Making A Solar Lantern
- Read Time: 2 mins
- Hits: 12946
There are many ways to enhance the entrance to a house, or to simply add a pleasing detail to a gazebo, a backyard deck or patio. In this video we create a working prototype of a solar lantern that could be used in many indoor or outdoor situations. With the solar light, this lantern can be placed outside to provide years of automatic on and off use as the re-purposed solar light will recharge the internal battery during the day and give about 6 hours of illumination to the lantern when the sun goes down.
There were some challenges to building this unit, specifically finding something that was opaque enough to hide seeing the light inside the lantern, but still bright enough to pass light and to "glow" in the dark and show off the detail. We tried many, many products and finally found a small quantity of rice paper that we were not entirely happy with, so this could use more experimentation.
Making A Solar Lantern
All in all we loved the design and how the 3 dimensional aspect of the lantern was enhance with the projecting pieces on top. It was an easy build and we found all or the material were pieces that were left over from previous projects and the solar light was purchased as a used item from a local thrift store so it was a very economical build too.
Copyright - Colin Knecht
Woodworkweb.com
All About Drill Bits
- Read Time: 4 mins
- Hits: 6661
We never really think about drill bits ... until one snaps, or we don't have the size we need, or we have so other need for hole drilling. Then, drill bits become indispensable. In this article we provide more background on drill bits than what we could provide in the 5 minute video shown here. I am always amazed at how much information there is on seemingly in smaller topics like drill bits.
All About Drill Bits
All About The Drill Press
- Read Time: 2 mins
- Hits: 7861
For being one of the most versatile stationary machines in the entire workshop, the Drill Press gets very little recognition. This amazing tool has such an array of accessories and add-ons, it might be the most used tool in some shops. There are 2 versions of this tool, one that sits on the floor and stands about 6 feet high and the shorter version which is designed to sit on a work bench or some other sort of stand. The only real difference between the versions is the ability or the floor standing version to accommodate larger objects for drilling.
Often considered to be the safest tool in the shop, the drill press can be deceivingly nasty and deserves the same respect as every other tool in the shop. Just because it doesn't spin at the sames speed as a table saw or mitre saw, doesn't mean you can ignore safety, safety glasses, no loose clothing or hair are imperative. The issue with drill presses is that they are geared so low, that if something gets caught in them, they just keep on turning ... just like a winch, drill presses are very powerful.
All About The Drill Press
The first thing that needs to be done with a drill press, just like any other tool, is to check the set up and that means starting with the speed the chuck will be spinning at ...
How to Make Solar House Number Signage
- Read Time: 3 mins
- Hits: 8505
I have always maintained that farmers are the most innovative people on the planet, so maybe I have some farmer in me too. I often seem to be coming up with ideas or at least bringing a couple of different ideas together such as this one. I have no idea if someone else has ever done this, I'm sure they have, it's not that far fetched, but it does work great ... AND for someone it could even be a bit of a cottage industry. I could easily see someone making these little boxes and selling them at produce markets, swap meets and flea markets. They are cool little project and they could even save someone's life.
How to Make Solar House Number Signage
I don't actually have plans for this except what I have told everyone in the video. This was another fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants project. I only knew a one thing, the numbers need to be bold and about 5 inches or 12 cm high so with that ....
Setting Up a Bandsaw - Beginners #4
- Read Time: 3 mins
- Hits: 9915
The bandsaw is one of the most versatile tools in the workshop, but like all tools, you still need to give it a great deal of respect and always follow safety guidelines when using it, and in fact the greatest threat from bandsaws is that they are one of the dustiest tools in your workshop, which means you really should be using good dust control when ever using them. Bandsaw's versatility can often be confounded by the fact that if they are not set up properly, they can be frustrating to use. There are many different things to set and know about and to adjust but once these are set you can expect good, consistent results.
Setting Up a Bandsaw - Beginners #4
When doing ANY work on setting up a bandsaw, the first rule is always make sure the saw is unplugged from it's electrical source. After that you need to understand what all the controls and setting do on a bandsaw including ...
Build A Gardeners Potting Bench
- Read Time: 4 mins
- Hits: 22758
One of the joys of woodworking in how you can make other people's life more enjoyable, which I often think is one of the main motivators for woodworkers. Collecting attaboys. This article and associated video could very well place you in high esteem by any gardeners in your life. The design is easy to build, I took a day or so to build it, and it's easy and convenient. The main feature with building a project like this is to build it around something. In our case we built it around the catching trays that are underneath the grated top.
One of the complaints I have heard over the years is that it's nice to use these stands for potting plants but trying to get the dirt our from under the grates is often a challenge, which is why we gave this stand some standard catching trays and placed them under and easily-removable grated top.
Build A Gardeners Potting Bench
To start off with let's talk about wood. Almost every plan you will see for one of these stands tell you to use Cedar as the wood. We didn't ...
Page 87 of 104