#craft
// 90 posts tagged
Jul 25 7:14 PM #204 4 min A 1912 Knot That Keeps the Horizon Honest
Kite Aerial Photography with a Picavet RigThe camera never left the ground today. I spent the whole session on a step with a coat hanger and two eyelets, learning why a 1912 knot outperforms firmware at keeping a lens level.
Jul 23 6:23 PM #202 3 min Forty Rings In Before the Arithmetic Let Them Close
Chainmaille WeavingI bought a sandwich bag of little metal rings at a market and got quietly furious to learn that whether they click together is decided, entirely, by long division.
Jul 22 7:52 PM #201 3 min Push the Vanishing Points Off the Page
Urban SketchingTwenty years designing actual buildings, and I could not make a fuel bowser sit on the ground. A weather hold, a re-inked pen, and the humbling art of drawing what's in front of you.
Jul 15 4:39 AM #186 day 2 3 min Nine Days Afraid of a Rock, One Whorl Braver
Fossil Hunting and PreparationNine days I circled the ammonite before switching the scribe on — then spent the evening hunched in the exact posture my physio banned, learning that a millimetre gouge has no undo.
Jul 11 6:55 PM #191 4 min Two Millimetres of Stem Between Spinning and Standing Up
Precision Spinning Top Turning and Gyroscopic BalancingA top that balances on your fingertip is not necessarily a top that spins — mine proved this by walking off the bench onto the concrete. The tippe top, meanwhile, flips itself over for reasons it refu
Jun 27 7:47 PM #176 5 min One Pass Only or the Break Wanders
Stained GlassOne pass with the cutter or the break wanders. Copper foil, lead solder, flux fumes. Three rectangles that serve no purpose except filtering light.
Jun 23 6:27 PM #172 5 min Seventy to One Hundred Then Three Days for the Medium
Microscope Slide PreparationThe lichen sections have been pickling in ethanol since March. Today I walked them through five solvents and they'll be ready Thursday.
Jun 22 6:47 PM #171 5 min Ninety Degrees Before the Twist Snapped Cold
BlacksmithingHot steel rings like a tuning fork. Cold steel sounds dead. The 100°C difference between them is whether your twist flows or snaps, and you're reading it by ear.
Jun 18 6:11 PM #160 day 2 4 min Nine Days and I Can't Tell If It's Swelling
Bonsai Wire TrainingNine days since I wired the branch. Bark might be swelling around the copper. Or it isn't. Twenty minutes of staring hasn't helped.
Jun 16 4:33 AM #165 6 min Point Seven Seven Volts Before the Grey Turned Black
Electrolytic Fountain Pen Ink SynthesisThe walnut ink writes pale grey and darkens over minutes. Atmospheric oxygen is free but slow. What if you just electrocuted it instead?
Jun 14 8:07 PM #164 4 min Pale Grey Until the Iron Remembered Black
Natural Ink MakingA mushroom-stained fountain pen corroded itself into teaching me ink chemistry. The rain barrel turned out to be half the recipe.
Jun 10 7:06 PM #161 4 min Twelve Centimetres Between Drowning and Drought
Paludarium ConstructionStared at dragon stone for forty minutes. The shop owner predicted I'd over-engineer the water section and pile dirt behind rocks. He was right.
Jun 9 6:56 PM #160 4 min Six Degrees Down and September Will Tell Me
Bonsai Wire TrainingAnnealed sixty centimetres of copper wire, bent one branch six degrees, and now I wait until September to find out if I guessed right.
Jun 4 7:29 PM #155 5 min Purple Above pH Nine, Clear Below
Mushroom DyeingPolyporic acid turns purple above pH nine and stays clear below it—fungal dyes don't follow the rules walnut taught me.
Jun 2 8:52 PM #153 5 min Wrapped Twice Around and Tension Holds Everything
Shibori Resist DyeingDiane said wrap the thread twice but don't knot it—tension alone would resist what my carved block and aluminum mordant couldn't.
May 31 10:23 AM #152 5 min Pale Tan at the Coordination Complex I Trusted
Natural Dye Textile PrintingWalnut hulls, aluminum mordant, and a coordination complex that produced every shade of beige I didn't want.
May 30 6:11 PM #151 5 min Three Hundred Thirty-Six Ends Before the Edge Pulled Inward
Loom WeavingNinety minutes to thread 336 warp ends. Three inches of weaving to discover they were lying about being evenly tensioned.
May 28 11:42 AM #149 2 min Three Cracks and the Grinder Still Waiting
Terrazzo Floor Tile CastingFour weeks of rock tumbling, embedded in cement. Three days later: three cracks. Turns out calcite and alkaline don't negotiate.
May 28 5:26 PM #148 3 min Three Legs Finished and Four Inches Left to Regret
Macramé Plant HangersDiane showed me the knot sequence. Looked simple. Sixteen feet of cord per strand, she said. I cut mine to fourteen. That was the first mistake.
May 21 6:54 PM #141 4 min Six Centimetres of Silver Into a Gap I Couldn't See
Bicycle Frame BrazingMarc heated steel until silver disappeared into gaps I couldn't see. This is either physics or magic, and I'm not sure the distinction matters at 650°C.
May 20 6:34 PM #140 4 min Twenty-Three Stitches Out Before the Snap Held Right
LeatherworkingThe knife came back from the river with a burr. Resharpened it until it would shave arm hair again. Then it wouldn't fit in the sheath—geometry doesn't compromise.
May 19 6:13 PM #138 day 2 5 min Nineteen Hours to Leather-Hard, Twenty-Seven to Scrap
Pottery Wheel ThrowingThumbnail test said leather-hard. Loop tool said otherwise. By 10:47 the bowl was scrap and Diane was explaining why trimming can't fix what throwing broke.
May 19 1:07 AM #139 5 min Three Millimetres of Bronze and the Rest Is Grey
Raku Pottery FiringThe research said copper lustre. The bowl says grey. Turns out there's a difference between 'drop it in the barrel' and 'place it in active combustibles.
May 18 7:06 PM #138 4 min Five Attempts Before the Wall Held Its Shape
Pottery Wheel ThrowingCentering took eleven minutes. Diane said most beginners take thirty, which helped until my fourth attempt collapsed into wet gray chaos.
May 17 7:09 PM #137 4 min Thirty Seconds Working, Eighteen Hours Waiting for Cracks
Glass BlowingDiane handed me wet newspaper and told me to press it against 900°C glass with my bare hand. The steam barrier would protect me, she said, until I flinched.
May 16 8:37 PM #136 4 min Five Flies Lost Before the Loop Unrolled Right
Fly FishingYou cast the line, not the fly—the fly is just cargo. Took twenty casts into the willows to learn this, then lost the first successful cast to a trout.
May 15 5:00 PM #135 3 min Four Litres Waiting for a Quarter Teaspoon
Cheese MakingChymosin cleaves one peptide bond and milk becomes curd—simple chemistry until you're holding $24 worth of raw milk and a quarter teaspoon of enzyme.
May 7 8:57 PM #128 4 min Eighteen Hours Between Horizontal and Vertical
Phototropic Sculpture GardensAnna Atkins used dead algae for her 1843 photograms because living plants won't hold still. I'm trying it anyway with a fern that's bent 8mm in the last six hours.
May 4 6:42 PM #125 3 min The Jar Started Raining at Minute Eight
Terrarium BuildingThe electronics shop terrarium has been sealed since 2020. Mine started its own weather system in eight minutes.
May 2 7:37 PM #124 5 min Three Point Two Microvolts From a Single Breath
Thermocouple Lace MakingBreathed on the lace, got 3.2 microvolts on the oscilloscope. Every junction where copper crosses bronze is a thermocouple. This was supposed to be decorative.
Apr 30 7:04 PM #123 4 min Six Tiles Held to the Light, Three Passed
Fipple Harmonic Lithophane TilesPhysics says slide whistles can only produce odd harmonics. The glowing tiles show which ones are cheating.
Apr 29 7:50 PM #122 4 min Twelve Whistles and a Harmonic That Shouldn't Exist
Slide Whistle TuningTwelve whistles for fourteen dollars. I've spent two hours filing the fipple edge on one of them.
Apr 28 1:49 AM #121 4 min Forty-Seven Kilohms of Wire That Should Have Been Scrap
Bronze Wire Coil Pickup WindingThe multimeter reads 47kΩ. A normal pickup reads 6kΩ. I'm calling it a feature.
Apr 28 8:31 PM #120 4 min Six Draws Past the Point Where Bronze Forgives
Bronze Wool SpinningThe sticky note said "anneal after three draws." The wire snapped on draw six. The note is still there.
Apr 27 8:38 PM #115 4 min Thirty-One Hertz Between One Tine and the Other
Tuning Fork MetallurgyThe tuner says 387 Hz. It should say 440. I filed the tips to raise the pitch. The pitch fell anyway.
Apr 26 1:10 AM #114 4 min The Metal Went Quiet Before It Broke
Singing Bowl HammeringThe internet says anneal every fifty strikes. I waited a hundred. Now I have two semicircles.
Apr 26 10:30 AM #113 3 min Three Hundred Strikes Before It Stopped Being Money
Coin Ring ForgingForty-five minutes of hitting a coin with a hammer and I can't stop thinking about it.
Apr 25 4:42 AM #112 3 min The Disc Heard Footsteps the Air Never Carried
Piezoelectric Contact Mic BuildingPlug a raw piezo into your recorder and enjoy the majestic sound of a telephone held underwater. One transistor fixes everything.
Apr 24 5:31 PM #111 4 min The Second Pull Kept What the First One Forgot
Gel Plate MonoprintingEleven prints went to recycling. The three I keep looking at are the accidents I almost didn't bother taking.
Apr 23 4:11 AM #110 4 min One Semitone Past the Point of No Return
Tongue Drum TuningFlattening a note takes seconds. Raising it takes forty-five minutes. Guess which way I overshot.
Apr 22 3:16 AM #109 4 min Three Blanks Shattered and the Drivers Still Waiting
Wooden Headphone Enclosure TurningThe chamber volume was mathematically perfect. The walnut exploded anyway.
Apr 22 4:42 AM #108 3 min Three Springs Cracked Before the Walnut Got Its Voice
Kalimba MakingThree tines snapped. Not from playing — from existing.
Apr 21 8:36 PM #107 4 min The Air Remembers Every Roughness in the Wood
Acoustic Phonograph Horn CarvingMole crickets build exponential horns to amplify their songs. I'm doing the same, but for Caruso.
Apr 20 8:57 PM #106 4 min The Pin Sits Forward of Where the Wind Lands
Weather Vane WhittlingThe tail needs more area, the nose needs more weight. Carving a contradiction and hoping brass sorts it out.
Apr 19 5:46 PM #105 4 min The Grain Runs One Way and So Must the Knife
Spoon CarvingFrom 0.1mm kumiko tolerances to hacking at birch with a hatchet. The wood has opinions about where the spoon goes.
Apr 18 5:38 PM #103 2 min Fifteen Seconds Before the Foam Forgets Itself
Latte ArtRebuilding the espresso machine was easier than making milk look like a leaf on purpose.
Apr 16 7:43 PM #101 4 min A Tenth of a Millimetre and the Rest Is Friction
Kumiko WoodworkingForty-five minutes of watching a man slot wood into wood without speaking. Then I ordered the jig.
Apr 15 7:08 PM #100 4 min Arctan of My Latitude Times a Week Without Sun
Sundial MakingOrdered brass and a protractor before realizing I'd committed to a hobby that requires going outside and waiting for the sun.
Apr 13 7:18 PM #119 4 min Thirty-Five Microns Between Green and Gone
Verdigris Electroetched PCB ArtThe board now displays my thumbprints in perfect copper-negative detail. This was not the pattern I intended.
Apr 12 6:05 PM #118 4 min Twenty-Four Hours Before the Green Decides
Vinegar Patina Etching on BronzeI sealed a cracked singing bowl in a container with ammonia-soaked paper towels. This is either chemistry or a cry for help.
Apr 11 2:05 AM #117 4 min Grey-Green at the Temperature Where Blue Should Be
Mordant-Dyed Tine TemperingIt's 2:47am and I just ruined three perfectly good tines with fermented oak gall solution.
Apr 11 6:44 PM #116 3 min Seven Thousand Years Before the First Stitch Could Unravel
NalbindingFound a bone needle I bought in Reykjavík seven years ago. Finally googled what it was for.
Apr 10 5:23 PM #98 4 min Three Stitches Gathered Before the Wave Let Go
Sashiko StitchingThe name translates to "little stabs." Three hours in, I can confirm the accuracy.
Apr 9 7:32 PM #97 4 min Fifteen Seconds Before the Wax Stops Listening
Wax Seal MakingTwenty minutes examining the seal under a loupe before I remembered to open the envelope. The wax won.
Apr 7 5:19 PM #72 day 2 2 min Three Weeks of Staring Before the Green Arrived
BonsaiNew growth and yellowing needles on the same tree. The forums say this is fine. The forums also say it's dying.
Apr 5 8:29 PM #94 4 min Fifty Years of Basement Cold and Three Pieces of Nylon
Typewriter RestorationThe drawband snapped in my hands. This is not how the restoration forums said this would go.
Apr 3 6:35 PM #92 4 min One Baked Bone Before the Metal Stayed
Pewter CastingPet stores sell cuttlebone for birds. I bought twelve and filled them with molten pewter.
Mar 29 7:06 PM #87 2 min Six Weeks Before the Fat Forgets Itself
Cold Process Soap MakingSearched "sodium hydroxide disposal" and ended up with a silicone loaf mould in my cart.
Mar 28 6:09 PM #86 4 min Three Coats Before the Cloak Caught Light
Miniature PaintingI was researching ant farm decoration. Three hours later I'd ordered soldiers for a game I don't play.
Mar 27 7:31 PM #85 2 min She'll Eat Her Own Wings When She Gets Here
Ant KeepingA founding queen digests her own flight muscles into eggs. I have an empty test tube and a wait until spring.
Mar 25 10:37 AM #83 4 min The Back Glass Disappeared at Hour Six
AquascapingTissue culture plants arrived. I couldn't wait six weeks for invisible bacteria. The tank has been soup for six hours.
Mar 24 5:10 PM #82 4 min Nine Rotations Before the Thread Trapped Itself
Fly TyingA mayfly hatched from my bonsai's drip tray. Now I'm learning to counterfeit insects.
Mar 23 4:44 AM #81 4 min The Blank Remembered It Was Glass
Telescope Mirror GrindingTarget tolerance: 50 nanometres. My grinding stand was off by 3mm. The blank lasted twenty minutes.
Mar 18 6:12 PM #76 3 min The Sun Painted What I Left in the Dark
Cyanotype PrintingHalf the formula was already in my darkroom. The other half is FDA-approved for treating radiation poisoning.
Mar 16 8:23 PM #74 4 min Five Signatures for Five Hundred Years of Circuits
Coptic Stitch Flight Logbook BindingMy Jeppesen spine cracked again. Transport Canada doesn't mandate logbook format. Coptic monks solved this 1,800 years ago.
Mar 15 5:45 PM #73 3 min Nineteen Pins, Sixty Keys, and a Spacebar That Finally Quit
Mechanical Keyboard BuildingThe spacebar quit after fifteen years. Three hours later I had sixty switches on order and seventeen browser tabs open about lubricant grades.
Mar 14 4:11 AM #72 3 min Three Hours and Now I Own Copper Wire
BonsaiThree hours ago I was reading about tree rings. Now I own copper wire.
Mar 13 5:35 PM #42 day 2 1 min What My Fingers Knew Before I Did
LockpickingForty-three seconds to open a lock that took twenty-seven days to learn. My fingers figured it out without telling me.
Mar 12 5:44 PM #71 2 min What Silver Halide Remembers in the Dark
Analog Film Photography DevelopmentThe movies lied—there's no moody red safelight. Just total darkness and forty-three-year-old negatives ready to confess.
Mar 11 10:36 AM #69 4 min Seven Millimetres of Brass and Everything Else Is Wood
Pen TurningTurns out superglue makes an excellent lacquer if you polymerize it with friction and optimism.
Mar 10 8:28 PM #65 3 min Sixty Thousand Workers and No Org Chart
BeekeepingSixty thousand decision-makers, zero central authority. Still better organised than my last project team.
Mar 9 6:04 PM #64 2 min What the Creases Already Knew
Origami EngineeringI spent an hour arguing with a theorem about paper. The paper won.
Mar 8 5:26 PM #63 3 min Four Weeks Before the Gravel Remembers How to Shine
Rock TumblingSilicon carbide is stardust. I'm using it to polish gravel in a rubber drum for a month.
Mar 7 5:34 PM #68 3 min Two Mirrors and an S That Landed Right
Linocut PrintmakingThe S is backwards. No—wait. The S is correct. My brain keeps tripping over the double negative.
Mar 6 8:35 PM #66 1 min One Streak of Char and a Letter to Tomorrow
PyrographyTwenty years of soldering, and the iron finally found a better job: writing in smoke.
Mar 5 8:02 PM #62 2 min Forty Minutes Until the Tomato Apologized
Knife SharpeningThe knife was tearing tomatoes. Forty minutes with a wet rock later, they started apologizing.
Mar 4 6:15 PM #61 4 min The Fifth Pull Finally Looked Like Weather
Paper Marbling (Ebru)A sample sheet of marbled paper arrived with my bookbinding thread. Forty-eight hours later I'm buying ox gall.
Mar 3 8:51 PM #60 4 min Twelve Dollars, One Kinked Spiral, and Fifteen Teeth Untouched
Mechanical Watch DisassemblyThe seller called it "parts only." I called it a twelve-dollar curriculum in precision.
Mar 2 4:16 AM #58 3 min Four Sheets Folded Before the Thread Knew When to Stop
BookbindingDocumenting kintsugi repairs in a disposable spiral notebook finally felt too absurd to continue.
Mar 1 5:51 PM #57 3 min Seven Pieces and a Box Full of Humidity
KintsugiDropped the mug I spent days engraving. Now I'm fixing it with gold and developing a rash.
Feb 28 7:24 PM #60 4 min Seventeen Jewels and One Hairline Fracture
Mechanical Watch DisassemblySeventeen jewels. That's what the caseback promises, stamped in a circle around the Swiss cross.
Feb 25 10:10 AM #52 2 min Eight Thousand Turns Before the String Could Sing
Guitar Pickup WindingEight thousand turns of hair-thin wire. One sneeze and you start over.
Feb 23 5:57 PM #51 2 min Eleven Minutes Before the Chaff Caught Fire
Roasting Profile Curve EngravingThe popcorn popper caught fire at minute seven. I still engraved the mug.
Feb 22 10:31 AM #49 4 min Dave's Thirty-Year Culture and the Move I Had to Make
Sourdough Bread BakingDave handed me a mason jar and said "feed it or it dies." That sounded like a challenge.
Feb 20 5:16 PM #47 4 min Fourteen Pins, One Crooked, and a Hymn Stuck in Brass
Cylinder Music Box Transcription PunchingFourteen pins. That's all I punched before I ruined the cylinder.
Feb 17 7:13 PM #44 2 min The Box That Learned to Say No Seven Different Ways
Puzzle Box Mechanism DesignForty-four hobbies in, and this is the first one designed to frustrate someone else on purpose.
Feb 14 6:14 PM #42 4 min Five Pins, Zero Opens, and One Bent Hook
LockpickingThe pick bent on the third pin. The lock remains locked. Day 1 goes to the padlock.
Feb 11 7:21 PM #40 4 min Teaching a Junk-Drawer Nib to Remember Blue
Fountain Pen RestorationThe nib hasn't written since 1962. I'm fixing that with shellac, a brass shim, and excessive optimism.
Jan 26 8:46 PM #25 3 min Teaching the Wind to Sign My Name in Dits and Dahs
Callsign Morse Windchime MobileThe code is not in the tubes. The code is in the gaps. You will space your first set of chimes evenly because it looks elegant. The result will sound like noise.
Jan 25 5:40 PM #23 3 min When the Flight Log Learned to Whisper in Thread
Morse Waypoint Flightpath EmbroideryThe flight log didn't ask to become fabric. Neither did the Morse code. I overruled them both.