Acrylic bending tool and laptop desk mount

Since lockdown in 2020, I’ve continued to work remotely, and sunk a fair bit of time and effort into optimising my home office setup.

One thing that has continued to be a pain is having my laptop on the desk.

I don’t use it has a laptop the majority of the time – is it is closed and I use external peripherals (monitor, keyboard, mouse, microphone and camera). But it continued to take desk space as I had nowhere else to put it.

I had this idea of creating a mount on the side of the desk for it, but couldn’t settle on a approach or material to use. Wood would be too bulky, metal would be overkill and block wifi signal, and so forth.

Plastic seemed like the best option, but it would be far too big to 3D print.

When researching methods for manipulating plastic sheets, I found this video by Youtuber Dietec for a home-built acrylic bending tool.

 

Truth be told, I followed the video pretty much to the letter, so there’s no point rehashing all the points that are made.

The only main difference is I added a couple of toggle clamps on the side, and am using a “Universal” laptop power supply instead of a bench top one.

Anyway, back to the laptop mount.

It’s very simple really, take a sheet of acrylic and bend it into a ‘J’ shape, attach it to the side of the desk, and add laptop.

The piece of acrylic was recovered from an old scrapped project, and was a bit on the short side, however this could be overcome by mounting it lower on the desk skirt.

The bending process seemed quite straightforward. I did notice some crackling in the corners of the bends, I believe this is because I got impatient and stepped through the voltage settings a bit quick, rather than give the material time to heat slowly – so that’s something to bear in mind for next time. I think that's also why there's a slight curve to the lip, as can be seen in the picture below.

Then a couple of screw holes were added (taking advantage of pre-existing holes from the previous project and just widening them), and then screwing it to the desk skirt.

The laptop in place on the mount, tucking nicely under the lip of the desk at the side. Sure it's not a perfect build, but it serves its purpose.

Tattoo Machine for Leatherwork

This is the fifth of my 'Lockdown Projects' - Projects made during the Coronavirus lockdown, which I limited to one week, and only using materials I had to hand.

 

Before I start this write up I just want to emphasize this tattoo gun is not intended for use on anything other than leather. Using it for anything else risks a number of heath issues.

 

With that out of the way, I’ve been intrigued by the idea of using tattooing as a way of patterning leather. A quick search shows that it’s not an uncommon practice – particularly it would seem, for leather boots.

 

The theory goes that given that leather is essentially just skin, it would tattoo in the similar way to a person.

 

After seeing a home-made tattoo gun in an episode of Orange is the New Black years ago, I’ve had the idea in the back of my head to build one and try it.

 

During lockdown, it seemed like a thematic fit to finally hack one together.

The body of the machine is from a mechanical pencil. 

 

The main needle mechanism is a sewing needle, with an empty metal pen refill, and a hook made of a bent paperclip. These bits are epoxied together for sturdiness.

The motor was taken from a handheld fan. A button provided the connection between the needle mechanism and the motor.

 

The bracket was a small bit of metal from the junk bin - that was probably once part of a printer or something similar I’d previously dismantled.

 

The motor and bracket were fixed together with cable ties and a final cable tie tensions the mechanism so that there’s less rattle and wobble in the needle.

 

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Initially I used 2xAA batteries for a power supply, but after a bit of testing, it needed more power, so I replaced that with a USB connector.

 

Obviously I didn’t have any tattoo ink to hand, so I just used leather dye to test.

 

Leatherworking Punch Press

Following on from the stitching pony I built a while back, this is another leather-working tool build.

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Living in a flat I am a bit limited on what I can do DIY-wise due to noise, particularly in the evening. Even simply using a mallet with stitching chisels to punch holes in the leather can be a bit too much.

The aim of this project is to create a press-like tool that is sturdy enough for me to just push the chisels through the material, allowing me to work more quietly.

I opted for some hardwoods for this project as although the original plan for a very utilitarian tool, testing found a lot of flex and give in the cheaper pallet wood I'd originally planned to use.

The base and back are iroko, with oak providing the corner piece and the uprights that connect the lever, which is maple.

All the pieces are simply screwed together, with a bolt passing through the oak and maple to create the pivot.

The levers handle was rounded with a notch cut into it's underside to support the chisels, and a cheap cutting board was used to create a working surface.

Finally, a small scrap of leather was attached to the back with upholstery nails, which creates 4 loops, to store the chisels.

In time I intend to give the handle a leather wrap, but that can wait until I've got a suitably sized scrap to spare.

It works great, not only in reducing the noise, but is actually a lot faster to use than the mallet, so I'm a lot more productive as well.

Lighter screwdriver bit holder

A sign of a brilliant project is one that is "obvious with hindsight" - when you see it, it suddenly seems so simple that you end up annoyed at yourself for not having thought of it yourself.

For me, Laura Kampf's Zippo Lighter driver bit case was one of those projects.

I've had a similar lighter kicking about in the junk drawer for years, always holding onto it because I liked the aesthetic of it and wanted to use it in a project, but never knowing what that project was.

So I'll admit, this was a shameless copy of Laura's project, but as I don't have access to a milling machine, I had to take a different approach. The insert that I have created is 3D printed, and relies on a friction fit to hold the parts rather than magnets.

Rather than use the free plan, I decided to create my own, adding an additional hollow in the middle of the insert. The idea was that this less-accessible compartment could contain less frequently used driver bits, but still keep them together with the others.

In reality, the fit of the insert is a bit too tight to allow the compartment to be easily accessed, but it does still serve a purpose in reducing the amount of filament required to print the model (compared to leaving that part solid).

I also found that my lighter has a small metal tab in the lid that got in the way once the driver bits were in place, but this was easily removed with pliers. (I'm not sure is this is a typical thing of these lighters, or just because the one I'm using is an off-brand knockoff.)

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I have to concede that the insert would've looked better in metal, but from a functionality perspective it works just as well, and sometimes you just have to work with what you've got.

The STLs for the model can be found on Thingiverse, and the OpenSCAD code is on GitHub.

Stitching Pony for Leatherwork

One of the great parts of being a multi-disciplinary maker is the ability to use skills from one discipline, e.g. woodworking, to help out with a project that uses another (e.g. leatherwork).

A "Stitching Pony" is a leatherworking tool used to hold leather securely, freeing up both hands for doing the actual stitching. In woodworking parlance, it's comparable to a vise or a clamp.

The construction is a flat base, with one fixed jaw extending vertically, and the second jaw being connected to the base with a hinge, so that it may open and close.

To control the movement of the jaw, a bolt extends through both jaws, and is controlled by a wing-nut, and a spring situated between the two jaws serves to maintain a bit of tension and avoid the movable jaw becoming floppy or loose.






To protect the leather being clamped from indentations, the jaws themselves are covered with some leather offcuts, which were simply attached with contact cement. Brass tacks were used to hold the leather in place while the glue dried (and help to add to the aesthetic of the piece).

The jaws of the clamp.
The bookend woodgrain was a fortunate coincidence

A post shared by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Jun 5, 2018 at 12:53pm PDT

Wooden Pallet Mallet

I typically don't do much woodwork over the winter as the weather has a tendency to suck the enjoyment out of things.

When I set-up to start again in the spring, I usually find that I need a simple project to warm up and refresh my techniques before I get involved with something more complex.

Normally it's a bit of a throwaway project that I wouldn't put online, but this one was very simple to create and has been very useful, so I thought that it might be of use to others.

This year I made a wooden mallet as I needed one for leatherwork.

The handle was two strips of pallet wood glued up and shaped around a hammer handle.



The head of the mallet is one of the end blocks, also from a pallet.

The finished mallet. Simple, but effective

The technique is simple - drill through the centre of the block to create an opening that the top of the handle can fit through, but is narrow enough to make a tight fit.

Then drill through the part of the handle that protrudes from the top of the block and wedge a dowel in place to prevent the block from slipping. (The block is actually a tight enough fit that this is a little bit unnecessary, but it adds an extra layer of safety, and a bit more of an aesthetic quality to things).

Everything after that is just a matter of sanding and shaping.

Wiresaw from Guitar String

A wire saw is piece of wire used for cutting. It's kind of like a band saw blade, except instead of having teeth, it cuts using abrasion - like a Dremel cutting disc does. It's a useful addition to the toolkit - it's one of those tools that might not see everyday use, but those times when you do need it, it more than pays for itself.

Most retail wire-saws tend to be aimed at the military / survivalist market, but I find mine most useful in trimming supports from 3D prints and cutting in hard to reach spots when dismantling electronics.

The great thing about wiresaws, is a lot of people will have one in their home, even without realising it. My wire saw is a string from a guitar.

The wound nickel creates the abrasive surface, being nickel it's quite resistant to the heat from the abrasion, and being a guitar string, is designed to withstand bending and flexing.

the downside to this, is they can be a pain to keep tidy. As they bend, they become more difficult to keep tidy.

So as a weekend project I made a simple case to store the wiresaw, helping to wind it neatly, yet keep it accessible.


As this was an off-the-cuff project, these measurements were not measurement by design, but what they ended up as after the fact, and are just there to give a rough indication of the sizes required.

I started with a 35mm length of dowel (10mm diameter). which i drilled two small holes through.






I grabbed a scrap piece of pine and cut a 20x35x55mm piece. I used a 20mm spade bit to drill partially into the 35mm side, and then used a 10mm drill to cut the rest of the way to the other side.

I used a router to carve out a groove from this hole to the short edge of the wood. There was a bit of tear out, but it doesn't affect it. The staple across the groove it there to act as a guide for the wire. I put the dowel in place, so that one of the drilled holes is on each side.




The guitar string is threaded through the carved channel, threaded through the dowel hole and tied. A piece of hardboard was cut to size, a 10mm hole drilled in line with the dowel and nailed to this side, effectively 'closing' the case. A small drill bit was pushed through the protruding dowel hole on the other side, and turned to wind the string in. A keyring was tied to the other end of the string, as a handle for the saw.

The drill bit was replaced with a loop of copper wire to provide a winding handle.

In an ideal world, this would have auto-retracted, like a tape measure, but some testing that I did showed that wasn't really practical.

Finally everything was trimmed to size and sanded down.

The finished project, closed (left) and open (above)