Hi everyone,

I need to bend some oak for a project. I've done it before but it was a long time ago...

Two questions :

1. my plan is to bend a 40x70 mm (1,5" x 2,75") section of oak to a 500mm (20") internal radius, is that realistic?

2. do I have to steam the whole piece or can I build a smaller steam box to only accept the end that needs to be bent?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Edit: added measurements in inches for universal convenience

Hello everyone,

Sorry I don't have a bird picture but I came here with a bird question ( I'm 99% sure it's a bird question). I hope this is not against the rules but I read them and it seemed ok.

My "backyard" is covered in gravel (intentionally by the owner, I'm just renting) and i've noticed a bunch of little mounds appeared over time.

I've searched a bit online and saw that blackbirds tend to do this while foraging, which makes sense because I often see them there looking for food even though I've never seen them building those.

My first question is, is it really blackbirds that are making these?

For context:

I live in northwestern Europe and usually see pigeons, crows, blackbirds, sparrows, magpies, chickadees, parakeets (their ancestors were released a while back in the city and they've been thriving since), and the occasional bluejay.
I never saw crows or magpies in the backyard though.

My second question is: why do they do it and why do they also drove little sticks into the ground in the middle of those piles?

You can see the sticks on the pictures, I've pulled a few of them out and they're definitely not just plants growing there.
They're stuck what feels like 2 cm deep into the ground.

Thanks you for your time and potential answer.

Looks like something has been cleaning my garden table :)

Any idea what did this? I live in western/central-ish europe.

Hi everyone,

Years ago I came across a video on YouTube (most likely) that was about old (70s/80s?) CGI technology.

IIRC it was basically a very fancy oscilloscope, took up a whole room and was used mainly to produce 3D titles.

I think it was operated using a bunch of knobs.

My apologies for the limited amount of details, like I said it's been years...

I hope you can help me scratch that itch, I've been trying to find it every now and then but no luck :(

Thanks for reading and for the potential help!

Edit: corrected 60s to 80s

Hi, I just received a reward code from Duolingo but I don't play Genshin impact so I thought I'd give it to one of you guys.

First come first serve, leave a comment if you used so we avoid false hopes for others :)

Here you go:
5TZVUVBEY3YH

You asked for it, here it is!

All your nice words about my last experiment gave me the drive to get it done, thank you all for that!

I knew I had a "butterfly comb" laying around somewhere. I cut off the comb part of it with an angle grinder and then cut the knife blade to the right size. I did not remove the handles though and that ended up biting me in the ass...

Using a magnet, I positioned the blade against and in line with the stub left from the comb and proceeded to stick weld them together. I was dreading that moment as I'm not good with welding and even worse when it comes to thin-ish material, but it went pretty smoothly and I'm happy how it turned out!

I then went on to grinding. I tried removing the handles but only one came off, the heat from the welding must have something to do with that...

Anyways, the hard part was behind me and all that was left was to grind, sand and polish it as well as my impatient self was willing to.

And there it was:

In all its splendor

The

Butter

Fly

Butter

Knife

So here it is: the BBK

All your nice words about my last experiment gave me the drive to get it done, thank you all for that!

I knew I had a "butterfly comb" laying around somewhere.
I cut off the comb part of it with an angle grinder and then cut the knife blade to the right size.
I did not remove the handles though and that ended up biting me in the ass...

Using a magnet, I positioned the blade against and in line with the stub left from the comb and proceeded to stick weld them together.
I was dreading that moment as I'm not good with welding and even worse when it comes to thin-ish material, but it went pretty smoothly and I'm happy how it turned out!

I then went on to grinding. I tried removing the handles but only one came off, the heat from the welding must have something to do with that...

Anyways, the hard part was behind me and all that was left was to grind, sand and polish it as well as my impatient self was willing to.

And there it was:

In all its splendor

The

Butter

Fly

Butter

Knife

Hello everyone,
I'm new to this community, got a suggestion to cross-post this from ![email protected] , hope you appreciate my rough looking knife :)

For making sandwiches on the job because I don't like spreading stuff with a sharp pointy knife or a box cutter.

I made the handle with a piece of L shaped aluminum profile crudely bent using clamps.

I then pierced a hole through the blade and the handle and test fitted it. I didn't like how it looked when closed so I decided to drill a new hole after flipping the handle around. (Hence the hole at the end of the handle and the second hole on the blade).

I then riveted everything together twice (one smaller rivet inside a bigger one, no idea if thats a good idea or not but it looks better). Cut the handle to shape with an angle grinder and softened the edges with a file then different grits of sandpaper.

I got the idea for the handle from the Higonokami.

Thanks for reading, let me know if you have adidas for the next version!

For making sandwiches on the job because I don't like spreading stuff with a sharp pointy knife or a box cutter.

I made the handle with a piece of L shaped aluminum profile crudely bent using clamps.

I then pierced a hole through the blade and the handle and test fitted it.
I didn't like how it looked when closed so I decided to drill a new hole after flipping the handle around. (Hence the hole at the end of the handle and the second hole on the blade).

I then riveted everything together twice (one smaller rivet inside a bigger one, no idea if thats a good idea or not but it looks better).
Cut the handle to shape with an angle grinder and softened the edges with a file then different grits of sandpaper.

I got the idea for the handle from the Higonokami.
If you don't know it look it up it's a pretty cool knife!

Pretty sure these are eggs... But what creatures will emerge?

Finger for scale

Outside a local school window.
I'm guessing it has to do with networking but I'm curious about why they're outside, especially as they're not that high off the ground and can easily be tampered with from the street.
Stickers on them read "ROCK" and "ROLL".

For packing joints.

I made a little baseball bat years ago for that purpose and recently had fun making more different ones for friends.

As you can see I used a piece of rebar for the bat.
I "turned" it using a drill and angle grinder then going through different grains of sanding:

The lightsaber's hilt was made the same way, using a dremel tool to get more control on the details.
The "blade" is made of Corian, a synthetic stone commonly used for countertops.

The sword required a lot more precision to make and ended up okay but looking closely nothing is really symmetrical or straight...
I grinded it from a random stick of metal, the pommel is made from aluminum and the grip is two layers of sewing thread soaked in superglue, sanded, then superglued again.
A cross-guard would have added a lot of character but I didn't find a nice and easy enough way to do it, and I was short on time...

Today I jumped back on this project that has been on pause for about a year :)
Turning cheap defective desktop speakers into a set of wireless Bluetooth stereo speakers.
Got the idea from this video from DiyPerks.

I'm trying to recycle as much as I can:
Desktop speakers were defective and given to me by family,
Bluetooth receivers are from old earbuds,
Batteries come from and old powerbank,
Charging module from old vapes (still need to figure out a few things about them, not sure I'll end up using those).
The only thing I bought so far are amps for the audio output tu the speakers.

Any input or advice is welcome :)

I'll keep you updated with more details if anyone is interested

Recently dismantled a TV and its backlighting consisted of thin cfl tubes. This gave me the material to try something I've been curious about for a while! I sealed some yeast in a little section of tubing for a friend's birthday (his last name is Baker). Kind of a shitty gift as i doubt it would survive as a keychain but I had fun making it (and its failed predecessors). Here are the other attempts, from left to right: pepper, red and blue food coloring, yeast

Plug one side of the cable on the left of the box, the other side on the right, press the button and whichever light doesn't come on means that part of the cable is faulty. I learned a lot from my bad decisions :)

I made this a few years ago and still use it regularly! The "spoon" side fills up with 1 portion of rice and the hole in the handle can fit 1 portion of spaghetti. What do you think?

Edit: sorry about the double post.. I thought I had backed out and lost the first one so I posted this one, and I just noticed the first one went up

Made this out of a plastic bottle after seeing a YouTube video (can't give credit unfortunately as I can't find it anymore).

You can make it into any shape that the bottle will fit around (and can't be much smaller than the bottle since it will only shrink so much).

I used a piece of wood as template, cut the top of the bottle, put it around the piece of wood and shrank it with a heat gun. I then cut off the excess and shaped the closing mechanism.

It took a few tries to get it right but I've since used the technique to make containers/protections for several objects and I'm very happy with the results!

If you want to try this, be aware that the tightest you shrink the bottle around the template, the hardest it will be getting it out! I suggest making the template in atleast 2 pieces, this helped me a lot. (In this example I first pulled out the small wooden tab with pliers, and once out the bigger one came out easily).

Gave it paper towel lips, I hope it isn't against the rules!

Hi all,

Do you have some recommendations for a soldering station that would meet my needs?

I've been into hobby electronics for a few years, doing mostly analog audio projects but recently got into repairing and repurposing broken electronics (Bluetooth earbuds, speakers, USB cables and such).

I've been using a cheap Parkside(LIDL)-rebranded "generic Chinese product" (I came across the exact same model on AliExpress, in different colors); which has served me well until now but has a few flaws that I can't be bothered with anymore. Mainly: -it takes ages to get hot. -the cable going from the station to the iron is super thick and stiff, which is annoying as hell...

I would like it to be the least expensive possible, while being good enough I'd be happy with it for the foreseeable future.

I have been looking at these:

Old tech, cheap tips (<1€)

Newer tech, "expensive" tips (8-10€)

And wondering how these "newer" types of iron compare to stations, what are the main drawbacks?

Thanks a lot in advance for any input, Please be gentle if you think I'm an idiot :)

Edit: changed the "Smolderin" in title to "soldering"

As you can see on the image, you can barely see the artist, title and controls in the drop down menu "widget" on Android. This is not the worst case I've had but it's a good illustration, it didn't use to be this way, and I'd like to go back to how it was or anything better than this.