Headphone Adapter

Adapter, a photo by JohnEdgarPark on Flickr.

I bought a great set of vintage Pioneer SE-30 headphones at a yardsale for $1 (yay!) and decided to build this 1/4″ to 1/8″ adapter so I could plug them into my computer.

Burbank Maker’s Map

Here‘s a Google map I put together of my favorite local spots to get supplies, tools, materials, and components for making electromechanical projects.

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Jack Conte Video Featuring Awesome Robots

I really enjoy Jack Conte‘s music, creative video editing, and now, his behind-the-scenes look at the making of his latest video, Pedals. Please check out the video itself, and then enjoy his enthusiastic making-of video. Jack has maker skills!

The hexapod, Dmitiri, in the video was built and programmed by Matt Bunting and the face robot is by Kevin Felstead. Great work, guys.

via BoingBoing

Hansen staple gun

I just got this excellent staple gun at a yard sale for 50 cents. Made in Chicago, patents are from 19030s and 40s, haven’t researched it yet. Love the cast grip and cylindrical spring tube up front.

Schoolhouse bench desk

School bench desk, a photo by JohnEdgarPark on Flickr.

We just got this excellent folding schoolhouse bench/desk at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. It’ll be going inside the house, and I’m considering screwing it into the floor rather than mounting it on a finished piece of wood (to replace the 2x4s).

Not sure about its history (seller had gotten it at an estate sale). The iron legs have this to say:

 No 1  PAT FEB 3 1868 FEB 20 1872

If you have any guesses at its origin, I’d love to know more.

Atari Punk Ukelele

I’m building a square wave synthesizer into a ukelele body for a musician friend of mine.  I’ll be documenting the process to write up in Make: and I’ll be presenting on it at Bay Area Maker Faire 2013.

DIY Carboy Handle

DIY carboy handle, a photo by JohnEdgarPark on Flickr.

Four hose clamps, a drawer handle, and some screws and bolts = a sturdy handle for this 6.5 gallon carboy for beer brewing.

Rack for Bitters & Tinctures

I’m designing a rack to store my collection of bitters and tinctures bottles. I’m using the beta of the OS X version of Rhino, the nurbs modeling program I’ve used on Windows since around 1996. It’s pretty groovy seeing it come on over to Mac!

iPhone Case Back Project

I’m laser cutting a wood veneer to apply to the back of my slightly cracked iPhone back. The starting point for me is the dimension drawings from Apple. You can get them here.

Rather conveniently, the drawing pdf imports into Rhino (the NURBS modeling/drafting application I use) as curves, so I don’t need to trace and redraw the dimensions.

I’m only using the inner curve from the camera back and the camera keep out guide, which recommends the distance from camera lens and flash hole to avoid vignetting or tinting your photos.

Next step was to apply 3M adhesive to a sheet of wood veneer.

This is the back of my phone — notice the hairline cracks in the glass from dropping it a couple of weeks ago.

Always use a wrench to weigh down your wood veneer sheet in the laser cutter bed.

I decided not to etch an image on this first try, so I only vector cut the veneer and adhesive. On an Epilog Zing 16 this is 80% speed, 40% power.

Once cut out, I peeled off the backing.

I think I’ll adjust the camera/flash cutout in a little bit, this is crazy thin at the edge (due to kerf). This is the adhesive side, not sure what that straight line is all about, it’s not in the wood.

Applied to the phone back.

Very stylish self portrait of my iPhone with its new wooden back.

Bitters ingredient research

Here is the link to Machine Project Tonic & Bitters class ingredient research.