Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed
From Brass Goggles
==Excerpted from the Brass Goggles Steampunk Forum== (subject to all terms, conditions, rights and permissions therein)
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Title: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. (...and phuphuphnik in turn provided the much appreciated inspiration (http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/bg-forum/index.php?topic=79.0) for this post.) Hopefully the following will not get me in trouble with the experienced DIYers here on TSF. However after having read some of the posts pertaining to DIY over the last few days, I feel an urgent need to reveal the magical secret, which is behind every successful DIYer. It seems not everyone may be aware of how you manage to finish interesting projects. First let me start by telling what isn't required:
Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. HEL YES! GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN BRUTHA!! YEAH! Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Some of my best projects have come out if ripping somethings apart and putting bits back together. My favorite tools to use: A strong pair of scissors (like for cutting meat or leather) Superglue Tweezers or even a screwdriver a pocket knife Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. This is totally accurate, actually MAKING is the most important part of making things. Not only will actually working usually result in an awesome, completed project, but even if you don't have any goal in mind and just start fiddling around with scraps, it is almost impossible to NOT end up with something cool! Make something every day. Even if it sucks, it can still be used as catapult ammunition in an emergency. :D Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. but even if you don't have any goal in mind and just start fiddling around with scraps, If I were writing a steampunk bible, that'd go in it. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. I would agree that actually getting off one's hindquarters is the most important factor. However (you knew there would be a however...) when I was a wee lad in high school, taking technical drawing (yes, pencils and t-squares) I got it in my mind to make my final project for the year the drawing and construction of a crossbow. Well I started the drawing and quickly realized that I didn't have: a) any idea how to make one b) any materials to make one c) any tools to make one d) any skills to make one This was a watershed experience in my life. Since then I have pretty much been working at getting maximum use out of my brain and my opposeable thumbs, carving a meagre living out of products from both. I have seen many a good project destroyed by poor execution, materials and skills. It is very important to study constantly all the various techniques that people use to build things. In my humble library (slowly destroying the structural integrity of our house) I have books on jewelry, machining, gunsmithing, mechanics, optics, lapidary, woodworking, etc, (even including dental prosthesis making) I do have a fair bit of tools as well, slowly and steadily acquired at great sacrifice to the other luxuries of life. So when and if I do have the time (which is ultimately the most important, and rare, supply in any project) I can usually make whatever it is that I want to make, within the limits that remain. Some skills do require practice (in both senses, repetitive learning , and actual application) before good results may be obtained. So don't just rely on positive action, but reenforce it with all those other things... Returning to the original point, it is very true that the main stumbling block in any project is in the doing, and without that there is nothing. But often doing includes preparatory steps along the way. Too often a customer expects his CNC mill to be some sort of mind-reading robot that will simply replicate the contents of his fevered mind. Without learning all that is required, it falls short of that goal. And returning again, and perhaps negating all I have said, I have one important maxim in my creative life: "The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good Enough." (ascribed to various famous people). It is certainly true that perfectionism will derail a project very quickly as will "creeping featurism" (read about Babbage...) And a final "however"...when I bought my first lathe, I attempted far more difficult projects because I didn't know the limitations. Now that I know, I tend to be more realistic in what I can accomplish. This is in many ways a bad thing, and a good thing, both... Nick Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Man...you know...I am sure this isn't the right thread for it but I really have to wonder how many of the folks here were home schooled, I would bet money on high numbers. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Oh, one last thing...one of the sins that I am most guilty of is that of collecting techniques. That is I will work on something purely as an experiment, with no end result desired, simply to learn something new. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Oh, one last thing...one of the sins that I am most guilty of is that of collecting techniques. That is I will work on something purely as an experiment, with no end result desired, simply to learn something new. You're forgiven, do a couple O Hail Marys, buy a nice Cigar and get back to work ';) Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. I have seen many a good project destroyed by poor execution, materials and skills. It is very important to study constantly all the various techniques that people use to build things. I quite agree, Nick, both with this point and everything else you wrote. I too have seen many disasters, where someone started a project obviously so far outside their current capabilities that it wasn't even funny to watch. However I have two things to add. The first is that to me it seems like most newcomers are more likely to underestimate their abilities than the opposite. So on the average you won't be doing them a disfavor to prod them to get started in the first place. The second one is that if you don't break your own borders from time to time and attack the impossible, then there is little room for personal development. Sometimes the best alternative is to simply ask people with experience, but of course admitting to your ignorance in public does take some degree of 'bravery' (for lack of a better word) on part of the inexperienced builder. Besides it seems you did allright even though you had to drop the crossbow project. My guess is that once you got started with building, you just moved on to something more manageable. :) Another common newbie problem that I myself have been very good at practicing is to try to make a square peg fit a round hole. That is to say, use unsuitable materials, components or tools to reach a certain goal. Improvising and free materials is great and all that, but in the past many of my projects ran aground before they even got started, simply because I refused to go out and buy that copper plate / new bolts / special components or whatever the stumbling block may have been. There is a fine balance in this, as overdoing it either way by buying nothing or everything is either counterproductive or very expensive. Take care. Frank. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. First let me start by telling what isn't required:
Hear, hear. And part of putting the PUNK back into steamPUNK is creating useful things stealthily and by inexpensive means. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Right on! Everything I've built (Telecalculograph, Victorio-Nixie, etc) has been done in my tiny dorm room with nothing more advanced than a Dremel tool, and with a good 80% parts scavenged. CNC is for sissies :) Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Man...you know...I am sure this isn't the right thread for it but I really have to wonder how many of the folks here were home schooled, I would bet money on high numbers. Does it count as homeschooling if I spent all my free time in the library quickly excelling past my peers? Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. CNC is for sissies :) Honour demands I rise to that challenge :) (emoticon earrings being one of our many earring designs made on the CNC mill...) CNC is just a tool among many. There are things that CNC enables me to do that I could not do in a timely and inexpensive manner without. In other words, while CNC is initially expensive, it allows a greater economy of work over time. There are earrings (engraved) we make that if done without CNC would take at least 10 times longer and cost much more than we can charge, and there are things that really would take almost forever without CNC but with it just take a few minutes. I wrote an article for Digital Machinist magazine about making model engine flywheels. Manually making a sinuously spoked flywheel takes a lot of time and many discrete setups, but with CNC it takes two setups, one for each side. Same thing for making gears (you will get tired of the limitations of using stock gears at some point, and again I wrote an article on the subject for DM), with CNC gear cutting by any of a number of methods is quick and painless. Without CNC gear cutting is tedious and prone to error. That said, one doesn't need it to do great work (and yes, it can be an impediment "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" or whatever that quote is). But if you face a time deficit (due to a time killing day job, or having small children), you will understand the utility... Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. You know the best advice i can give? It's "Just do it". In the past i've been put off too many times by people pointing out obstacles to what i proposed. I might not have succeeded but i would have learned on the way. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. You know the best advice i can give? It's "Just do it". In the past i've been put off too many times by people pointing out obstacles to what i proposed. I might not have succeeded but i would have learned on the way. You always learn something, especially from failure. Never listen to people who tell you you can't do something (do listen to safety recommendations though!) Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. I'd also like to put in a word for simply tearing things apart. I will periodically pick something up from the town dump, disassemble it, put it in a box, and return it to the dump in its entirety the very next week. Forensic deconstruction will teach you all sorts of things about how things are made and breaking things appart will show you how take similar things apart without damage. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Flip flopping again, I should add that there's an old machinist I know (I get together once a week with a bunch of crazy guys at a friend's shop) who does the most incredible work with files only (octagonal tapered rifle barrel, homemade derailleur, all metal replacement grills and knobs for his geo metro, etc, see the derailleur here http://mechanicalphilosopher.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-vist-1970s-and-georges-derailleur.html (http://mechanicalphilosopher.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-vist-1970s-and-georges-derailleur.html), scroll down the entry...) When I had to make a replacement handle for my dishwasher it was faster to take a block of aluminum and use the manual mill and files to remove everything from the block that wasn't a handle - doing it with CNC would have taken forever to measure the original and replicate. (but if I had to do a bunch it would be faster) The file is possibly the most useful tool of all - with a couple of files you can fabricate almost anything, given enough time. (Nicholson had a great booklet called "Filosophy" that is worth picking up) Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Forensic deconstruction I love it.Also, no harm or disrespect intended, Mr. CarterTools (or any other CNC fans) :-X I think I'm really just jealous that I don't have one ;D Though, you must still be careful with them if a Victorian Aesthetic is your goal. Nothing screams "modern" like too much precision. Well, perhaps not nothing... Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Wow!, You know homemade-derailleur-guy!? I'm impressed! . . .see the derailleur here http://mechanicalphilosopher.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-vist-1970s-and-georges-derailleur.html (http://mechanicalphilosopher.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-vist-1970s-and-georges-derailleur.html), scroll down the entry...) The file is possibly the most useful tool of all - with a couple of files you can fabricate almost anything, given enough time. (Nicholson had a great booklet called "Filosophy" that is worth picking up) Oh My! I've come across your blog several times over the years, great stuff! You are bang on with the file advice too. My keyboard project (http://steampunkworkshop.com/keyboard.shtml) was mostly file and sandpaper work, I did use a bandsaw to cut out the shapes but I could easily have done the whole thing with simple hand tools. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Also, no harm or disrespect intended, Mr. CarterTools (or any other CNC fans) :-X I think I'm really just jealous that I don't have one ;D Though, you must still be careful with them if a Victorian Aesthetic is your goal. Nothing screams "modern" like too much precision. Well, perhaps not nothing... I'm used to it, and as I say, I agree with you somewhat. I do have a terrible and degenerate tool addiction...Well I would take issue that too much precision is a bad thing - look at the work of the ornamental turners: http://www.the-sot.com/ (http://www.the-sot.com/) Ornamental turning is the height of Victorian elegance and insanely precise... Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. The file is possibly the most useful tool of all - with a couple of files you can fabricate almost anything, given enough time. (Nicholson had a great booklet called "Filosophy" that is worth picking up) I knew a guy who lived on a boat in the Thames, to level it up he bolted a RSJ (an I beam) to the keel, only the Thames foreshore was at a slope so sitting on the mud he tapered the I bean over 30 feet to one inch at one end to full height (about 12 inches) at the other, using a hacksaw and a file.. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Wow!, You know homemade-derailleur-guy!? I'm impressed! Yeah, he's an amazing guy. he's been a machinist almost his whole life and as the saying goes, has forgotten more things than I know... He's a complete neo-luddite, doesn't have a PC, etc. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. I do agree with the original post. I find my most elegant solutions are born out of lack of money, tools, and materials. With that said, however, I am a big proponent finding the right tool for the job. Sure I can jury rig the hell out of something, with cut fingers, swearing, and solder/duct-tape, but it sure is easier to scrounge up the right tools to make it go smoother. That said, just doing something is a big step in learning anything. I have never had much in the way of teachers, or mentors. I learn by project. I find something I want to do, and I figure out what I don't know and learn the steps I need to take to finish it. For example, I have never worked with electronics or LEDs at all, but with all the fantastic Instructables with them, I just learned to solder. (Husband is still dubious at how often I find ways to solder things now.) It sure was easier than I thought it would be. I learned to replace windows in the house, when one went bad, and I learned to change a valve cover gasket in the car. All from books, and asking questions, really. Just trying is a good way to start learning. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. ...My keyboard project (http://steampunkworkshop.com/keyboard.shtml) was mostly file and sandpaper work,... (OT: Bonus geek points for recognizing the superiority of the IBM model M.) Well, for my first through-and-through steampunk project I will either have to put my files to good use -or- find someone with a CNC milling machine. I guess it will be the files. ;D C.S. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. You know the best advice i can give? It's "Just do it". In the past i've been put off too many times by people pointing out obstacles to what i proposed. I might not have succeeded but i would have learned on the way. You always learn something, especially from failure. Never listen to people who tell you you can't do something (do listen to safety recommendations though!) Agreed! My knowledge of materials and tools comes mostly from just trying different things. If you've never made a project, just go to your local antique/junk shop and buy a cool looking old device. Now sit down at your kitchen table and take it apart (may require screwdriver, silverware, swearing). See if you can guess how it worked. Would any of the pieces look good glued to you monitor? How about your car? Feel the project coming on? Now build something. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Heartfelt agreement to everything that's been said here. Just believing that you can do something is half the battle. Confidence is 70% of ability. I don't mean "self-"confidence in the self-helpy kind of way, but more like the confidence to know that anything you'll need to do probably isn't all that far from something you already know how to do. Confidence in the sense that you can plod ahead in a project, not limited by your lack of knowledge in a certain area, and know that you can figure it out as you need to...not to be contrained by thinking within your current abilities, but to think within the bounds of your POTENTIAL abilities. If you'll forgive me quoting myself, I just wrote something similar in an upcoming interview for Key23, but I'll most likely go back and add more to it. My friend Dominick is the interviewer (he donated the scanner for the Opti-Transcripticon) 8> You've gotten the art of "creatively" obtaining materials and improvisation down to, well...an art. Outside of a few generous donations *cough* *cough* most of your projects are done on a shoe-string (literally, in a few cases). Does this make you any less sympathetic to those out there complaining about lack of resources? If some wealthy sponsor came along, and offered you all the free materials you asked for (not cash, hehehe), do you think you'd be happier with that or is the challenge of finding work arounds part of your creative process? DM: Haha yes Dominick, thank you for your many small donations over the years. I definitely couldn�t have pulled off a few projects without your help. In general, I have very little sympathy for people who cry poverty as an excuse for not doing something. If you�ll pardon me a cliché, if there is a will, there is a way. Almost every project in my portfolio was completed with almost no budget. I rummage trash, I barter, I scour ebay, I steal, I freecycle, I scavenge, I salvage...whatever it takes. For instance, I hacked an old refrigerator apart last summer for the raw steel and I�ve since built about half of my pickup truck out of it including the bed walls, the running boards, floor patches, a fully custom rollpan, the license plate bucket, the two dashboard extension panels, as well as the hands for my Edward Scissorhands costume, the metal frame for my Opti-transcripticon scanner mod, The buttcap for my Espada Suena, some patches for my friend�s old BMW 2002, the faceplate for my bass amp, numerous brackets and small clips, and even a hanging wall mirror for my girlfriend. Just recently, I was chuckling over the number of uses I got out of a cheap, freebie paper desktop plotter. The faux leather corners were used on the Opti-Tran, the first page became the embossing glue template for the cover logo, the next few pages were used as masking paper for the Espada Suena, another one became a template for a new faceplate for my bass amp, and finally the carboard backing was sliced up to become felted drawer inserts in my tiny jeweler's workbench, all in the couse of about 2 weeks. Resourcefulness is the most important skill for any tinkerer (This might become "contraptor" hah) to cultivate. I�d almost go so far as to say poverty is my muse. -~D~- Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Man...you know...I am sure this isn't the right thread for it but I really have to wonder how many of the folks here were home schooled, I would bet money on high numbers. That depends on your definition. I went to public school- but I was a) advanced and b) did a lot of outside reading. I also went to school near several major museums. So in a sense I was 'self-schooled'. I think that's the high likelihood for many people of above-average intelligence and curiosity. Title: Re: Ye great secret of successful DIYers revealed. Forensic deconstruction I love it.Also, no harm or disrespect intended, Mr. CarterTools (or any other CNC fans) :-X I think I'm really just jealous that I don't have one ;D Though, you must still be careful with them if a Victorian Aesthetic is your goal. Nothing screams "modern" like too much precision. Well, perhaps not nothing... Small CNC systems are not all that hard to come by. You could make something out of wood or plastic by using one of the kits here: http://www.hobbycnc.com/ A machining table from here: http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=discount_machine And a small drill press from almost anywhere. The software for 2D work that is inexpensive is QCAD: http://www.qcad.org/ If you have a spare x86 computer you can load this to run as a real-time cnc controller: http://www.linuxcnc.org/ For those that have more to spend you can buy the HobbyCNC kit and then this mill which is almost perfect for conversion to CNC: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93885 |
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