Farcry-inspired Leather Notebook

This year I resolved to pick up a new skill.

A key game mechanic in Farcry 4 is the survival and "living-off-the-land" aspect of the fictional island of Kyrat. Part of this aspect is hunting, and using the pelts to craft useful items, such as backpacks, holsters etc.

That, coupled with seeing some leatherwork done by Jimmy DiResta in his videos, inspired me to have a go and teach myself some leathercraft.

For a first project, I decided to make a leather notebook, based of this faux-leather journal that came with the collectors edition of Farcry 4 (left).

I'm the kind of person whose idea of a notebook is usually a sheet of printer paper folded into four. I usually start using a notebook, only to find various flaws that stop it fitting into my workflow - like being too large to fit in a pocket, getting left behind, nowhere to add additional sheets, etc. So this seems like a good chance to make something exactly how I want it.





Spec

Essential:

• Refillable using cheap paper (ie, printer paper folded into four)
• Fit in the back pocket of a pair of jeans.

Other nice-to-haves:

• Mix of paper - it'd be handy to have lined, plain, squared/graph paper in one notebook.
• Space for printouts/other paper - some kind of pocket.
• Pen loop

Process
The size was based around a sheet of A4 paper folded into quarters, with approximately 1 inch added for the spine.

Another layer of leather was added in the spine to strengthen it, and fixed with contact cement.
Four loops of thread, stretching from top to bottom of the spine were added, approx a quarter inch apart. This will be where the paper is mounted - either I can use it for four different types of paper, or treat it as four sections for different projects.

A second outer layer of leather was added to the back, the same height as the main section, but wider (total width approx 300mm. This excess piece would create the wrap-around cover for the book.)



I misjudged the behaviour of the main front and back cover - I thought that the double layer of leather would behave as though they were a single, thicker layer. However, I found when folding them, the inner layer would bulge out slightly, so I was concerned about using contact cement to join them.

Although this did create an opportunity - stitching each side and the base of each cover meant that I could leave the tops open and create pockets for printouts and other papers.

This finished off the main structure of the notebook, with the next steps being to refine it and add finishing details (and of course, paper), which I will cover in a later post (Update - Part 2 is here)

App Update: Soundboard 1.8.0

A new update to the Soundboard application on Google Play has been released.

What's New
A new Tone Generation feature, which allows the user to generate sine-wave tones and play them back.
Also a bug fix - on the DTMF screen, swiping between the screens would effectively have the effect if the DTMF buttons being stuck in a pressed state, causing a continuous playing of the tone. The layout of that screen has been amended to reduce the occurrence of this happening.

Usage
From the app's start screen, use the Tone Generator button, or swipe across to access the tone generation module. On that screen, use the slider or text box to select your chosen frequency, set the duration, and hit generate to play the tone The module is also subject to the volume controls of the rest of the application - go to preferences in the menu and you'll be able to choose whether or not to dynamically set the volume level on playback, and set the volume level if you so wish.

Support
As with all my apps, it is free, and as such, I am not in a position to offer any kind of official support, so use entirely at your own risk.
If you have any trouble with it, then feel free leave a comment or tweet and I'll try to help as and when I can, but I make no guarantees.

Download

Reclaimed Wood Kitchen Tidy

I live in a small flat, and in the kitchen there's not a lot of storage. As a result, the bins (general waste & recycling) have always just lived in the corner of the room. It's not a major issue, but bins aren't exactly nice to look at, made worse given that it's an open plan kitchen shared with the lounge area.

I found a couple of solid wood bedframes that were otherwise destined for the landfill, and took them apart, and used the timber to build this kitchen tidy unit. There's not really any new or ground-breaking techniques to document, so the rest of this is predominantly a photo post.

I'm pleased with the result, and I plan to do more reclaimed wood projects in the future - as all the timber was reclaimed, the only material cost ended up being the wood dye and varnish, which makes woodworking much more affordable.

The original sketch for the upcycled shelf and bin cupboard I built in the summer. #woodwork #DIY #handmade

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Jan 25, 2017 at 12:29pm PST

New project. Shelf and bin cupboards from reclaimed bed frame timber #woodworking #woodwork #DIY #doityourself #reclaimedwood

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Oct 11, 2016 at 4:58am PDT

Nearly done, just need to finish the doors, and then sand and finish everything. #DIY #doityourself #reclaimedwood #upcycled #handmade

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Oct 14, 2016 at 5:42am PDT

The kitchen tidy after sanding (top left) dyed and varnished (bottom left) and in use (right). #diy #woodwork #reclaimedwood #handmade

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Jan 27, 2017 at 4:37am PST

Archer and "The Last Leg"-inspired 'Phrasing' button

The inspiration

 

In some ways my workplace is very much like this - anything that could be misconstrued as an innuendo, even remotely, will inevitably have people calling out "hey, phrasing!", "That's what she said..." etc, etc.

Combining that with this "Bullshit button" from The Last Leg:


.. and I had an idea.


To cap it all off, at work we were having a clear out of some cupboards, and I found this:

It plays a dog-barking noise when pressed. I'm told it was used for some kind of team building thing long before I joined the company. Weird.

By this point it must be pretty obvious where this project is headed...

The teardown

First things first, see how much space in the button there is to work with, and what parts can be reused.

The single PCB contains a controller under a blob of epoxy, as was expected, so I'll need to replace that. However, the same PCB contains the actual button, so it'll need to stay in place. To allow that I just cut the traces connecting the button to the PCB, and scraped off some of the solder mask in order to provide connection points for my replacement controller.


The electronics

As this was intended to be a quick and easy project, I had to make do with what I could find in my electronics junk box. I couldn't use the same MP3 trick that I used in the Swear Jar project, as what I had available was too large for the buttons' case.

Whichever controller I used needed to have enough memory to store the audio data, which ruled out a lot of micros, so I ended up recycling an old arduino micro (ATMega328)

To make room for the arduino, the battery compartment had to be removed - I would instead use coin cell batteries. This would still work, but come at the cost of a reduced battery life.

The audio

To capture the original audio, I used the same technique I covered here to create a WAV file. After using Audacity to crop and edit down the relevant clip (Archer saying "Uh, Phrasing"), I used the EncodeAudio application from HiLoTech to turn it into a header file (sounddata.h in the code below)

The software
The code used on the arduino was based around the PCMAudio example, but I needed to modify it to incorporate some power saving - to account for the reduced capacity of the coin cell batteries. Code listed below:

#include <stdint.h>
#include <avr/interrupt.h>
#include <avr/io.h>
#include <avr/pgmspace.h>
#include <avr/sleep.h>
#define SAMPLE_RATE 8000

#include "sounddata.h"

int ledPin = 13;
int speakerPin = 11;
volatile uint16_t sample;
byte lastSample;


void stopPlayback() {
    TIMSK1 &= ~_BV(OCIE1A);
    TCCR1B &= ~_BV(CS10);
    TCCR2B &= ~_BV(CS10);
    digitalWrite(speakerPin, LOW);
}

ISR(TIMER1_COMPA_vect) {
    if (sample >= sounddata_length) {
        if (sample == sounddata_length + lastSample) {
            stopPlayback();
        }
        else {
            if(speakerPin==11){
                OCR2A = sounddata_length + lastSample - sample;
            } else {
                OCR2B = sounddata_length + lastSample - sample;
            }
        }
    }
    else {
        if(speakerPin==11){
            OCR2A = pgm_read_byte(&sounddata_data[sample]);
        } else {
            OCR2B = pgm_read_byte(&sounddata_data[sample]);
        }
    }
    ++sample;
}

void startPlayback() {
    pinMode(speakerPin, OUTPUT);

    ASSR &= ~(_BV(EXCLK) | _BV(AS2));

    TCCR2A |= _BV(WGM21) | _BV(WGM20);
    TCCR2B &= ~_BV(WGM22);

    if(speakerPin==11){
        TCCR2A = (TCCR2A | _BV(COM2A1)) & ~_BV(COM2A0);
        TCCR2A &= ~(_BV(COM2B1) | _BV(COM2B0));
        TCCR2B = (TCCR2B & ~(_BV(CS12) | _BV(CS11))) | _BV(CS10);

        OCR2A = pgm_read_byte(&sounddata_data[0]);
    } else {
        TCCR2A = (TCCR2A | _BV(COM2B1)) & ~_BV(COM2B0);
        TCCR2A &= ~(_BV(COM2A1) | _BV(COM2A0));
        TCCR2B = (TCCR2B & ~(_BV(CS12) | _BV(CS11))) | _BV(CS10);

        OCR2B = pgm_read_byte(&sounddata_data[0]);
    }

    cli();

    TCCR1B = (TCCR1B & ~_BV(WGM13)) | _BV(WGM12);
    TCCR1A = TCCR1A & ~(_BV(WGM11) | _BV(WGM10));

    TCCR1B = (TCCR1B & ~(_BV(CS12) | _BV(CS11))) | _BV(CS10);

    OCR1A = F_CPU / SAMPLE_RATE;

    TIMSK1 |= _BV(OCIE1A);

    lastSample = pgm_read_byte(&sounddata_data[sounddata_length-1]);
    sample = 0;
    sei();
}

int wakePin = 2;

void setup(){
    pinMode(wakePin, INPUT);
    pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
    
    
    attachInterrupt(0, wakeUpNow, LOW);
    
    startPlayback();
}

void loop(){}
void wakeUpNow(){
    startPlayback();
    sleepNow();
}

void sleepNow() { 
    set_sleep_mode(SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN); 
 
    sleep_enable();    
    attachInterrupt(0,wakeUpNow, LOW); 
    sleep_mode();            
    sleep_disable();
    detachInterrupt(0);
} 

The finish

Some finishing touches, and it's done!

Tool / Drill Bit Demagnetiser

The End Result

 

The Build
 
The downside to the magnetic drill bit organiser that I created in the last post is that the drills themselves end up becoming magnetised.

This isn't really a problem for woodwork, but can get a bit annoying for drilling metal, so I started looking at building a demagnetiser.

Research online showed lots of examples (such as this) of powered demagnetisers, often using dismantled power transformers, mains power and over-heating risks, which was a bit off-putting.

However, there are passive (unpowered) demagnetisers available to purchase, so there must be another way.

It's well known that metal can be magnetised by rubbing it against a magnet. There is, of course, a lot of dry and boring scientific explanation about why it happens, but in layman's terms, the punchline is that metal stuff gets magnetised when the electrons in it get aligned. So to demagnetise it, just screw up their alignment. Simple, right?

Yeah, really, it is. If putting a bit of metal near one magnet pulls the electrons into line and magnetises it, sit the metal between two strong magnets, and the electrons can't agree which way to point, so they end up pointing in conflicting directions, and become demagnetised.

The magnets were provided courtesy of an old, broken hard drive. Unfortunately the shape of the drive magnets is a bit awkward to work with. To overcome this I took photos of the magnets, imported the photo into Inkscape and drew around them, exporting the resulting SVG into blender to turn into a 3D model for printing (a similar process that I used in this post)

The HDD magnet, and the shape drawn around it in Inkscape, ready for extrusion into Blender.

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Nov 27, 2016 at 1:00pm PST

A bit of hot glue was used to fix the magnets in place, and they were covered with Sugru to avoid tools just sticking straight to them.

To join the halves together, I would typically just glue them together, but this time I wanted to test a technique I've not tried before - plastic friction welding. It sounds fancy, but can be done with a Dremel and a bit of 3D printer filament - see the clip below for an example. I used orange filament against the black used for the printed body of the demagnetiser - it's not the most aesthetic choice, but it does help highlight the plastic weld technique a bit more easily.

 

The resulting join is plenty strong enough - as evidenced by several spontaneous shock tests, and totally not by accidental dropping.

The demagnetiser works simply by waving a magnetised tool through the gap in the gadget, as seen in the video at the top. It won't necessarily remove magnetism entirely, but as you can see, it significantly reduces it.

Magnetic Drill Bit Organiser

I'm forever losing drill bits, particularly the smaller ones in my workshop. While it's very much a "first world problem", the delay it causes to a project's schedule can be a huge pain, so this project uses some magnets from old dismantled hard disk drives.

Be warned - these magnets are very strong - putting them near your bank cards or anything else that's sensitive to magnetic fields is probably a really bad idea.

The plan is to magnetise a steel bar with the old hard disk magnets, mount it to the wall near my drill press so that I can keep drill bits and other small metal objects nearby and secured, and hopefully not lose as many.

The build
I started with a pine slat reclaimed from an old bed frame.

I didn't have a specific size in mind for this project, but the steel I purchased came in 1 metre lengths, which seemed a bit much, so I halved it and decided to base it around a 500mm steel bar.

The wood was cut to 55cm (allowing a 2.5cm margin) each side of the steel for mounting holes.

I measured out where the steel would sit, and drilled out a 3 grooves in the wood equally along where the steel would sit (so that the steel would cover the grooves).

In order to make the hard disk magnets fit within the boundaries of the steels measurements, some parts had to be cut down, which I did by using a grinder disk.

In hindsight this might not have been the smartest move, as the magnets would get hot from the friction and heat affects the magnetism of metal, and so this might have altered the effectiveness of the magnets.

In reality though, there was not a noticeable difference in their strength before and after trimming them.

The magnets were screwed into the wood so that they would sit in the drilled grooves, but the magnets themselves would sit in contact with the steel bar.

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Nov 15, 2016 at 1:22pm PST

A slight groove is cut into the wood along the length of the steel bar, so that the bar will sit flush with the wood, and attach the bar to the wood with a bit of glue. The magnets will hold it in place while the glue sets.

The bar will be magnetized by the underlying magnets, although wiping the bar with another magnet can strengthen the field, it will always be strongest nearest to the magnets themselves.

Finally a bit of wood stain, mount it to the wall, and done.

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Nov 16, 2016 at 1:48pm PST

Oak Desk with Embedded TV/Monitor part 3 : Fitting the TV

This is a continuation of my build of an oak and glass desk with a 32" TV & computer built into it. The previous parts of the build can be found below.

• Part one
• Part two

Step 5: Fitting the TV

The TV that was volunteered for the project is a Samsung 32" LCD.

Removing the bezel revealed the actual dimensions of the panel and the frame which would need to be incorporated into the desk. To allow this whilst keeping the panel near to the glass I had to rout a border into the underside of the desktop - as mentioned in part 2.


Fortunately the frame of the TV included mounting holes. Less fortunately, they were in line with the thinner ledge that held the glass. It didn't seem wise to mount screw the TV to that thin ledge - it had enough weight to support with the glass alone, therefore I created small plywood mounts to go between the TVs mounting holes and the main body of the desktop.

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Sep 12, 2016 at 5:46am PDT

In order to protect the user and the electronics from each other, I decided to keep the plastic back of the TV. This was simply held in place by several "mechanical retention blocks" (a fancy name for small offcuts of wood that wedged the back in place). This held the back securely, while also allowing access should it be required for maintenance/upgrades.

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Sep 19, 2016 at 4:46am PDT

Step 6: Fitting the CHIP

Rather than have cables trailing to the TV from an input device, I decided to add a small single-board computer. The system I've opted for is the CHIP - a $9 dollar board. I backed their Kickstarter for a couple of CHIP systems and a VGA adapter board. The spare CHIP will surely find it's way to another project, but one of them and the VGA board are being used here.

After setting up the board and configuring it using a spare monitor, it was time to transfer it to the TV. I removed the back of the TV, and sat the CHIP there - there was sufficient space for the board, but I had to cut out a bit of plastic for the cables to run through (the VGA cable into the back of the TV, the power, which went to a phone charger in the desk's extension lead, and a USB extension lead which just runs out to the back of the TV so that I could connect peripherals if needed.)

Once the back was replaced on the TV, there's not really much to indicate it's anything more than a standard TV.

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Oct 24, 2016 at 5:31am PDT

A photo posted by Anthony (@darkmidnight_diy) on Oct 24, 2016 at 9:53am PDT

The next (and hopefully final step) will be to get some software on there.