Natural Materials For Nature’s Call

When it comes to picking out high-end fixtures and appointments for your bathroom remodel, there are tons of choices out there these days. Sure, that double-slipper tub or  $2500 stainless steel toilet can make a statement, and even the local Big Box Home Store has some pretty unique stuff. But for a one of a kind sink, follow [The Samurai Carpenter]’s lead and carve a sink out of a boulder.

Capture2Starting with a stone he found off the porch of his house, [Samurai Carpenter] was able to rough out the shape of the basin with a diamond-bladed cutoff saw. A few plunge cuts within a hand-sketched outline gave him the room needed to hog out most of the material with a cold chisel and hammer. A diamond wheel on an angle grinder, along with a chisel bit on an impact drill, got him down to the final smooth finish. After the break there’s a video showing the final installation, including drilling out the drain hole and mounting the sink to the vanity, which is a beautiful rough-cut slab of what appears to be locally sourced wood. The whole installation looks fantastic and appears to function well; our only quibble is there’s no overflow in the basin, but it’s hard to see how he could have provided one without significantly complicating the project and potentially ruining the aesthetic.

Although they may not fit in with the natural vibe of his remodel, either this or this tricked out mirror could complete a high-end  bathroom remodel.

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Your Hard Drive Needs A Diamond Blade

If you find yourself in need of a precision chop saw don’t overlook the value of adding a diamond blade to a spinning HDD platter. [Tony’s] four-part writeup of this build springs out of some very special design considerations for a ham radio that operates in the 47 GHz band. That frequency pretty much rules out using normal components in the circuit and in his case it even makes connecting the components together difficult. He’s using this chop saw to cut small pieces of a ceramic substrate with gold traces on them that will be used to route the signals on the circuit.

We’ve seen hard drives used in a couple of different clocks, and even as a set of speakers. This one makes for a nice addition as a way to reuse those defunct devices that litter your junk box.

[Thanks Thomas]