On this week’s show, Adam discusses where to find materials. How to find the best places to buy stuff, but also good sources for freebies, when you’re getting started making new things. The gang also discusses makerspaces, how to learn new skills, and a whole lot more.
One Day Builds
Adam embarks on one of his most ambitious builds yet: fulfil…
Show And Tell
Adam recently completed a build of the royal St. Edwards cro…
Making
Viewers often ask to see Adam working in real-time, so this …
One Day Builds
Adam and Norm assemble a beautifully machined replica prop k…
One Day Builds
One of the ways Adam has been getting through lockdown has b…
Making
Adam unboxes and performs a quick test of this novel new hel…
Making
When Adam visited Weta Workshop early last year, he stopped …
One Day Builds
Adam tackles a shop shelf build that he's been putting off f…
Show And Tell
Time for a model kit build! This steampunk-inspired mechanic…
One Day Builds
Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
Huh, this is nice. Posting this now so I can download it before I sleep means less thinking when I’ve just woken up tomorrow. Nice.
If anyone is in Sydney Australia, there is a place like SCRAP called Reverse Garbage.
An important tip on dumpster diving: avoid dumpsters that also contain food waste.
I used to dive for old computer parts. My best find is a functional CRT to an Apple II c that I recently had signed by Woz. I play pac-man on it.
Ahh Tuesday morning coffee and and the boys. Another great show, as always many thanks.
Scrap and Urban Ore are such great resources for when you are just browsing for something unexpected.
I was surprised to see Adam not mention eBay, although he has covered it in the past. Its obviously hit-and-miss both in terms of what you can find and what it will cost, but its often your only hope if you are looking for certain vintage/found objects.
I’ve been trying for years to manage to actually have a real Mcmaster carr catalog. They are a maker’s best friend. Having worked in a hardware store for ten years off and on made very aware of what you can and cannot find. The better store are the ones that have been around. The hardware store is also a good resource to ask who else might have something if they don’t. I had to keep an enclyclopedia in my head of local plumbing supply, exotic resources and commercial supply places so that I could point people in the right direction. Unfortuanately Home Despot and circumstances have shrunk the number of real hardware stores around.
Great show today. Been parts picking for years. How else would a college student repair a car. When I got my first introduction to McMaster-Carr it was overwhelming. It’s a rare thing when the catalog does not have something. But their call center works great too.
Another place for scientific supplies are universities. It took my brother, for example, all the way until his junior year at MIT to find out that there was a biological supply shop hidden in the bowels of one of the campus buildings.
Anyone in MLPS MN go to axe man lovely store for this sort of stuff. They get surplus stuff from any and every industry. i have found everything from old airplane dishes to really nice chemical glassware to stoplights to potentiometers there.
sadly i do not live in minneapolis anymore
Dumpster diving – with my Mom! We would “go for
pick-up” as we called it, to a quilt manufacturer. We would grab all of
the end cuts that we could stuff into our station wagon, floor to ceiling,
front to back; who needs that rear view mirror. The women of the church would
use the quilt material to make oven mitts and other crafts to sell at the
Bazaar. As was warned above, the dumpster diving ended one day when my Mom came
face to face with a huge raccoon. She went to the owner of the factory, told them
what they were using the material for, and sure enough, he started to set aside
several industrial size garbage bags of “pick-up” for them. Fun
memories.
The dumpster anti-apocalypse happens annually in nearly any city/town right around May/June so long as there’s a university nearby. Find the university neighborhood (bonus if there are fraternities/sororities) and you’ll find countless pieces of furniture, appliances, etc. that students dump before leaving town.
I’m sorry, but at 9:00 in, it really sounds (to my deaf ears anyway) that Adam says he “pulled them out of a vulva”. Ouch. Maybe I’m just immature.