#design
// 27 posts tagged
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 14 4:21 AM #194 3 min Four Centimetres of Line Between Straight and Sideways
Ripstop Sport Kite Building and Precision FlyingThe kite pulled left. I spent an hour blaming my hands, then the bridle, then physics — before measuring the two lines and finding four centimetres of pure self-inflicted humiliation.
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 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 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 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 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 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.
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 2 7:41 PM #91 3 min Four Dark Sockets and Three Weeks to Wait
Nixie Tube Clock BuildingTwo tubes glow, one turned purple, and the "3" displays as a backwards "C." That's not a clock.
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 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 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 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 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.
Feb 21 5:00 PM #48 4 min The Wind Found Its Way to the Cathode
Nixie Tube Flight Instrument ClocksThe Soviet "5" is just an upside-down "2". I'm trusting it to show me the altimeter setting anyway.
Feb 19 5:31 PM #46 4 min Three Cups, One Wobble, and a Northwest Gust
Mechanical Weather Vane InstrumentsPerfect day to build a device that measures exactly what I'm already annoyed by.
Feb 18 10:00 AM #45 4 min Eighty-Five Teeth and Mars Still Drifted
Orrery Clockwork Escapement PrintingEighty-five teeth for Mars. Forty-five for Earth. A fishing sinker doing orbital mechanics on my workbench.
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 10 6:44 PM #39 3 min The Cross-Country That Learned to Keep the Beat
Flightpath Zoetrope DrumsVictorian parlour trick meets GPS log meets strobe light. Somewhere in the blur, September is learning to drum.
Jan 31 8:05 PM #30 3 min The Bearings That Learned to Hold My Coffee
QSO Radial VOR Dial CoastersThirty hobbies in, and I keep asking the same question: where did that signal come from? Now my coffee mug rests on the answer.
Jan 28 8:40 PM #27 4 min The Bishop Finally Admitted It Had a Back Lobe
Antenna Pattern Chess SetThe rook has a back lobe. When I pick up the bishop, I can feel the null. That sounds absurd. It is. I don't care.
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.
Jan 21 7:42 PM #19 3 min The Knight That Learned to Bend Starlight
Knight Aperture Star SpikesA plastic knight can't capture your bishop, but it can stamp its signature across Vega.
Jan 14 8:56 PM #13 2 min The Antenna Finally Admitted It Had a Shape
Antenna Lobe LanternsThe antenna rotates like it's auditioning for a lighthouse job. Eventually, it becomes one.