Strandbeest

Still one of my favorite builds in the last little while was the Theo Jansen "Strandbeest" build. 

It wasn't especially challenging, or overly technical, but instead was a lot of fun. One thing that was enjoyable about the build was knolling out all the parts beforehand, which made the build go very smoothly. 

I ended up getting the kit for $11 off of eBay, and while I'm almost certain that it's a knockoff kit, it's still really well made. Only one part has 'broken' since the build first happened, and that was a rubber band to help hold the two body halves together. It's a non-critical part so I didn't bother replacing it.

Theo Jansen's work is fascinating, and I highly recommend checking out his work - kinetic sculpture is really interesting, and there are many variations of the design, including the Rhinoceros Strandbeest.

Project: Patio Gate Rebuild - Design

My father had originally cobbled together a 'quick and dirty' safety gate for their patio. It took my dad literally minutes to throw something together, and truth be told, the gate worked well for what it was designed for, namely preventing my nephew(s) and dog from tumbling down the patio stairs.

But it was ugly.

My goal was to make my parents a nicer-looking gate, that was taller (the nephews are getting big!) so the wee ones can't reach over and unlatch the gate, looked nicer, was durable, didn't rust, could be latched open, and had a double lock closure. And most importantly - made on the cheap (without looking cheap).

So I sketched up a few different designs until I settled on a final draft. It gave me a general guideline of how I wanted it to look, how it would be assembled, and roughly the dimensions as well as what wood to pick up.

With that, I went down to the local 'renovation store' and grabbed some 2" x 2" x 42" cedar balusters, some spruce panels, a dowel, and some deck screws. The hinges and latch I already had on-hand so I didn't need to pick those up.

I did a mock-up on the floor of roughly how I wanted to orient the pieces, and get a general idea again of scale, how things would look, and to see if I wanted to alter my design at all. This step was important, because in the end I did make some changes to my design (simplification of the design, mostly).

With all that done, the next phases will be the challenging ones - the build!

Stay tuned for more.

Video: Timelapse Build - Adafruit Ice Tube Clock

This was one of the projects in the past that really started a resurgence, a project that got me back into the 'maker mindset'...

For a long time I hadn't bothered making anything. No projects. no builds. No interest. And then I saw a picture of Adafruit's "Ice Tube Clock" - and after some rudimentary searching, saw that I could order it, so I did.

I was happy to finally have a project again. one that was challenging, and fun, and something I was capable of, but at the same time also challenged my skills. It wasn't an easy build at all, but for prosperity's sake, I made a timelapse video of the construction, success or failure.

Welcome, Makers!

Welcome!

I originally was running www.whiskeythemaker.com on Tumblr and for the most part that platform was totally fine. But it lacked customization, and a lot of other features that I wanted, so I've moved here!

My older projects can be found on my original Tumblr page, since I don't want to re-write all the old articles. But going forward, all my projects and updates will be located here.

I hope you enjoy my builds, insights, projects, and everything I post here.

Stay tuned for more!