’t crash or timeout.

• Ant Fail

  Not much to report on this month, most of my creative efforts have gone into this challenge here. You have to write some AI routines to control a colony of ants as they battle other colonies on a map. (It’s rather like Core Wars which we programmed at university.)

• Chocolate

  Making chocolates sounds fun! How hard can it be, just melt a bit and pour it into the mold -easy.

• Candle II

  For thanksgiving I made a candle decoration cast from a kids toy. The composimold was used to take the shape, then a small hole was cut in the bottom for the wick to poke through. I was a bit concerned about wax pouring through the hole so made so there were paper towels and newspaper underneath everything. Then I held the wick (a piece of string) in the air as the hot wax was poured in and used a bit of cardboard placed on top to rest the string on as the wax dried.

• Candle

  We had collected a lot of babybell cheese wrappers, which are made of wax, and so it was time to make a candle. I have this stuff called Composimold (see earlier post) which is great for making moulds with. A quick rumage through the kids rooms and we had 5” figurine to test.

• Bag 'o Bits

  I recently acquired a whole bunch of Mastercraft rotary bits for the princely sum of $40. Now, we are talking 1,000 accessories to whatever they call their version of a Dremel. Much more importantly to me, I have a Dremel and this was an absolute bargin.

• R2-D2

  There’s a really neat site (in Japanese, use Google translator for giggles) that has paper models available for download.

• Chicken Coop V

  Wow, where does the time go? Let’s catch up on the last month with the real stars of the show - the chickens. Here they are at 4 days old in their starter home, which is a plastic tote (utility bin).

• Composimold

  Back on the topic of casting I heard about this reusable mold material called composimold. It comes in this natty plastic tub.

  

  Composimold

  The jelly like blob on the right is the stuff after it was melted and poured into a plastic container. So what you are supposed to do is

  1. Put the item(s) you want to cast in a container
  2. Cover with a releasing agent (i.e. canola oil)
  3. Heat the composimold and then pour over the items
  4. Leave to cool
  5. Use a knife to cut the mold and release the item
  6. Tape up the mold, pour in some more releasing agent
  7. Pour in you casting material (i.e. plaster of paris
  8. Allow to dry
  9. Release from mold and admire

  Simple, eh? Well I can already add a few tips to that list. First off you should tape or glue the items down before covering with composimold otherwise they move around or just float to the surface. Which is entertaining to watch but not really the desired effect.

• Dr Who Animation

  We got a second hand camera (Nikon D60) with a remote control (fancy). I just had to try that out so did a quick stop frame animation with some Dr Who figures.

• Organic Protrusion Model

  Here’s a fun project. Take a can of foam (‘Great Stuff’) and spray onto a piece of cardboard (like some packaging) until the cardboard gets wet and splits. Continue spraying whilst the foam bubbles out the other side and stop when it looks about right.

• Wax Garfield

  Here’s a fun one. Save the wax casings from babybell cheeses and use them to make a wax model of the nearest plastic toy, which in this case is Garfield.

• Trebuchet part II

  Ok, winter is here and so it’s time to shake down the trebuchet. Also, I have a shiny drill press now so I can put 90 degree holes in the wood and not 92 degree ones which is what I was getting with the hand drill.

• Paper craft

  This is a neat photobucket page. You download the templates, print on a colour printer (or use a big-box printing service, like Staples), cut out and fold up.

• First shot at chainmail

  Here’s my first attempt at chainmail using some wire I had left over from tying the raspberry canes back. It’s conceptually very easy to do (twist wire around a cylinder, cut and use pliers to link) but surprisingly fiddly to get all the rings in the pattern they’re supposed to be in.

• Pseudoscope

  This article caught my eye the other day - how to make a pseudoscope. (Wikipedia defines them as this.) As if by chance there was an old vanity mirror under the desk that looked perfect for the job and I’ve had a glass cutting tool lying around that I’ve been wanting to use for years.

• Trebuchet part I

  Just for fun we built a small prototype of a trebuchet out of scraps of 2x2 that was lying around. The counter weight is a brick, the sling is made of duct tape and string and the release mechanism is a nail. Simple stuff. Rather surprisingly it threw a tennis ball a good 30’ or so.

• Snowflakes

  During the winter I had a go at storing a snowflake. The idea is you let some freshly fallen snow fall onto some superglue which is on a glass slide, then put the lot into the freezer for a week or two. The glue sets in the freezer trapping the snowflake inside.