Category: Free Samples

Metal-on-Metal: Convert an Old Shovel into a DIY Electric Guitar

I love watching Rob Scallon rock out on a shovel guitar.  FYI, this is a totally doable afternoon DIY project for any of you (yes, even you!) or the bored teen in your life.  You can build something just like this (or a hockey-stick bass, an electric broomstick banjo, an axe ax—you get the gag) using the methods laid out in the “$10 Electric Guitar” project in my first book (click here now to get a FREE copy of that project—and, if you’re near Metro Detroit in July, you can come to Motor City Steam Con where I’ll be running a workshop on electric-guitarifying stuff).

Wnat more DIY musical shenanigans?  I’ve got a whole new book of crazy music projects.

Free Fiction Friday: “Brights” (a brief tale of uncertain moral)

Hey All:

Continuing to experiment with both interactive fiction and consistent self-promotion—and you are the benificieries there-of!  Please enjoy this lil interactive story:

“Brights” or In the Midst of Darkness, Light Persists
(a brief tale of uncertain moral)

If you dig it, please do pass the link around.  And, as ever, I’m eager for feedback as I feel my way forward in this format. Sock it to me!

Thanks!

FREE SAMPLE: Build Quick-n-Easy Water Rockets

Project 20 from my book SNIP, BURN, SOLDER, SHRED is available for free over at the Art of Manliness:

Although store-bought water rockets were once an almost universal part of childhood (at least in suburban middle America, where I grew up), DIY water rockets are almost unheard of in the United States, despite being common in the United Kingdom. The key to the DIY water rocket is the ubiquitous plastic soda bottle. (Often called PET bottles in the UK, these are basically made of polyester, just like your favorite pantsuit.) A soda bottle can easily withstand 150 pounds of pressure per square inch—significantly more than a car or bike tire, and more than enough to launch it into flight.

The following design dispenses with many of the concerns regarding valves, firing mechanisms, pressurization, and so on, because the unit is impossible to over-pressurize, thus eliminating the risk of a rocket explosion. It’s quick and easy (no more than 5 minutes to construct), practically free, fun to make and launch with your kids (while teaching them some basic principles of physics), and, depending on the quality of your bike pump, can arc a bottle 30 feet at speeds safe enough to shoot at your pals, or send a rocket soaring a hundred feet skyward.…

Weekend DIY Dad Activity: How to Make a Quick-n-Easy Water Rocket | The Art of Manliness

Here’s what it all looks in time-lapse:

FREE SAMPLE: Build a FedEx Kite


I’ve been talking with CraftFoxes—a very cool new crafting/DIY community—and we’ve added my FedEx Diamond Kite to their database of free projects. Click on over and login (it’s free!) to learn how to make one of the several kites included in SNIP, BURN, SOLDER, SHRED.

To go along with this newly released sample, I’ve also posted some additional tips on kite launching and flying as a handy-dandy, DRM-free downloadable PDF. (Check out the other FREE SAMPLES, too.)

And, just to keep all the links in one handy place, here’s my discussion of kites and their construction from last October.
Enjoy!

FREE SAMPLE: Build, tune, and throw cardboard boomerangs

Learn to make, tune, throw, and catch two different cardboard boomerangs in this FREE SAMPLE from Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred:

 

PROJECT 18: Cardboard Boomerangs

Generations of American children wrongly grow to believe that building and throwing boomerangs is very difficult. This flies in the face of reason: Using less-than-ideal materials, human beings have been building, throwing, and catching returning boomerangs for more than 11,600 years. . . . They are, in fact, among humanity’s longest-standing ways of showing off. . . .

Boomerangs are absurdly easy to make; the real trick is in tuning and throwing them (all of which I cover in detail in this free sample). With the aid of the Print-n-Snip Templates (link below; includes two new tri-blade designs!) this is a great all-ages project: I’ve had a blast running boomerang workshops with teens and adults at sci-fi conventions, middle-aged family guys drinking beer, and dozens of elementary schoolers on the verge of Snow Day Insanity.

FREE SAMPLE: Sew a sock squid (and upgrade it to a Sock Cthulhu!)

Wanna sew a sinister lovey for your kid or significant other? New to sewing and looking for a project to get your started? Get a taste of Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred with this sample project:

PROJECT 3: The Sock Squid

Mysterious, charming, and delicious, squid have fascinated and terrified humanity ever since Pliny the Elder reported a giant squid attack on seaside Spanish fish-brining tanks, with several dogs and fisherman bludgeoned in the melee (recounted in his Naturalis Historia, circa 77 CE). Hence, the squid is a natural subject for adorable handicrafts. . . .