[Eric Strebel] is quickly becoming a favorite here at Hackaday. He’s got a fantastic knack for turning everyday objects into something awesome, and he’s kind of enough to document his builds for the viewing pleasure of hackers and makers everywhere. It also doesn’t hurt that his voice and narration style gives us a real Bob Ross vibe.
The latest “Happy Accident” out of his workshop is a neat light-up cane made from a ceramic skull found at a local store. But while the finished cane itself might not be terribly exciting, the construction methods demonstrated by [Eric] are well worth the price of admission. Rather than using Bondo like the filler we’re all accustomed to, he shows how it can be used to rapidly build free-form structures and components.
After building up layers of Bondo, he uses a cheese grater to smooth out the rough surface and a hobby knife to clean up the edges. According to [Eric], one of the benefits of working with Bondo like this is that it’s very easy to shape and manipulate before it fully hardens; allowing you to really make things up as you go.
[Eric] also shares a little secret about how he makes his gray Bondo: he mixes some of the toner from a laser printer cartridge into it. This allows you to very cheaply augment the color of the filler, and is definitely something to file away for future reference.
If the video below leaves you hungry for more [Eric Strebel], check out his fantastic series on working with foam core, which should lead you right down the rabbit hole to his DIY foam core spray painting booth.
same happy accident with black uv nail polish ;)
https://hackaday.io/project/58636-lazzzer-mount
So, the battery isn’t replaceable, i hope you get rid of it correctly still, or is that hating too?
bondo trick is cool, I mostly like how he colored it. But If it was me I would of traced the bottom, and taken a scale pic of the tracing. Then thrown together a quick partial cone that was both threaded and interfaced with the skull. Then its super easy to replace parts, not to mention probably take less time.
I don’t think bondo is strong enough for screw threads. Some sort of bayonet fitting with a couple of large lugs might work.
i would of printed the threads, not tsp them into the bondo. i often use printed threads for parts of projects. either containers with lids or for compartments.
I really don’t get the dehumanizing headlines on HaD. One nearly every story. Why not “Artist Proves Bondo Isn’t Just for Dents”?
Well, maybe not nearly every story, but I saw one once!
Thanks for that comment.
I’m not a native english speaker, nor do I know what “Bondo” is.
I skimmed through the article, clicked through the boring video to understand anything.
Couldn’t understand what the deal was about.
Quickly googled “Bondo”. Saw it was some filler for dents and whatnot that hardens.
Big deal. Thanks for that article …
JB Weld is much better…
What are you going to do, mix up 10 tubes of the stuff?
One of the advantages of the Bondo is that you can mix much larger volumes since it’s really intended for doing big jobs.
I doubt that skull cane job took very much Bondo…
Someone with fingers like those should wear gloves on ???????????????? hands when they’re being photographed.