Gareth's Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales - Issue #113

Got a tip to share? A tool to recommend? A tall tale to tell? A tip to bust (see below)? Please share with your make comrades.

In this video, Todd at Project Farm puts 15 models of scissors through their paces. He tests scissors by KAI, Gingher, Heritage, Klein Tools, Henckels, Fiskars, Bianco, Ultima Classic, Westscott, Livingo, KitchenAid, Singer, Scotch, and Stanley. The scissors were tested for sharpness and durability after cutting through 1,000 feet of paper, 20 passes through cardboard, 10 passes through aluminum sheeting. In the end, the expensive KAI scissors (at $78) performed best overall, but the Fiskars ($26) and Klein Tools ($24) models did amazingly well, too. I have the Fiskars and love them.

In this helpful Andreas Spiess video, he runs through the essential tools he recommends for a well-equipped electronics lab. There are a lot of great tips and recommendations here, like which tools are OK to buy cheap and which ones require putting the hurt on your wallet.

Anyone who’s ever done any molding and casting knows how expensive molding rubber is and how aggravating it can be to be pouring a mold and come up short with your mold mix (an all-too-frequent occurrence). In this Robert Tolene video, he offers a tip I hadn’t heard before for saving on molding materials. He calls it “dunkin’ chunkies” — he cuts old mold pieces into small chunks and adds them into a new mold pour (in the areas where they won’t interfere with the object being molded).

In a recent Recomendo, Mark Frauenfelder included his favorite “hacker laws” from this GitHub repository of Dwmkerr’s Hacker Laws and Principles. These also apply to everyday life.

When I was the editor-in-chief of the Make: website, for years, one of the most trafficked posts was on how to build a basic workbench. Makes sense. Having a decent work surface is the first step in delving into regular DIY projects. In this 3x3 Custom video, woodworker Tamar creates a portable, affordable workbench that can turn any table, desk, even the floor, into a maker’s workbench. The bench includes a woodworker’s vise and capabilities for clamping down all shapes and sizes of workpieces. Tamar also offers plans on her website for the bench which are available for five bucks.

This clever idea was posted on the Tableft Workshop’s Instagram account. This “hack” can obviously be applied to any pump-bottle liquid.

“Coleys class was apparently going through the hand sanitizer really fast so i made the school these little collars to limit how much can be dispensed at a time, works like a charm and is still more than enough for adult hands let alone a 7-year-old. Printed 50 of them which should cover the school for awhile with plenty extras.”

I’ve gotten a number of volunteers for tips busting but few have put forward tips to confirm or bust. If you’d like to sign on a buster, message me. If you have an idea for a tip to bust, please share that.

Here are a few ideas of tips to bust: