{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "i-make.xyz", "home_page_url": "https://i-make.xyz/", "feed_url": "https://i-make.xyz/feed.json", "description": "Home of my projects\n", "icon": "https://i-make.xyz/apple-touch-icon.png", "favicon": "https://i-make.xyz/favicon.ico", "expired": false, "author": "Chris", "items": [ { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2019/05/19/a-picture-frame-from-an-old-tabletop.html", "title": "A picture frame from an old tabletop", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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After I build the new Table for my mother, I collected the wood of the old table. So in this project, I convert part of the old tabletop to a picture frame as a present for my father.

The wood connection in the tabletop are quite deteriorated and do offer much resistance when I take it apart. After this step, I cut all the parts to the correct length. The glass and backer board of an old simpler picture frame defines the size for the new structure.

I’m under time pressure as this is a birthday present and I needed to get it done. So I use glue and screws to connect the sides and omit any fancy joinery.

To insert the glass, I cut a groove along the inside of the frame. I also cut some groves to strengthen the joints.

The last step is, as always painting. I choose to use a spray finish, as this took the least amount of time. In total, I applied two layers. In hindsight, it would have been better to add at least one another layer.

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I received the printed version of another webcomic book the other day. And I needed a stand to display the book nicely.

I build this project without a clear plan, just an idea that I need something which supports the book over the whole back as it is quite flexible. So I had a look in my wood storage for a pice big enough to construct this project. I picked a plywood board. And start layout some lines to cut the three parts I need from it; first the back, a smaller piece to prevent the book from falling off with rounded corners and finally an angled piece which holds the stand up.

The bottom part is added with glue and screws. I’m using screws here, so I don’t need to wait for the glue to dry and these will not be visible at the end. Next, I glue the final piece on to the back, instead of clamps, I use painters tape to hold the angled board until the glue is dry.

I finish the project by sanding all my pencil lines out. I don’t add a finish on this project, as you don’t see the wood anyway. The book on it is the critical part.

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For the longest time, I require a mallet, and I finally took the time to build one, so I don’t need to use the regular hammer on my chisels. This was a particular project for me as I went into the forest to gather and build it. And If I remember it correctly, this was the first beautiful spring day of the year – a perfect moment for such an adventure!

I’ve found a suitable branch lying on the ground and started drilling a hole into it for the handle. Unfortunately, the battery on my drill dyed before I’ve finished the hole, but it was still long enough that I could proceed.

The next step was to search a branch for the handle, and cutting it to size. As my drill did not work anymore, I finished the mallet in my shop the day after. The first task was finishing the hole. Next, I sawed a vertical slot to the top of the handle, which allows me to insert a wedge and lock the mallet head into place.

The last step was to flatten the sides of the head with the disk sander. And as this is a rustic build no further sanding or finishing is needed!

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I needed a way to better present my projects at the end of the videos, so I built a Lazy Susan with marbles.

The first step was manufacturing a circle jig for the router. This worked perfectly, and I could cut the grooves for the marbles in both boards and also cut one of the boards into a circle.

In hindsight now I would not use a groove for the marbles but instead would just drill individual holes for each marble. As I have the problem that the marbles then to collect on one side when the load on the top is uneven.

To prevent the rotating board from falling out, I fastened it to the base via a screw in the center. And I don’t want this screw to be visible on the top, so I glue a small helper piece containing the screw to the bottom. But now the central part did not have enough clearance anymore, so I needed to remove some material there as well.

The next step is adding feet to the base, this also solves the problem, that the baseboard is quite warped – I should have used a different wood type, but this was the material I had on hand.

I initially tried to add the motor on the underside, but this did not work out, as it was pushing the top up causing the marbles to collect on one side. In the end, I opted to move the motor to the side, which does not look as lovely, but now it works which is way more important! I connect the power for the engine via a small dimmer module, which allows for some speed regulation.

I will need to find a better solution to attaching the motor cradle as the single screw I’m using right now is not strong enough and will wear out soon.

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My daughter needed a nightstand for her new bed. So I designed one which can be placed alongside the back side of her bed. It contains a space for a water bottle, a small reading light and you can put books on the top.

The basic construction is a box with a front and a back. Inside the middle part, I install some spacers to make it more stable. I get all my materials ready cut from the big box store. It saves me some time as I don’t need to cut big sheets of wood.

In the initial plan, I was also thinking about adding some more special shelves inside of the stand – but I decided not to do this to simplify the build.

I’ve designed the project in such a way that the main body and the head part were detached. So when building it, I needed to combine the two separate elements again. And this was the area where I messed up. I’ve constructed the nightstand the wrong way around. So I needed to redesign the project in the middle of the build. Luckily I found an easy fix for my problem: I just turned the furniture around and installed an additional front plate on the old backside, this meant that I needed to fill some gaps as the initial backside was meant to be inset inside a rabbet. However, this was not a big deal. I used some leftover particle board and wood filler where needed.

The bottle holder is an inset shelf into the body of the nightstand. It is placed just at the right height for easy access when laying on the bed.

All the electrical wire was installed inside a cable conduit as the nightstand is fully enclosed. A total of two sockets are introduced, giving my daughter the option to charge her phone in the future, and they also provide some extra flexibility to connect devices in the room. Her room is in direr need for more sockets anyway.

After a light sanding, we applied two coats of a light blue colored paint, which my daughter picked. I like how the color transforms this pice. Moreover, I think the blue tone gives a nice contrast to the white bed.

The last step to finish this project off is installing all the cables and connect the sockets. The conduit I used already hat a pull wire inserted which was handy! Installing all the cables gave me flashback to my apprenticeship :-)When buying the lamp, I checked for a model which provided me with a simple installing option. I just needed to remove the existing clamp and screw it down to the stand after drilling an appropriately sized hole.

After finishing the project, I install it in her room. The nightstand fits perfectly on the bed, and my daughter is happy with it as well.

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In the middle of last year, I got a small sanding disk from my late granddad. So after using it on the floor, it was time to give it a better place in my shop.

This project also involved moving my wood storage out of the shop to get more space. Moreover, I used it as a way to reuse some of my old wood and old screws. Most of the materials used in this project are reclaimed or reused from other projects. The stand looks a bit bad, but it is functional and works.

I’ve used whatever wood I had lying around in my shop. The wood used for the door and drawer belonged to my first ever furniture build I did some 15 years ago. It meant that I needed to piece some parts together to get it big enough. Especially for the top of the stand, as I had no leftover wood which was 60-by-60 centimeters big

Four boards, from an old pallet, connect the top and are stabilized with three diagonal braces. The base with the wheels was a leftover of a failed project to get my band saw onto wheels. I lastly found a good home for them.

As a drawer, I reuse my old scrap wood bin which I no longer need. I make the drawer a bit smaller before installing it. It will glide on two wooden rails.

The thin particle board I used to enclose the lower part did not work as intended, I was hoping that these would dampen the sound of the vacuum cleaner, but they are to thing for this. So I will need to think about this at a later point again.

The last part of the project is installing the dust collection. The disk sander is my first power tool with a dedicated dust management solution. I’m using a vacuum cleaner directly placed in the stand. It is set up to operate as soon as the tool is turned on. Luckily I got this feature for free as it is inbuilt into the vacuum cleaner I’m using.

To connect the hose to the sander, I’m building a small adapter box to convert between the two diameters of the pipe. It is clear that with this solution I’m losing some of the suction power, but it still has enough power for the small dust created by the sander. I also plan on adding a regular connection on the front of the box to connect a vacuum cleaner hose when needed.

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As my daughter is always using my tape dispenser, I decided it’s finally time, that she gets her own.

I created it out of some reclaimed palette wood I recently got. Before resawing it, I added all the holes and the overall shape out of the piece of wood. This gave me two identical sided, which get connected by two short dowels. The dowels are only glued to one side, allowing the other part to be taken of to add the tape.

Unfortunately, a part of one side broke off while sanding, but I decided to leave it off as it would be unstable anyway. The region was way to thin to be stable with this type of wood.

I’ve searched for a way to get the knife without buying a finished tape dispenser. But I was not able to find anything. So I bought, one separately and used the blade from there. To finish the project, I’ve added two coats of spray finish onto the wood, which I needed to redo due to a storm which blew the parts way while drying :-( But luckily the parts survived, and I only needed to resand and finish them.

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The final project for this year, an ornament for our Christmas tree. It was made out of a piece of wood from our first Christmas tree. I made it as an additional last minute gift for my wife on the afternoon of the 24th of December.

This is my first time I used my electrical scroll saw for a serious project. I still have much to learn on how to use this tool. It sometimes felt a bit daunting to have the blade so close to my fingers, and I think I did not use the correct blade for this job. But I managed to saw the pattern without breaking the single blade I have.

To wrap up this project, I apply one coat of spray finish, as it is drying fast. It could have used an additional layer, but I did not have time for this.

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In today’s video, I create Fire Starters to use up the sawdust I produced while building the outdoor table. I got the idea from watching the videos on SV Seekers channel where he was doing this as well with the extra savings from the wood for the cargo hold walls.

Initially, I planned on using cardboard tubes as a mold to form the fire starters. But I realized it quite fast that this won’t, work. I had problems with them staying put while pouring the hot wax in. And they are also missing a bottom, so the wax was flowing out on the bottom. I added a base by using some painters tape, which helped to mitigate the problem a bit but I was not happy with the overall result. It was also taking way more time than I expected.

So I searched for a different idea and decided to just pour the wax with the sawdust into a big flat pan. This was way quicker and also created a smaller mess. After cooling, I then cut the block into smaller chunks to get my real fire starters.

Now I needed to wait for the right day with some warm weather and no rain. I waited quite some time in the hope of a good weather window to go into the forest and make a big fire but unfortunately, winter is coming, and the weather was never right. So I decided to try them ou in an old pan in my lawn.

I had quite some difficulties to get the poured blocks to catch fire. Perhaps it would have helped to have a short fuse on them like I did for the first attempt. And the wind blowing around the house while testing them was not helping either. But in the end, I managed to start a fire with them although a small one :-)

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Another project from my to-do list completed. I again got some help from my daughter while building and painting it. And I hope that we can observe some birds together this winter from our living room.

The construction is simple, two sides a floor and a roof on top. After I’ve built it I recognized that I should have done something different, for example, the part where the food resides should be smaller to prohibit the birds from sitting in it and pooping on the menu - ok maybe for the next one :-)

Painting took the most time in this project, as you regularly need to wait for it to dry. After painting it, I sprayed it with a clear coat to seal it.

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As we missed it last year, I made sure to be ready this fall with a small kite. The kite was build in an afternoon out of some wood, fishing wire, and thing paper. The only thing missing is a good windy day without rain :-(

The skeleton is built out of 4mm wooden rods. Connected in the center via a small custom connection block fabricated out of some scrap plywood. We’ve drilled a hole at the outside end of each rod to add some fishing wire to provide support for the paper skin of the kite.

After we built the frame, we moved upstairs to finish the kite with paper skin and some decorations. And as we are still waiting for some decent wind, the kite is currently used as autumn wall decoration

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The table top consists of multiple boards glued together with dowels. As I was unable to mark consistently and bore the holes on the inside over so many boards, I decided to drill through the outer board and then cap the hole later on. I imagine that this gives the tabletop a bit of a rustic look. Unfortunately, this did not work as planned, and I should not have done this.

To allow for expansion in the wood, I widen one of the dowel holes and only glue the dowel on the other side. I hope this is enough that the table top will not bow.

As the space between the board is rather tight, I sanded and finished all the boards before gluing the table top. That made my life a lot easier. And after this, the only step left was to deliver this to my parent’s place :-)

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This video contains the story, about how I build an outdoor table for my mother. It is the first part wherein I create the base for the table. The second part will then contain the construction of the table top and final installation.

CREATING THE LEGS

The table’s legs consist of two boards crossed in the middle. This design was looking quite simple in Fusion, but the actual construction was quite involved, as the angel for the crossing was not an even number. I managed to solve this by drawing the rectangular outline of the x onto my workbench - luckily it’s possible to replace the top layer of the bench :-)

After the first leg, the second was then straightforward as I could just lay it on top of the first one to get the right angles. The post will be held together with dowels and glue, but this will be done in a later step, as for the moment it is still essential to be able to take the legs apart.

CONSTRUCTING THE SUBSTRUCTURE

The substructure is the base to which I fasten the legs and the table top. The middle boards are used to install the diagonal leg braces in a later step.

INSTALLING THE LEGS

It’s finally time to fix the legs for the first time. As I deliver the table in our car to its final destination, the legs need to be removable. Each leg is connected via two M10 stainless steel screws.

FITTING THE DIAGONAL BRACES

To give the table additional rigidity, I designed two diagonal braces. Installing these took a lot of time, but it was totally worth it, as it makes the table completely firm. I used a short part of a string to determine the angels to cut the braces. As I do not own a protractor, this worked flawlessly. To connect the support on both sides, I used long screws.

CUTTING THE LEGS

After I constructed the base, it was finally time to cut the legs to length. I’ve measured the final hight for the table and marked it on each leg, and then cut them with the bandsaw.

SANDING & GLUEING

Before gluing the base together, the sander needed to touch every part. Sanding before gluing allowed for easy access on all the parts. The legs were not fixed to the substructure to be able to transport the table in the car.

FINISHING

To finish the base I applied three layers of an outdoor grade coating. The first layer is a protection layer against, and the two other layers are a colored finish to make the wood a bit darker. Unfortunately, it did get a bit more reddish then I planed. It did not happen on my small sample pieces.

ASSEMBLY

Time to assemble the base for the first time. Everything went together as planed. I did not yet receive the final hardware at this time, so the bolts in the video and pictures are not stainless, but I’ve collected them shortly, and in the final installation I could then use the right hardware for an outdoor project.

Until in two weeks when I show, how I created and installed the table top.

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This summer I finally build a stand for my hammock I’ve created in school more than twenty years ago. As we do not have trees in our garden I was unable to use the hammock for the most time. I’ve seen some designs for hammock stands around the internet but when searching the parts for these, most would have gotten way too expensive. So I sketched my own version with the material I have available locally.

Gluing the posts

To create the central pillar I’ve chosen to double the strength of the material by gluing two planks together. It gives the post the necessary rigidity to support the weight of the person in the hammock.

Preparing the ground boardEach of the ground board needs to receive a spacer on the ends. This spacer helps to define the correct positioning when assembling the stand later on.

Drilling screw holes

In winter I want to deconstruct the stand for storage. That means the main parts need to connect via screws. On each end, I drill two holes for screwing the platform together.

Foot construction and assembly

The stand has two feet which help to keep it upright. Each foot consists of a board and two braces which are cut diagonal to reduce the weight. Afterward, I glued the props to the footboard. And short dowels support the glue joint. I did not want to use screws in this case as it is on the bottom side and could get wet.

The feet are attached to the baseboard via two notches cut into the upper side of each board. A short length of wood spans across the gap and a screw can be added to connect to the feet. The notch prevents the feet from sliding around and defines the correct location when assembling the stand.The foot connection was my most significant problem point in the whole construction of the project. I did not solve this issue while designing the stand, as I could not find a good solution on the computer. I needed to address this issue after I’ve built both feet. The solution I’ve obtained in the end worked good and is also simple.

Notching the post for the rope

The notch is responsible for keeping the cord in the correct location. Originally I planned on using metal hardware to connect the hammock to the stand. But I could not find anything, which I trusted, in my local hardware store. After the notch, it is guided through a hole on the back side of the post. And a knot holds its there. Simple and it works. And it also reduced cost as no additional hardware was bought.

Cutting the screws

The stand holds together by M10 screws, as I needed multiple screws of quite some length I decided to cut them from a threaded rod. It worked quite well, but for the next time, I need to make the drilled holes a bit bigger as they are quite tight.

Sanding

Each part was sanded to 180 grid to be ready for finishing. As always I should spend more time on this job and not rush it, as I found quite some places where more sanding was necessary.

Applying the finish

To finish the project I administered three layers of finish onto each part. The first layer was a base coat needed for wood with a lot of natural resin. After this, I’ve added two layers of an exterior wood paint. The paint makes the wood weather resistant, but I do not plan on keeping the stand in the rain.

Assembly time

Time to assemble the stand! All the parts are ready and screwed together. I know that the hammock-stand works as I already had it joined once before the paint went on. But this was the first time that I used the correct rope I bought for this project. All went fine the rope fit, and the hammock hangs successfully in the middle of the stand.

The project was a success. The stand was undoubtedly more expensive then if I bought one but I would miss all the experiences of building one :-) My design worked fine, there is a bit of a wobble in it, and you should not use it to swing on it. But I can always add additional ropes from the post to the foot to give it some more rigidity in this way.

Update 20.04.2019 Build plan

I got asked for a set of plans for this project: Plan

Please keep in mind that the plan is just a guideline. I’ve added as much into it as I still could remember. As I only had a raw plan when building this project, and some solutions were not in the plan.

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We recently started by separating our plastic trash from the regular house trash. And for this, we needed an additional space to store the collection sack. And as this also can sometimes emit some smell, we chose to put this onto our balcony.

But as the sack alone is quite messy, I created a small enclosure for it. This as also an ideal project to reuse some old leftover wood and give it a new purpose. I did not have enough wood to make the gaps between the side any smaller, but in retrospective, it would have been better to cut the middle picket once again, to have smaller holes.

Afterall I’m happy with the outcome, and it solves the problem. And if I don’t like it anymore, I can always redo it in the future ;-)

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Sometime past I build a wooden ring to hold the garbage bag in our bathroom trash can. But due to it being constructed out of plywood it was not long lived. So I finally took the time to redo this project using aluminum this time.

It was my first time bending aluminum, and this worked quite fine. It worked better than when I was using traditional metal which I used for another project in our living room.

After bending the aluminum in shape, the big question was how to connect the two ends. After some searching in my hardware bin, I found some old copper pieces which did the job.

And at the same time, I had my daughter in the shop as well, and she was building a small wooden boat (with some help from me).

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One of the glass lamp shades of our dining room lamp broke the other day. It was a test project to see if it would work to replace the broken lampshade with a 3d printed version.

I’ve measured the dimensions of the old shade and replicated the from in Fusion 360. And as I do not have a 3d printer, so I ordered the new shade online from one of the proposed providers on 3dhub.com. I choose to print the lampshade in PLA and replaces the bulb in the lamp with an led version, to prevent the new shade from melting.

For such small items and such a quick and easy project, it is easy to order the items externally, compared to maintain your 3d printer. But if you print a lot, it will get expensive quite fast. In my case the postage cost where nearly the same as the actual printing cost. So for future projects, I need to slice the object into multiple parts – or buy myself a 3d printer :-D

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/08/26/lampshade.html", "date_published": "2018-08-26T01:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-08-26T01:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/08/12/paper-towel-dispenser.html", "title": "Paper towel dispenser", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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While cleaning my shop this summer, I build a small shop project for my roll of paper towels. It was a project I meant to create for ages but never took the time to do – until now.

This is an easy project to use up some leftover materials, in my case I had an old curtain rod from a shower and some cutoffs for the wood. The only thing missing was two holes to insert the rod.

The project was so small and comfortable that I also build a second one for our laundry room. But you cannot always have the big fancy builds, the small ones are also important and in combination with a clean shop. This project made for a happy day with a feeling of having accomplished something.

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After I have built our new wardrobe for the master bedroom, I always planned on adding light to the drawers I have installed. Today the time has finally come to execute this project.

I always had some ideas on how to install the lights, but my first two plans were way to complicated. So the version I now built is the third iteration. I initially wanted to have the switch at the back of the drawer and inbuilt into the wardrobe. However, this would have meant I needed a complicated structure behind each drawer to mount the switch. My actual solution did not hide the drawer but was a lot simpler to build and install. It allowed me to build the light for each drawer entirely in my shop, which made it a lot easier for me.

Another goal I had, was to not directly mount anything to the drawers and thereby destroy the drawers. The solution: Cut a rabbet into the wood with the same width as the drawer side thus allowing the light to slide on top of the drawer, without the need for any screws.

As a light source, I used a LED strip. These do not give a beautiful light, and for the next time I would buy strips with warm white light instead of cold white, but it works and fulfills the task of allowing me to find my things in the drawer without the need of the room light.

It is so beautiful to have light in this drawers; I could have been a bit faster on this project if I would have planed a bit better ahead of time. I initially planned to make 10 lights for all the drawers. However, mid-project I realized that I do not need light in every drawer. So, in the end, I only finished 6 lights.

We now lived with this project for some time already, and I’m pleased how it turned out. I needed to shim the buttons on some drawers a bit to get the light to turn off reliably.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/07/29/drawer-lights.html", "date_published": "2018-07-29T01:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-07-29T01:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/07/15/building-our-wardrobe.html", "title": "Building our new wardrobe for the master bedroom", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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In December 2016 I build a new an optimized wardrobe for the master bedroom of our flat. The video highlights how I create it in place. The closet was planned to have sliding doors in front, but up to this day, I have not made them. So I think we keep it as an open wardrobe.

The wardrobe consists of a left side to hang clothes in two rows above each other and a right side with many drawers to hide our smaller clothes and underwear. As I did not want to build so many drawers myself, I planed the wardrobe around the dimension of the Ikea Pax wardrobe system. This solution saved much time, and it was also cheaper in the end. It is incredible how much plywood you need for drawers and how much it costs.

The layout of our bedroom made it necessary to incorporate the room door within our wardrobe, so on the left side, we lose some space to it. However, there is still the space above the door to store seldom used items.

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We got a new co-worker in our company, and our tables are to low for him. After some planning, we found an easy solution on how to increase the height of the table for the moment.

The solution is to extend each of the for legs by around 10-15cm by using a small block of wood. To keep the foot on top of the extender, it has a small indentation.

Unfortunately, I do not have any blocks of wood which are big enough for this task. To solve this issue, I’ve used the same approach as when I build the legs of my kitchen table: Laminating multiple layers of plywood together. It worked perfectly and also allowed for some testing to get the ideal number of layers. I’ve again rushed the glue-up a bit and should have spent some more time there, as I had a lot of work cleaning the sides up afterward. And on one block I did not clamp the layers enough.

I’ve finished the blocks with two coats of clear coat, giving the extender some protection. Installing went like a breeze, and the table is still quite stable.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/07/01/table-extender.html", "date_published": "2018-07-01T00:00:00-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-07-01T00:00:00-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/06/17/mug-rack.html", "title": "A simple mug rack for our kitchen", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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We needed a better system to organize our tee mugs in our kitchen. Over the time we collected many mugs. So now you cannot easily access them in the cabinet anymore. Thus the plan for this small rack with two drawers was born.

This project was a quick and straightforward build, and in hindsight, I wish I would have taken a bit more time for it. Especially the wood cutting part was not good. I should have used the skill saw to cut the wood down instead of the bandsaw. The cut pieces would have been straighter which then would have made the glue up more straightforward as well.

The final result of the project is usable and fulfills its intended use case. Also, as it is not visible, the crooked look does not bother me so much. However, I see with this build that I still have a lot to learn, one of which is that I should not rush a build.

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The workbench I nearing completion. In this last part of the series, I built the drawers and doors for the workbench and also installed it in its final location in the shop.

I needed to build four drawers for the workbench. At the top, I have a big one spanning the whole width of the bench. I use this mainly for my tools. Then I have three additional drawers on the left side. I currently use them for my scrap wood, but I think this needs to be changed at some point as it is not the best usage.

I’ve also installed walls on both sides of the workbench to keep dust from going into it. Also, installed a door on the right side of the bench, to hide the shop vac. When design the bench I’ve made an error with this door, as I do not have space on the left side to install the door with my regular hinges so it can still move. So the two parts of the doors are connected and hinge on each other. It would have been better to have one door. I’ve also miscalculated the width of the three bottom drawers and made them too small. So I’ve fixed this with some spacer blocks for the time being.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/06/02/workbench-drawers.html", "date_published": "2018-06-01T22:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-06-01T22:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/05/20/workbench-top.html", "title": "Part 2: The workbench top", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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In this video, I build the top of my new workbench. The most prominent feature of this top is a gird of holes with T-Nuts inserts, allowing me to clamp down my workpieces in the middle of the table.

I’m thrilled how the grid came out - it was much work - but it is nice and even and it is a convenient feature. I still need to build the actual clamps I can use on it, but this is a project for a later time. Another important aspect of the top is that I have an even overhang on all sides. Wich is needed to clamp things to the table using the regular wood clamps.

I constructed the top as a layer of five boards. All layers, except for the top layer, are glued together, allowing me to remove the top layer when it is beaten up and replace it with a new one. The second layer from the bottom is made out of plywood to prevent the T-Nuts from being pulled through the MDF boards. I’m not sure if this is necessary but better safe than sorry.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/05/20/workbench-top.html", "date_published": "2018-05-19T22:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-05-19T22:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/05/06/workbench-base.html", "title": "Part 1: The workbench base", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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At the end of last year, it was finally time to get a real workbench in my shop. Until now I just worked on a plank put on top of two saw horses, and it was not ideal, especially when doing some task for which you need a stable base.

However, it was good that I waited sometime before building my bench - this way I could build something which suits my needs. The new bench needs to be on wheels so I can move it around and it needs to fit through the shop door, this limited the overall size to be no wider than 750mm. Which is 50mm smaller than my old bench was.

In this first part, I build the base of the bench. It contains space for drawers, three on the left side and one at the top directly below the table top. On the right side, there is space for my shop vac and its accessories. The build of the base went pretty smooth apart from some errors in the wood lengths but nothing which I could not correct myself.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/05/06/workbench-base.html", "date_published": "2018-05-05T22:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-05-05T22:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/04/22/shuttle.html", "title": "A shuttle for my loom", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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For the looms, I’ve built (see here) I still needed some real shuttles. Until now we were using one made out of cardboard. But these were not working good as there was no place to store the yarn.

So it was finally time to replace these. The project is an easy one an does not take so much time. But when you use the wrong type of wood, then you need to do the work multiple times. One of the shuttles broke in the middle while sanding it. And on both shuttles, I broke at least one of the ends off.

But after some careful shaping and sanding, I finally got two shuttles. And they also work great!

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/04/22/shuttle.html", "date_published": "2018-04-22T01:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-04-22T01:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/04/08/headphone-stand-part-2.html", "title": "Finish the Heaphone stand with usb hub", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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This article is the second part of the Headphone Stand build. The first part concentrated on the physical structure of the stand while this part shows how the electronic components where fit into the body and the finishing process of the stand.

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The finished stand
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Base with buttons installed
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Underside of the stand
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The active components are a USB-Hub, a Soundcard, and an old mouse. The mouse gets its button desoldered as these are not in the right place and make it too big to fit.

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Fitting the components
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Desoldering switches
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The finsihed stand
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My initial plan was to connect the hub with the connection cable via a small adapter, but I realized quite soon that this does not fit. Moreover, to insert the cable it needs to be cut so that it could fit through the hole in the back. It was then more straightforward to cut the connector on the hub as well and solder the cables directly together.

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How the buttons are installed
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The wooden switch carrier
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Soldering the buttons
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The mouse buttons got mounted on a small piece of wood which was cut to fit in the top part of the buttonhole. These were cut with three different diameters starting with the widest diameter and getting smaller each time. On top of the button, I place a small piece of dowel with a washer glued to the underside. This washer prevents the dowel from slipping out of its place but still allows it to slide up and down.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/04/08/headphone-stand-part-2.html", "date_published": "2018-04-08T01:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-04-08T01:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/03/25/headphone-stand-part-1.html", "title": "Heaphone stand build with usb hub", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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This video is the first part of a two-part series. I wanted to build this project for a very long time and finally did it. I think it was more than a year since I first had the idea.

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Roundrects are everywhere
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Floating base
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All the parts
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Starting with the project, I had an initial idea how the stand should look. However, when I started with cutting the wood, for the base, I fought about using some roundrects instead of plain squares to give the stand some flair. Moreover, as I already needed the router for making the space for all the electronics, I decided to add a chamfer at the bottom to make it optically smaller and achieve a hover effect.I am glad that I did this, it was by far my best decision in the project.

In the cavity of the base, I install a USB hub a sound card and an old mouse. The reason for the mouse is that this is the simplest way of getting additional input to a computer and I wanted to have two buttons on the stand. One button is used to toggle between play and pause. The other button toggles the audio output device on the computer, enabling me to switch between the speakers and the headphones. The second part shows more details about this.

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Fitting the usb connector
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Detail view of the usb connector
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Fitting the mouse
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This project involved quite a lot of routing and dry fitting to get the parts to fit in the holes. I did underestimate the time it needs to get everything into the base, so this project took a lot longer than initially planned. It was well worth the time.

I could not and did not want to use the original buttons of the mouse, so need to find a solution which looks good. After some experimenting, I found a simple way to use. In this project, I could apply this technic now in this project for the first time. I use a short part of a dowel and glue a washer, which is has a slightly larger diameter than the rod to the bottom of the rod.

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Drilling the pilot hole
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Drilling the cavity for the button
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The finished hole for the button
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I drilled the hole in the base with a smaller drill from the top (the same width as the rod), and a larger diameter from the bottom. This way the rod with the washer cannot fall out. The actual switch is mounted on a small piece of wood which will be shown in the second part.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/03/25/headphone-stand-part-1.html", "date_published": "2018-03-25T01:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-03-25T01:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/03/11/clothes-dryer.html", "title": "Experimenting to make my laundry process simpler: Building a clothes dryer", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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To dry our clothes we need a dehumidifier but it is not strong enough for a full load causing a bad odor in our clothes. So I was experimenting with a better method to dry out clothes. But as I do not my know if my idea was working. I’ve built it’s simple as possible to validate the design.

I’m happy to say that it did actually work – not 100% but good enough to justify a follow-up project with some better materials. My hope is to be able to not need to run the dehumidifier for three days straight each weekend.

The basic setup of the prototype is a box at the bottom to suck the air out of the clothes cabinet, I use a small industrial air blower for this.

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The bottom box with the blower
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Top part of the clothes cabinet
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The bottom part
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Next is the clothes area the walls are made out of clear plastic (this was the cheapest option). I initially planned on using acrylic for this but this would have been too expensive for a prototype. The plastic worked so well, that I will keep it also for the final version.

The clothes can be hung on two simple clothes racks in between. These certainly need to be adjusted as it is currently not easy to reach the back side of them when hanging the laundry.

The top is another peg-board. To allow air entry. This will also need to be changed and extended by another box to allow the addition of air filters.

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Detail of the clothes rack
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The finished clothes rack
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The first laod of laundry to dry
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\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/03/11/clothes-dryer.html", "date_published": "2018-03-11T08:00:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2018-03-11T08:00:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/02/25/a-third-hand-for-my-camera.html", "title": "A third hand for my camera - prototyping a flexible camera arm", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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To help my with filming my projects and get a better quality, I’ve built a simple arm to hold the camera over my workbench.

It looks ugly but this is a prove of concept and If it works out I think I will redo it in nice at some point. But for the moment it fullfills its job and work.

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Detail of the camera mount
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Testing the mount
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Wall fastening
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The four main parts are all 40cm long (a bit over 15 inch). The arm can extend quite a bit with this. I originally planned on adding some springs or strings with weights to hold it up, but my camera (iPhone) is so light it is not needed.

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The finished product
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Thing to make better for the next time:

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I build a simple wooden mirror frame for our old mirror. So we could hang it in our entry hallway.

The frame is built from some roof batten I had laying around the shop. Which were glued together with a 45 degree mitre.

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The frame glued
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Before glueing the frame a rabbet was cut to add the mirror to.

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The groove for the mirror
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The frame build and sanded
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Adding the mirror to the frame for the first time
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Now the frame was finished and sanded and the mirror could be inserted for the first time.

Now I needed to create a way to hang the frame from the wall. This is done with two frame hangers. Small wooden blocks with some holes added to allow a screw to pass through.

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Cutting the frame holders from the stock
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The finished frame holders
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Frame holder glued in
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The initial frame hanging was done without the mirror installed. Two holes where drilled into the wall to receive two screws. The frame could then be hanged onto the screws.

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The frame is hung
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Now its mirror installation time. The mirror gets secured with double sided tape. And a small nail on each side. As I did not trust the tape to hold the mirror on its own.

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Adding the double sided tape
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Adding some nails to secure the mirror
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And finally here is the finished product. The nails where hidden behind some nice decoration.

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The finished frame.
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\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/01/29/mirror-holder.html", "date_published": "2018-01-29T05:42:42-06:00", "date_modified": "2018-01-29T05:42:42-06:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/01/29/battery-holder.html", "title": "Simple battery holder for the office", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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I keep some recharchable battery in the office for my track pad. And they were just a pile which was not looking nice. So I’ve decided to solve this issue.After finding a random pice of wood in my wood box and some work I had a simple yet functional item:

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The finished product
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It holds six AA batteries. In hindsight I should have made it a bit bigger to hold more like 8 or 10. But it also works this way. And I can always make another one – if needed.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/01/29/battery-holder.html", "date_published": "2018-01-29T05:42:42-06:00", "date_modified": "2018-01-29T05:42:42-06:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/01/10/loom.html", "title": "Building a simple loom", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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Experimental loom I build as a christmas present. It allows to make longer fabrics by rotating the two round parts. When creating it I did not have a clear plan so I needed to improvise the build a bit.

This was my first build video I released on Youtube. So the video editing also took a lot of time. To get it down to an aceptable length.

\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2018/01/10/loom.html", "date_published": "2018-01-10T05:42:42-06:00", "date_modified": "2018-01-10T05:42:42-06:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2017/06/02/mp-3-player.html", "title": "I built two MP3 player for children", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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A year ago I’ve got the idea to build a simple mp3 player for my daughter. Now - more than a year later it is finally finished.

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The player supports 144 songs which are saved on an internal sd card. You select the songs by choosing an “album” and then pressing one of the twelve buttons. Power is provided by an internal powerbank which can be charged via the usb connection on the back.

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The backs of both players
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The first plan was to use punched cards to select the music album to play, The each card would contain 10 songs, and there would be multiple cards to insert into the player. The player was not usable and I’ve tried again with a much simplified Idea. Just using a rotary selection button to select the „Album“, and a LED to show the selection. Increasing the number of albums to 12 also allows you now to display it like a clock. And finished it is :-)

The player uses an Arduino for controlling the song selection. The mp3 playback is handled by a self containing mp3 module I found on the internet. To have enough outputs the LEDs are connected via two shift registers. To not empty the battery when nothing is playing (this was a problem on the first version). I’ve also included a electrical switch to be able to shutdown the player after a given time if it is not in playback.

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Arduino uno & custom shield driving the first player
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The second player

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The second mp3 player I built
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After building the first player I build a second one where I simplified a lot of the construction. Main changes are that I use an Arduino Mini instead of an Arduino Uno, which simplified the pcb soldering a lot. The LEDs are still driven by a seperate LED driver board, containing two shift registers.

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The hardware of the second player
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Impressions of the build

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Soldering the led driver
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Detail of the soldering
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Frontpanel of the second player
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Prototyping with mp3 playback
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The first version with punch card interface
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\t\t\t", "url": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2017/06/02/mp-3-player.html", "date_published": "2017-06-02T06:42:42-05:00", "date_modified": "2017-06-02T06:42:42-05:00" }, { "id": "https://i-make.xyz/projects/2017/04/15/big-table.html", "title": "Building an expandable dining table - up to 4m long", "content_html": "\t\t\t\t

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We needed a new table, as the old one was getting to small. Especialy due to bad leg placement, it was not relay comortable when you expaned it. So of I go to desinging a table wich can get bigger and has a usable leg placement.

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The table in its smallest configuration
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Table Requirements

The basic requirements for the new table was that the legs should not stay at the same location when extending. So the solution was to build the table in two identical halfs. Attaching the legs directly to these halfs. Now the next problem to solve was how to build the extending sliding mechanism. It needed to be payable and stable enough to span 4m.

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The table in its biggest configuration
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Sliding Mechanism

As I do not have the capability to handle metal in my shop, I need to find a solution which used wood and of the shelf components. In the end the solution was to use fully extendable drawer slider and combine three of them together per side. Unfortunatly this is not stable enough to span the 4m which I wanted. So the final breakthough was to add a fith leg in the middle of the table.

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Images of the build process

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Securing the two halfs together

While building the table I did not desing a solution on how to hold the two halfs of the table together. Now after some time of using the table without this I finally managed to find a good solution on how to hold the two halfs together: ratchet strap.

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