Unorthodox Toolbox Switcheroo: Barbecue!

June 8, 2022 by Sven Gregori 24 Comments

Despite all the progress in cooking methods over the past millennia, nothing can ever replace the primeval sensation of staring into the embers as your food slowly gets ready. Barbecues are the obvious choice to satisfy this cave nostalgia, and while size might matter in some cases, sometimes you just want the convenience of being able to take your grilling device to the beach, park, or just really anywhere but home. Other times you’re [Laura Kampf] and don’t want to use an old toolbox for storing tools.

It all started with one of those typical three-layer folded cantilever toolboxes that [Laura] really likes for their mechanical construction, but not so much from a usability point of view. Being someone with a knack for turning random stuff into barbecues, this was an intriguing enough device to take apart. After plenty of time spent grinding bolts and paint off, she cut out the tray bottoms to weld metal mesh pieces as grill grates in their place — but you can watch the whole progress in the video below then.

The folding mechanics play out really nicely here. Not only can you access the grill goods by moving them away from the burning coals that are placed in the center bottom part of the box, it also provides you with two different heat layers. The individual lids on each side add even more variety, and this might even work as portable little smoker.

We’ve seen [Laura]’s work a few times before already, and in case you haven’t, go check out her beer keg motorcycle side car, wheelbarrow bicycle trailer, or Zippo lighter turned drill bit storage box.

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Explosion Welding Goes Off With A Bang

April 25, 2022 by Lewin Day 25 Comments

Welding is often a hot and noisy process. It generally involves some fancy chemistry and proper knowledge to achieve good results. Whether you’re talking about arc, TIG, or MIG, these statements all apply.

The same is true for explosion welding, though it’s entirely unlike any traditional hand welding methods you’ve ever seen before. Today, we’ll explore how this technique works and the applications it’s useful for. Fire in the hole!

Don’t Blow Them Apart, Blow Them Together!

Explosion welding occurs near-instantaneously, but is done in a progressive fashion. The angle of collision, as well as the speed of the explosive front, is key to getting a quality weld. Image credit: NASA, public domain

The technique of explosion welding is relatively new compared to other metal-joining techniques. In the two World Wars of the 20th century, pieces of shrapnel were often found stuck to armor plating. Close observation showed that shrapnel was in fact welding on to metal armor, rather than simply being embedded in such. Given that collisions between shrapnel and armor often occur without the extreme heat of typical welding operations, it indicated that it was instead great velocity of the impact between shrapnel and armor that was melding the metals together.

The same results were later recreated in the lab, and explosoin welding was developed into a refined technique after World War II. 1962 saw DuPont patent a process for explosion welding later to be known under the “Detaclad” trademark.

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All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Flow: Russia’s Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

April 24, 2022 by Ryan Flowers 38 Comments

At over 1230 km (764 mi) in length, $10 billion in cost, and over a decade in the making, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was slated to connect the gas fields of Russia to Western Europe through Germany. But with the sanctions against Russia and the politics of the pipeline suffering a major meltdown, this incredible feat of engineering currently sits unused. What does it take to lay so much underwater pipe, and what challenges are faced? [Grady] over at Practical Engineering lays out out nicely for us in the video below the break.

A Bubble Curtain containing the disposal of WW2 ordinance

As with any undersea pipeline or cable, a survey had to be done. Instead of just avoiding great chasms, underwater volcanos, or herds of sharks with lasers, planners had to contend with culturally important shipwrecks, territorial waters, and unexploded ordnance dating from the second world war. Disposing of this ordinance in a responsible way meant employing curtains of bubbles around the explosion to limit the propagation of the explosion through the water- definitely a neat hack!

Speeding up the job meant laying several sections of pipe at once, and then tying them together after they were laid. The sheer amount of engineering, manpower and money involved are nothing short of staggering. Of course [Grady] makes it sound simple, and even shares his take on some of the geopolitical issues involved, such as Germany refusing to certify the line for use after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So far, the $10 billion pipeline is unused, and even Shell has walked away from its $5 billion investment.

Be sure to watch the whole video for even more fascinating details about the Nord Stream 2’s amazing engineering and construction. Check out a Robot Eel concept for the maintenance of underwater pipelines too.

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Bike On Over To The Campground

March 20, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 9 Comments

Like many of us, [Paul] enjoys occasionally hitching up his tow-behind camper and heading out to the wilderness to get away from it all at his favorite campsite. Unlike the vast majority of those who share his passion for the outdoors, though, [Paul] is hitching his camper up to a bicycle. Both the camper and the bike are custom built from the ground up, and this video shows us a little more details on [Paul]’s preferred mode of transportation.

While he is known for building custom vehicles of one sort or another, this latest one is a more traditional bicycle frame that he has modified only slightly to fit a recumbent-style seat and a small gas-powered motor. Even though the motor is decades old, it started right up and gives the power needed to pull the custom camper. [Paul] builds one-person campers like this out of corrugated plastic for durability and light weight, and this one is specifically designed for his size and sleeping style. It includes everything needed for a night under the stars, too, including a stove, storage compartments, and a few windows.

With the bike and camper combined weighing in at just over 200 pounds, the motor can be used as a pedal-assist device thanks to the clever engineering behind a front-wheel-drive pedal system on this bike. With all of that custom fabrication, [Paul] is free to head out to the wilderness without all the encumbrances (and high price) of traditional motor vehicle-based camping. For those curious about some of [Paul]’s other vehicle creations, take a look at this tiny speedboat for one.

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Nail This Tricky Kumiko Pattern

March 11, 2022 by Matthew Carlson 4 Comments

[Pask Makes] has previously made Kumiko patterns in wood and was happy with the results, but he wondered if he could make something visually similar from metal instead of wood.

For that, he reached for nails as it is a cheap source of uniform small rods of metal. Kumiko is, funny enough, a technique known for joining small pieces of wood without nails. There are many different patterns that use the technique and most are inspired by nature. It is the pressure of the wood in the pattern itself that holds it together and requires dedicated planning and thousands of minute adjustments. Since [Pask] was using a MIG welder to hold the nails together, it isn’t technically Kumiko but rather a Kumiko pattern.

The first step was to take the coating off the nails, which is something a little acid does a wonderful job with. After dropping a little acid, his nails were prepped and he was ready to tack them together. He printed a template on a sheet of paper and used a straight edge and a palm router with a groove bit to cut little channels for each of the nails to sit in. The nails were trimmed to the correct width with the help of a small jig. After he had tacked the nails together, he came back and filled in the centers.

It’s a straightforward little project that creates a beautiful pattern and it’s a good reminder that simple materials can make complex things. If you prefer the wood look, this Kumiko guitar might be more to your taste. Video after the break.

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Hackaday Links: February 27, 2022

February 27, 2022 by Dan Maloney 15 Comments

If there’s one thing that can trigger people, it’s the printer racket. Printer manufacturers who put DRM-like features into their consumables are rightly viewed as Satan’s spawn, and while these monsters have been content so far to only put digital rights management features into their ink and toner cartridges, they appear to now have their rapacious gaze set on print media too. At least according to the good folks over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who claim that Dymo’s latest generation of label printers will have RFID tags in the label cartridges, apparently to prevent consumers from buying non-Dymo media. The company doesn’t bill it as a way to lock you into their exorbitantly priced consumables, of course; rather, this is an exciting new feature that’s called “Automatic Label Recognition,” which keeps track of what labels are installed and how many are left. Of course, this is just red meat to people like us, and we fully expect to see workarounds in the not-to-distant future.

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Portable Pizza Oven Has Temperature Level Over 900

January 24, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 36 Comments

While it’s possible to make pizza from scratch at home right down to the dough itself, it’ll be a struggle to replicate the taste and exquisite mouthfeel without a pizza oven. Pizzas cook best at temperatures well over the 260°C/500°F limit on most household ovens while pizza ovens can typically get much hotter than that. Most of us won’t have the resources to put a commercial grade wood-fired brick oven in our homes, but the next best thing is this portable pizza oven from [Andrew W].

The build starts with some sheet metal to form the outer and inner covers for the oven. [Andrew] has found with some testing that a curved shape seems to produce the best results, so the sheet metal goes through rollers to get its shape before being welded together. With the oven’s rough shape completed, he fabricates two different burners. One sits at the back of the oven with its own diffuser to keep the oven as hot as possible and the other sits underneath a cordierite stone to heat from the bottom. Both are fed gas from custom copper plumbing and when it fires up it reaches temperatures hot enough that it can cook a pizza in just a few minutes. With some foldable legs the oven also ends up being fairly portable, and its small size means that it can heat up faster than a conventional oven too.

This is [Andrew]’s third prototype oven, and it seems like he has the recipe perfected. In fact, we featured one of his previous versions almost two years ago and are excited to see the progress he’s made in this build. The only downside to having something like this would be the potential health implications of always being able to make delicious pizzas, but that is a risk we’d be willing to take.

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