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Due to a rather amazing stroke of good luck, the community workshop I belong to received the loan of a ShopBot CNC router. For a first project, I'd like to build some simplistic speaker boxes (read: plywood rectangles with many, many, many holes), but would also like to see what could be done...

I've recently obtained access to a full-on Bridgeport style CNC mill, and was hoping to use it to complete a few projects. My woodworking skills are very limited. I'd like to use some rather unusual materials like burls or stabilized spalted wood, but I so far haven't touched them due to the...

First, some good news. After a year of illness and barely keeping up with a reduced courseload, I'm back up and about again. And now, some bad news: I'm kinda broke. To be fair, I'm still living with my parents, and my community college tuition is nearly nil. However, I'd like to be able to...

Does anyone know where I can find a table showing the maximum cutting speed for various thicknesses of MDF and plywood with various power levels of laser? I hear both these materials cut well, but I'm trying to figure out the most economical way to build a project.

While trolling eBay for bargians, I found someone selling Corian pen blanks. Can these be turned on a lathe just like wood? Are they machinable? I might be able to beg access to a CNC machine, and laminating a few layers of scrap Corian together seems like an economical and extremely strong...

Just a heads up for anyone who has any need to buy anything from Europe: The Euro is, at the moment, toast. If you need to buy anything from Europe, the current $1.19 to one euro exchange rate means you'll be getting an unusually good price - compared to the usual exchange rate of about $1.50 to...

Can anyone recommend a good wood for CNC machining with a very small (dremel-for-an-endmill) CNC machine? Preferably something hard enough that any small details milled into it won't be lost under rough handling and cheap enough that a mill failure won't render me bankrupt.

Auto mechanic and gearhead idol Bill Caswell is passing through Madison in a few weeks, and I get to take him out to eat. Woot! If you haven't heard of him, Caswell recently acheived fame by placing third in his class in the gruelling Mexico Rally in a twenty-year-old BMW. While not technically...

I've recently been experimenting with homemade liqueurs, and was wondering if anyone else has any experience in the area. I'm a very light drinker, and if I'm going to be consuming alcohol, I'd prefer for it to be the good stuff....and goodness knows I can't afford it. It's a nice way to make...

I'm building an activated carbon filter for filtering cheap vodka for use in making liqueurs. I'd like to be able to screw the end of a tube (preferably copper) on to the end of the bottle directly, but they seem to use a rather wonky sort of threading. Can anyone make any suggestions as to a...

I spent a lot of time in jewelry-makign classes in high school, and am hoping to apply my knowledge to slightly more practical applications - specifically, silver soldering various things together. I am, however, at a bit of a loss as to how I might do this without spending an arm and a leg -...

A friend of mine has a studio monitor which, during a party, fell off of its' stand and developed a major crack. The enclosure has twisted along the crack, and while I can clamp it back into shape easily enough, I need an appropriate glue that I can inject into the extremely narrow fissure that...

After much searching, I've decided that I may as well just use concrete for my hollow-sphere speaker project. By using casting foam to make a mold of a hemispherical wooden bowl ($20 from Ikea) with all the requisite details added, using modelling clay, I can cast four identical concrete...

Is anyone here familiar with ferroconcrete construction? I've got a few projects that might make use of it, but I'm a bit confused as to where to start.

I have a speaker project that requires some spherical enclosures. After much searching, it seems that short of casting out of concrete, the best way to make the finished product would be to buy two wooden bowls from IKEA and glue them together. That said, IKEA products are not used for speaker...

After much work, I've managed to electroplate something! It looks sufficently awful that I'm not posting pictures, but I've managed to successfully plate an old steel screwdriver with a heavy coat of nickel. I used a rather crude mixture of roach killer (60% boric acid, 40%...something else?)...

I have some rather rare and very high end woofers that a fellow in Europe has expressed a desire to purchase. However, I'm not sure of how I can get paid without any risk - Western Union is prone to fraud and PayPal is, if anything, even worse. Is there a way I can get my money with zero risk of...

While reading about the history of art deco design, I came across an article on bakelite. Essentially, it's just phenolic resin (the stuff they make router plates out of) used as a binder for a whole lot of sawdust. I've been wondering: Is it possible to use other materials - say, fiberglass...

This isn't a great deal, but at least it covers the cost of shipping for those of us either too far from a Harbor Freight for it to be practical to shop there, or who are fed up with the local store to finally order some more hole punches. :D For any order of $60 or more, enter the coupon code...

I'm looking to buy myself a hand punch to make small holes in metal sheets. Harbor freight has a nice looking one for $25, but I was wondering if anyone else had a suggestion. All the alternatives I've seen are over five times the price!