The "i made dis" thread

the fact most people percieve it as 'a hobby' is part of the problem.

Why is it as problem? People hunt and fish for sport. Is painting a picture "less than" because it's not repainting a house?

For me, it's become a hobby because I enjoy spending time making things I don't necessarily need and I like learning about techniques and tools. I work on my house, too, but that's not as fun.

For example, I saw a table that was $1000. Just for fun, I wanted to see if I could build it in 4 hours with less than $40 in materials. I did, and I enjoyed my time doing it. And I sold it for $30. So for the cost of a movie ticket, I enjoyed myself for twice as long as the movie would have lasted, and I learned a few things. This autumn, I might be building an extra 200sqfeet onto our house. I'm going to be damn proud of it, but it's not my job and it won't be fun. :lol:

I don't think that it's any less worthwhile of a hobby because I didn't do it to serve a specific functional need.

I don't sew for fun, but I've done it when the need arose...but I don't think that someone who enjoys it and does it for fun is somehow a detriment to society. ;)
 
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I Was raised to be self sufficient to a point,
The reason I have learned to be a do it yourselfer is a strictly monetary one. I can't pay a plumber or a carpenter to come to my house and ply their trade. I have to do it.
Same here. The five months that it took for my idiot landlord to send someone to install new taps in my bathroom (I didn't have the right tools and wasn't going to buy them) were bad enough, so I just do everything I can myself. Doesn't hurt that my better half is picking up a few tricks along the way.
 
Why is it as problem? People hunt and fish for sport. Is painting a picture "less than" because it's not repainting a house?

For me, it's become a hobby because I enjoy spending time making things I don't necessarily need and I like learning about techniques and tools. I work on my house, too, but that's not as fun.

For example, I saw a table that was $1000. Just for fun, I wanted to see if I could build it in 4 hours with less than $40 in materials. I did, and I enjoyed my time doing it. And I sold it for $30. So for the cost of a movie ticket, I enjoyed myself for twice as long as the movie would have lasted, and I learned a few things. This autumn, I might be building an extra 200sqfeet onto our house. I'm going to be damn proud of it, but it's not my job and it won't be fun. :lol:

I don't think that it's any less worthwhile of a hobby because I didn't do it to serve a specific functional need.

I don't sew for fun, but I've done it when the need arose...but I don't think that someone who enjoys it and does it for fun is somehow a detriment to society. ;)

'Problem' might not have been the best choice of words, and I to build things for fun sometimes, I quess what I ment was that for most people DIY has evolved from a way of thinking, the 'If you want something done right you have to be there and do it your Goddamn self' mindset, to a hobby, something that is optional, not to sound dramatic but I feel it weakens us as species, to many people have gotten soft......when the shit inevitably hits the fan again, as history shows it will, we won't need safe space designers or laptop warrior wizz kids, we will need people who can keep the generator going.

Also, 'the home made picture frame with glitter and sparkles' , 'look how practical I am!' latte sipping hipster brigade, I think we can all agree they need to die.
 
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I guess a lot of artists who make sculptures are also adept at woodworking/carpentry/repairs for needful things. Art is just letting your mind wander from what is strictly necessary for survival, and that's what makes us human I guess.

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Everyone dies eventually. I guarantee you, the glitter-decorating latte-sipping hipster will die happier than an endlessly ranting hilbilly wannabe.

I am now envisioning internal bleeding caused by sharp glitter in the latte.

 
I feel like the diy movement could be people reaching to BE more self-sufficient, actually. With YouTube and the rest of the internet, more and more people seem to be finding the courage to pick up a saw and a drill to both build things and try to fix things around the house.
 
Also, 'the home made picture frame with glitter and sparkles' , 'look how practical I am!' latte sipping hipster brigade, I think we can all agree they need to die.
No, we bloody well can not. First of all, their impact and numbers are constantly overstated and second, they're some of the easiest people to avoid because they like to be with their ilk. So stop pretending they're like Jehova's Witnesses with silly glasses and strange clothes and let them fucking be.
 
I'm still not sure what I'll do for the welding table. It'll be epic for sure!

Well... Dad had other ideas. I guess he got on Northern Tool's website and ordered up a cheap welding cart and table.



They will work for now. I need to practice my welding more before I think about building something like this:

 
Not so much 'made', as 'making', because I'm not even a third of the way into it yet.

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Almost completed page 7 of 40. I have a few years work ahead of me still.
 
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It more often feels like stupidity.

I've always loved the painting 'La Belle Dam Sans Merci', and wanted to stitch it, but after looking online and asking the lady who runs the store I get my other tapestries at, she said it's never been available to stitch as a tapestry, though was available as a cross stitch. I don't have the patience for that (ironically), so I decided to find a cross stitch pattern of it and work it as a tapestry instead. How hard could it be?

I didn't factor in that the pattern was designed to be worked on fabric in a scale of 25 x 25 stitches per square inch, (so, tiny stitches), and that by doing it on tapestry canvas, which only comes in 10 x 10 stitches per square inch, it's going to be bigger than the, already large pattern I'm working from. The canvas doesn't come in big enough bolts to fit it all, so I've had to join two canvases together to make it large enough.

Final completed size will be 57.5" by 48".

There are 40 A4 pages of stitching in the chart, and I've now (almost) finished 7 pages. At my current rate of slacking off on it, it will take about 8 years to complete.

A friend of my mother's saw it and turned to another friend of theirs, saying "Do you think we'll be alive to see it finished?" They're both in their mid 80's. No pressure or anything!

This is the picture, for those that haven't seen it. I know the bit showing in my picture does't really make sense.
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Not stupidity, perhaps lunacy. It will be an epic wall hanger when completed. I wish I had the stick-to-it-ness required to take on such a large task. That and learning Finnish can't leave much time for you to do anything else...
 
At least I can use the time stitching to listen to radio or music in Finnish. Every little bit helps.
Gonna have to take a drive an go get some more threads in the next couple of days. I'm running out of black wool, and missing some thread in the bridle there. Started page 8 tonight, but didn't get far.
Its a bit awkward to work on such a large frame.
 
I thought I'd dig this thread up with a post that doesn't entirely fit, but we don't have a 'I modified dis' thread so it'll do.

When I got this keyboard it had keys with transparent sections so that the LEDs shone through, important as the caps/num/scroll lock keys only light up when they're activated and the keyboard has no other indicator lights. Seems good. I think that's a cat hair in the shot, don't worry I cleaned it away.

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I then immediately fitted keycaps that don't have transparent windows so you can't see when these keys are active through the key. Fine for the num lock and scroll lock as I can just about see the edge of the transparent base, but I kept losing track of the caps lock state. Yeah I could put something on the screen but that would be too easy, I wanted something on the key.

Old keyboards would sometimes have a little window and an LED build in to the key, so I wanted to add a little window to the caps key. Simple, just drill a hole, right? Nah, not good enough. I actually just found this photo I took and it looks shit. It's an RGB keyboard so it can be any colour I want, it was green when I took this photo but red is clearer and more fitting with the Dolch theme of this keyset.

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Nah, it needs a lens. First thought was to make a 'lens' from hot glue, it's transparent and will diffuse the light. Well it kind of worked but when trying to smooth out the glue with a small heat gun I melted the key slightly and it went all smooth and warped.

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It worked but was really dim and I couldn't get a good photo of it. Not good enough! Cue ordering three caps keys from the US (at considerable expense when you include the fee for Royal Mail to rub their viruses all over it) that took over a month to arrive. One key to leave alone put back in the pack with the spare keys (I couldn't leave the set without a good version of the key) and two to fuck with.

I also got some fibre optic filament from eBay in two flavours, original and 'side glow' which turned out to be more diffused and a softer material. You can only buy this stuff in metres and I used about 5mm so I've got a lifetime supply of custom light pipes here. It's impossible to tell them apart on a photo but here's one anyway:

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Each filament is 2mm so drilling the hole is nice and easy it's a nice close fit. Cut to the right length (as far as I can push it in without contacting anything under the key when it's pressed) and with a little dab of superglue on the back the job's a good 'un. You can barely see the filament poking through beside the stalk of the keycap and the top is much neater.

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Much brighter too. The clear filament was actually too bright, it was like a laser pointer being fired in your eye so I went with the diffused one.

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Now I'm not sure if I should do the num and scroll lock keys. I don't really need to and don't have spares so it would be a one shot deal. They don't really have space to place the dot of light either, putting it in the O of lock seems cheesy.

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Suggestions welcome but not of where to insert the keycaps.
 
This is as good a place as any to put this, but I built a little table for our back porch out of scraps from the deck I built at dad's house. Gena wanted a table, but I didn't want her paying $150+ for some cheap Chinese built unit. For scraps, I think it turned out great. And best of all, she's happy with it.

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I forgot about this thread. I've been making or upcycling a ton of stuff to keep me same while on Lockdown.

The thing that looks like a scruffy beehive is a worm composer. Just needs the mesh for each tray and to be painted.
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Insect house. Should attract solitary bee species for pollination plus ladybirds and lacewings to deal with any aphids. These are £25 and upwards in garden centres.

This took a piece of scrap ply, an offcut of fence post, 9 screws, 9 passes with the mitre saw, 25 x 9mm holes, some bamboo from the corner of the garden and less than 90 minutes. And half of that was cutting the ruddy bamboo to length! Probably cost less than a quid.

I've called it the Air Bee 'n' Bee

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That is truly awesome. Sadly we don't seem to get many skwerls* around here. Tons of birds of numerous varieties but no skwerls**.

*My best buddy married a girl from Shreveport, LA, and to this day she pisses herself when he says squirrel and there are two distinct syllables.

**Number 3 on my Bucket List is to get Dr Grip to say squirrel.
 
Gena had me take more scraps of decking and build a squirrel picnic table.

So that's what it is! We were all pretty confused when we saw it on the chat. It's brilliant. :LOL:
 
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