Add Wood Grain Texture To 3D Prints – With A Model Of A Log

June 3, 2025 by Donald Papp 34 Comments

Adding textures is a great way to experiment with giving 3D prints a different look, and [PandaN] shows off a method of adding a wood grain effect in a way that’s easy to play around with. It involves using a 3D model of a log (complete with concentric tree rings) as a print modifier. The good news is that [PandaN] has already done the work of creating one, as well as showing how to use it.

The model of the stump — complete with concentric tree rings — acts as a modifier for the much-smaller printed object (in this case, a small plate).

In the slicer software one simply uses the log as a modifier for an object to be printed. When a 3D model is used as a modifier in this way, it means different print settings get applied everywhere the object to be printed and the modifier intersect one another.

In the case of this project, the modifier shifts the angle of the fill pattern wherever the models intersect. A fuzzy skin modifier is used as well, and the result is enough to give a wood grain appearance to the printed object. When printed with a wood filament (which is PLA mixed with wood particles), the result looks especially good.

We’ve seen a few different ways to add textures to 3D prints, including using Blender to modify model surfaces. Textures can enhance the look of a model, and are also a good way to hide layer lines.

In addition to the 3D models, [PandaN] provides a ready-to-go project for Bambu slicer with all the necessary settings already configured, so experimenting can be as simple as swapping the object to be printed with a new 3D model. Want to see that in action? Here’s a separate video demonstrating exactly that step-by-step, embedded below.

Continue reading “Add Wood Grain Texture To 3D Prints – With A Model Of A Log” →

Rusty bathtub outdoors on equally rusty car springs

Hot Rod Backyard Bath On Steel Spring Legs

May 31, 2025 by Heidi Ulrich 16 Comments

In a fusion of scrapyard elegance and Aussie ingenuity, [Mark Makies] has given a piece of old steel a steamy second life with his ‘CastAway Tub’. Call it a bush mechanic’s fever dream turned functional sculpture, starring two vintage LandCruiser leaf springs, and a rust-hugged cast iron tub dug up after 20 years in hiding. And put your welding goggles on, because this one is equal parts brute force and artisan flair.

What makes this hack so bold is, first of all, the reuse of unforgiving spring steel. Leaf springs, notoriously temperamental to weld, are tamed here with oxy-LPG preheating, avoiding thermal shock like a pro. The tub sits proudly atop a custom-welded frame shaped from dismantled spring packs, with each leaf ground, clamped, torched, and welded into a steampunk sled base. The whole thing looks like it might outrun a dune buggy – and possibly bathe you while it’s at it. It’s a masterclass in metalwork with zero CAD, all intuition, and a grinder that’s seen things.

Inspired? For those with a secret love for hot water and hot steel, this build is a blueprint for turning bush junk into backyard art. Read up on the full build at Instructables.

Easy Panels With InkJet, Adhesives, And Elbow Grease

May 19, 2025 by Tyler August 25 Comments

Nothing caps off a great project like a good, professional-looking front panel. Looking good isn’t easy, but luckily [Accidental Science] has a tutorial for a quick-and-easy front panel technique in the video below.

It starts with regular paper, and an inkjet or laser printer to print your design. The paper then gets coated on both sides: matte varnish on the front, and white spray paint on the back. Then it’s just a matter of cutting the decal from the paper, and it gluing to your panel. ([Accidental Science] suggests two-part epoxy, but cautions you make sure it does not react to the paint.)

He uses aluminum in this example, but there’s no reason you could not choose a different substrate. Once the paper is adhered to the panel, another coat of varnish is applied to protect it. Alternatively, clear epoxy can be used as glue and varnish. The finish produced is very professional, and holds up to drilling and filing the holes in the panel.

We’d probably want to protect the edges by mounting this panel in a frame, but otherwise would be proud to put such a panel on a project that required it. We covered a similar technique before, but it required a laminator.If you’re looking for alternatives, Hackaday community had a lot of ideas on how to make a panel, but if you have a method you’ve documented, feel free to put in the tip line. Continue reading “Easy Panels With InkJet, Adhesives, And Elbow Grease” →

Deep Dive On Panel Making

April 27, 2025 by Al Williams 24 Comments

It is easier than ever to produce projects with nice enclosures thanks to 3D printing and laser cutting. However, for a polished look, you also need a labeled front panel. We’ve looked at several methods for doing that in the past, but we enjoyed [Accidental Science’s] video showing his method for making laminated panels.

His first step is to draw the panel in Inkscape, and he has some interesting tips for getting the most out of the program. He makes a few prints and laminates one of them. The other is a drill guide. You use the drill guide to make openings in the panel, which could be aluminum, steel, plastic, or whatever material you want to work in.

Continue reading “Deep Dive On Panel Making” →

Mockup of a printed copy of the Little OS Book

One Book To Boot Them All

April 2, 2025 by Heidi Ulrich 19 Comments

Somewhere in the universe, there’s a place that lists every x86 operating system from scratch. Not just some bootloaders, or just a kernel stub, but documentation to build a fully functional, interrupt-handling, multitasking-capable OS. [Erik Helin and Adam Renberg] did just that by documenting every step in The Little Book About OS Development.

This is not your typical dry academic textbook. It’s a hands-on, step-by-step guide aimed at hackers, tinkerers, and developers who want to demystify kernel programming. The book walks you through setting up your environment, bootstrapping your OS, handling interrupts, implementing virtual memory, and even tackling system calls and multitasking. It provides just enough detail to get you started but leaves room for exploration – because, let’s be honest, half the fun is in figuring things out yourself.

Completeness and structure are two things that make this book stand out. Other OS dev guides may give you snippets and leave you to assemble the puzzle yourself. This book documents the entire process, including common pitfalls. If you’ve ever been lost in the weeds of segmentation, paging, or serial I/O, this is the map you need. You can read it online or fetch it as a single 75-page long PDF.

Mockup photo source: Matthieu Dixte

Make DIY Conductive, Biodegradable String Right In Your Kitchen

March 28, 2025 by Donald Papp 3 Comments

[ombates] shares a step-by-step method for making a conductive bio-string from scratch, no fancy equipment required. She demonstrates using it to create a decorative top with touch-sensitive parts, controlling animations on an RGB LED pendant. To top it off, it’s even biodegradable!

The string is an alginate-based bioplastic that can be made at home and is shaped in a way that it can be woven or knitted. Alginate comes primarily from seaweed, and it gels in the presence of calcium ions. [ombates] relies on this to make a goopy mixture that, once extruded into a calcium chloride bath, forms a thin rubbery length that can be dried into the strings you see here. By adding carbon to the mixture, the resulting string is darkened in color and also conductive.

There’s no details on what the actual resistance of a segment of this string can be expected to measure, but while it might not be suitable to use as wiring it is certainly conductive enough to act as a touch sensor in a manner similar to the banana synthesizer. It would similarly be compatible with a Makey Makey (the original and incredibly popular hardware board for turning household objects into touch sensors.)

What you see here is [ombates]’ wearable demonstration, using the white (non-conductive) string interwoven with dark (conductive) portions connected to an Adafruit Circuit Playground board mounted as an LED pendant, with the conductive parts used as touch sensors.

Alginate is sometimes used to make dental molds and while alginate molds lose their dimensional accuracy as they dry out, for this string that’s not really a concern. If you give it a try, visit our tip line to let us know how it turned out!

How To Use LLMs For Programming Tasks

March 11, 2025 by Donald Papp 60 Comments

[Simon Willison] has put together a list of how, exactly, one goes about using a large language models (LLM) to help write code. If you have wondered just what the workflow and techniques look like, give it a read. It’s full of examples, strategies, and useful tips for effectively using AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and others to do useful programming work.

It’s a very practical document, with [Simon] emphasizing realistic expectations and the importance of managing context (both in terms of giving the LLM direction, as well as the model’s context in terms of being mindful of how much the LLM can fit in its ‘head’ at once.) It is useful to picture an LLM as a capable and obedient but over-confident programming intern or assistant, albeit one that never gets bored or annoyed. Useful work can be done, but testing is crucial and human oversight simply cannot be automated away.

Even if one has no interest in using LLMs to help in writing production code, there’s still a lot of useful work they can do to speed up the process of software development in general, especially when learning. They can help research options, interactively explore unfamiliar codebases, or prototype ideas quickly. [Simon] provides useful strategies for all these, and more.

If you have wondered how exactly glorified chatbots can meaningfully help with software development, [Simon]’s writeup hopefully gives you some new ideas. And if this is is all leaving you curious about how exactly LLMs work, in the time it takes to enjoy a warm coffee you can learn how they do what they do, no math required.