Adam covers an essential tool he’s been using a lot lately in his machining journey, and that’s Dykem blue layout fluid for making precise marks on material when even a fine tip pen won’t do. Adam demonstrates how to use layout fluid with his recommended scribe and explains why it’s worth investing in a quality scribe for your projects!
Adam Savage Reviews Simone Giertz’s Every Day Calendar!
Adam is so stoked to receive his Every Day Calendar–the device Simone Giertz created to help her meditate every day for a year. It’s been a long journey turning her prototype into a real product, and Adam unboxes it for us and reviews its features. It’s full of lovely subtle design elements that make using it a joyful experience!
Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: Brass Watering Can!
For his wife’s birthday, Adam makes from scratch a brass watering can for tending to their succulent garden! It’s going to involve a wide range of brass working techniques to piece it together from raw sheets and tubes, from the engineering of the form to the machining and soldering of parts together to make it actually functional. And by the end, it becomes a beautiful bespoke gardening tool!
Tested: Droplabs Haptic Feedback Shoes Review!
We test and review the Droplabs EP 01, a pair of sneakers with a built-in tactile transducer for haptic feedback while listening to music, watching movies, and playing games. It’s an interesting example of technology designed to the constraints of footwear, giving a tactile sensation we didn’t know we wanted from home entertainment. And one of the more interesting use cases: adding a new level of haptic feedback in virtual reality games.
Bantam Tools Desktop CNC Milling Machine Review!
We test and review the new Bantam Tools Desktop CNC, a powerful three-axis milling machine for precision carving of aluminum, wood, and other hard materials. Jen walks us through her experience using the CNC as a stepping stone from 3D printing and laser cutting, navigating the CAM workflow with Bantam Tools’ user-friendly software. Here’s how this machine can fit into maker spaces and home workshops to level up a maker’s digital fabrication skillset.
Episode 565 -BFGPU – 9/3/20
This week, we talk about Nvidia’s long-awaited 3000-series graphics card announcement, Netflix’s plan to adapt the Three Body Problem, LEGO’s first collaboration with IKEA, and debate the merits of rotoscoping over stop-motion animation. Plus, a new Marvel-themed pinball machine and the hype for Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond! Thanks to Chloe for making this week’s theme music!
Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: Upgrading Captain America Shield!
Adam makes an aesthetic upgrade to his Captain America Winter Soldier shield replica, which involves an aluminum cutting technique he learned in his early BattleBots fabrication days! Follow along as Adam uses a router and template to carve a large ring of aluminum–a quick and efficient solution to a large piece of metal cutting!
Thank You Tested Premium Members
Hey everyone, Norm here. In case you haven’t seen it, we resumed our podcast this week (with a new name and format!) and announced on the show that we just launched Channel Memberships on the Tested YouTube channel. It’s a new way for viewers to directly support the Tested production team and help us continue the pace of videos we’ve been producing these past six months. Adapting to the remote working conditions of lockdown, and with Adam spending more time in the cave, we’ve released almost 40 build videos between March and September! And while it’s taken a lot of effort adjusting to this schedule, we’ve been thrilled at the response and it’s made us want to continue with more (and more ambitious) builds, even when things return to some semblance of the before times.
We’ve also taken this time to reevaluate our Tested Premium Membership program, which is how so many of you directly showed your support for us over these past years and allowed us to experiment with video series like Adam’s King Arthur Armor Build and spending a week making a short film at Weta Workshop. We loved making those series, but the realities of filming in a COVID world make that kind of production nearly impossible for our team, and to be honest we never figured out a great solution for allowing you to watch those videos hosted on the website.
And as a result, we’re replacing the Tested Premium Membership with YouTube Channel Memberships. It’s why we stopped offering new site memberships and renewals earlier this year. If you’re currently still a Premium Member, there will be some new premium content on the site for the rest of the year, and Premium Members should also have received this year’s Gauntlet poster. Please reach out if you haven’t yet.
I also want to personally thank you for being part of this Premium Member community over the years. It has helped us stay in operation, and I have really enjoyed meeting many of you at events and conventions (and hope to say hi when we’re able to travel again!) Going forward, we hope that you’ll consider signing up for a YouTube Channel Membership to continue to support us.
With Channel Memberships, there are two levels to join. $2 a month makes you a Tested Supporter, unlocking badges, emojis, discounts on all our merchandise, first dibs on exclusive merch, and access to a members-only Discord channel on the Tested Discord server. It’s a token of our gratitude for you directly helping make Tested possible. For $10, you’ll become a Tested Patron and get additional access to livestreams, exclusive videos, commentaries, and behind-the-scenes updates.
We know that paywalled content isn’t for everyone, and nothing that you enjoyed on Tested previously will change or go away–you’ll still be able to watch One Day Builds, podcasts, show and tells, and our other series on YouTube if you can’t join as a Channel Member. The perks of joining are for more access to the Tested team and more transparency into our builds and production processes. We’re also in the process of uploading our back catalog of Premium Member videos to YouTube for Channel Members so that archive won’t go away. And until at least February 2021, they will also remain on Tested.com.
Adam and I will be doing a livestream next week to answer questions about Channel Memberships, talk about what we have in mind for behind-the-scenes content, and get your feedback for what you’d like to see. Hope to see you there, and again, thank you for all the support you’ve given us these years and we hope you’ll continue this journey in building the Tested community.
We’re Back – The Adam Savage Project – 9/1/20
After a summer break, we’re back with new episodes of the podcast! Adam and Norm discuss the changes we’re making to the show, including finally giving it a title: The Adam Savage Project. We’ll be joined by a guest each week to talk about their creative inspirations, and share our own journeys in making during these past months in lockdown. Plus, we announce Tested Channel Memberships and explain how you can help us continue to make build videos! Thanks so much to Will for being a great co-host with us for the past eight years, and please check out his Tech Pod podcast here: https://techpod.content.town/
Adam Savage’s Favorite Tools: Artificial Catgut Sinew
Adam opens out his leatherworking cabinet to talk about one of his favorite materials used in the construction of his Indiana Jones bullwhip replica. Every maker should have some waxed twine in their string drawer, but Adam prefers using super strong artificial catgut sinew for low profile wrapping of projects where the twine doesn’t bulk up. And one spool of it will probably last you a lifetime!