Jewlery Making Tutorial on Instructables

Just published a short tutorial on Instructables about using salvaged parts and e-waste to make jewelry. You've seen some of the projects here on the blog, but I go into more depth about the process and techniques used.

It's also the first time I reference my previous work. In this tutorial I point back to one of the simple tear-down videos. I've spent several months making a series of very basic how-to videos and tutorials. I now have a set of foundational guides I can refer back to. That way, I don't have to make every tutorial really long and detailed. I can just point back to one of the foundation series.

Check it out and let me know what you think (or any of my Instructables). I feel the need to go do some coding and welding now, so this might be the last jewelry based post for a few months. The 3d printer is also sitting in the corner taunting me for not playing with it for at least a month.

I've also got plans for more projects that use all the items from the foundation series. Drop me a note if you've seen any ideas proposed in the basic guides that you want to see turned into actual projects.

Then again, I might 3d print some jewelry to weld, so.....

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Tearing Apart Three Toy Guitars

I've wanted to make a real working MIDI guitar out of cheap toy guitar for a long time. I finally have the boards and most of the skills to do it, now I just need a good vessel for my creativity. To find that perfect container for my electronic musical madness, I tore apart three different toy guitars to find one that has the kinds of basic parts that I can hook into and hack easily.



This first version is going to be a standalone MIDI guitar. The sound will come from a MIDI board inside the guitar. There's no need for a computer or software. It's basically a glorified toy guitar, but with a lot more control. I have hooked up my MIDI board up to an Arduino and gotten them to work. It was a lot of fun, but tapping on buttons just wasn't as much fun as shredding on a guitar. I finally decided to take the next step.

Check out the video to see what I find inside these thriftstore toy guitars. And stay tuned for project updates.

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Jewelry in Progress - Two More Experiments

Last time, I shared a piece of Goth jewelry I'm working on. That's not my usual style, as I noted in that post. Here's a couple more pieces I'm developing. One is a neutral tone antique look, the other is a high tech version of Steampunk.

A piece of antique random washer art and some hi-tech Steampunk - or at least the foundation for them.

Neither piece is finished, they're really just the base layer.

The round piece is a washer that I covered with paper that I cut to size with my old craft cutter machine. It's from a series of experiments I was doing - sort of forcing myself into randomness. I would slap some tear-outs from various magazines onto the cutting mat and cut randomly, then try to make something pretty from the results. It was meant to be an antidote to the precise, overly planned activities that my coding and 3d design require. And it sure was fun, so I might do that again.

The other piece is a scavenged PCB (circuit board) with a bright gold frame. I didn't realize it until too late, but I'm probably the only person who knows that the board is nearly flat and all the other stuff is added on. Only an electro-geek would know that... jeesh, what was I thinking. So I added an antique frame and stamp to steer it towards the Steampunk realm. I like the balance and rhythm of the objects, but no one will know that they came from me.

I didn't touch them today. I needed to cogitate and agitate a little first. I think I've got a plan now, but we'll see how it works out.







It seems that I'm trying to develop a new style, whether I really want to or not. I hesitate to even call it that, but that's what I get for trying new things. Normal people are starting tp create the types of stuff I did years ago, so now I'm trying to move beyond that. When I started doing Steampunk it was weird and people looked at it slightly askance. And I was okay with that. Now everyone is doing it and I've got to move on.

So I'm forced to try new things again... and I'm okay with that. And sure, my new stuff looks odd even to me. I haven't found a dependable visual vocabulary yet. I don't even know what the pieces are about, what their narrative is. I don't see other people doing it yet, so I don't really have anyone to steal from or prop my decisions against for surety. Basically I don't know what I'm doing yet.

It does seem, at least to me, that I'm repeatedly trying to marry different materials and time periods. The "style" hasn't congealed into anything coherent yet, though. I feel like I'm treading water, like I'm just slapping stuff together with no plan. And I'm okay with that. Sometimes things turn out well, even better than expected.

If you're trying something new, or want to, then that's what usually happens. I've been here before, so I'm comfortable. Just thought I would leave a note here for anyone else that's struggling to find their new thing... you're not alone ( and it's really kind of fun travelling without a map.)

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Friday the 13th Jewelry

Missed posting this on Friday the 13th but going to show it now. Starting to make some new jewelry for an upcoming show. Not even sure if I'll be in the show, but it's a good excuse to try some new techniques.

The skull matched the dark depths of the scavenged LCD screen. I thought a silver clock face and a spot of red were good accents.

This isn't my usual style, but I needed something to offset the black square and a skull worked nicely. For some reason I felt all goth that day. Maybe it's just my attempt to balance the "natural tones" pieces that I'm making at the same time.

This piece is comprised of an upcycled LCD screen I scavenged from a teardown. It had a spooky, dark depth to it. And the screen becomes semi-transparent when a strong backlight is put behind it. I thought the black-and-white skull looked like it was floating on a pool of darkness.

I could never find a use for the silvery chrome clock faces before since most of my jewelry has a kind of antique or steampunk look. But the silver seemed to match the theme well.

And I had some old buttons I had scavenged from

Mythical Vibrator Found?

I might have found one of the legendary LRA vibration motors. I can't be sure yet, but all the signs are there. It looks like a standard ERM, but it acts more like a piezo and its magnet is incredibly powerful. (Check out the update - it is and it kind of works)

So is this an LRA vibration motor? It looks like a standard ERM pancake motor. But it's got a really strong magnet and operates like a piezo. I'm going to hook it up to my haptic driver controller and test it out.

What's the big deal? Well the LRA (Linear Resonant Actuator) is rumored to have a better feel for haptic feedback devices. When your phone vibrates, or the screen clicks or taps or buzzes when you touch it - that's an LRA.

An LRA acts like a speaker. When current is applied, a weight moves back and forth in a linear motion. Like a speaker, this allows you to create complex waveforms that can be felt kind of like you hear waveforms in music.

Compared to a regular ERM (Eccentric Rotating Mass) vibrator, LRAs provide a wider range of sensations. That's why they're used for tactile feedback in all your phones.





You can find standard  ERMs everywhere, from the tiny disk shaped motors in a bristlebot, to the huge versions in your back massager. They are cheap, readily available and easy to work with. But they have a very limited vocabulary. All you can really do is adjust the speed and duration. Even with modern controllers, you can't use ERMs for sophisticated feedback tasks.

By contrast, LRAs are difficult to source and many use connector sizes I'm not comfortable working with. You also need to be either a serious programmer or buy a specialty controller board to use them. I do own one of those controller boards, a haptic feedback driver, so I can test my newly found vibe as soon as I figure out how to tweak the registers. Luckily, this motor is also large enough and uses connectors that I can see without a magnifying glass.

If I get it working without blowing anything up, I will certainly post my experiences here.

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Am I Still a Maker

What is a "maker" exactly? Is a janitor a maker? What about facilities-maintenance staff? I took time off from my personal projects to do some repair and maintenance on several buildings this week. I was using the same tools and techniques, but somehow it didn't feel like I was "making."

None of the people I worked with this week consider themselves "makers" even though they are all more skilled than I am in many areas. For the entire week I was more like an assistant or apprentice to them. They do this type of work full time and have a deep knowledge of many things. I'm a dilettante who thankfully knows enough to call in experts when safety or financial efficiency are at stake.

I did some good, solid real-world work this week. When I knew what I needed to do and had a plan for the task, I thought of myself as "merely working." When I had no plans, when I was just exploring and dreaming - then I thought of myself as a maker.

In fact, it wasn't until I made a cartoon face out of an old light fixture that I thought of myself as a maker. "At least I made one thing this week," I thought to myself.

What the... what does that mean? Why is my mindset like that? And am I the only one who thinks like this?

Why do I consider this silly cartoon face from scrap parts to be "making."

And why do I not consider replacing these old light fixtures with new LED versions a form of making?

I get to hang out with carpenters, contractors, welders, mechanics, cabinet makers and chefs. I also hang around with painters and photographers and jewelry artists. None of them have really adopted the term "maker" to identify themselves.

I also know people who identify as tinkerers, shade tree mechanics, DIYers, hobbyists or amateurs in various fields. I even know people who still use the terms "home brewed" and jack-of-all-trades. These people consider making and repairing and creating a basic life skill that everyone should have, not something particularly special. They have not adopted the maker moniker either.

In fact, these folks seem to have a distaste for the new marketing term of "maker." They see the hoopla and overuse of the term in advertising and grant proposals and seem determined to avoid the term.

So I wonder if "maker" is becoming a name for people who haven't fully integrated creativity and physical work in their lives.

I don't have any answers, just a lot more questions. Why do I never post my artistic work here? Why do I not post about repair and maintenance? Why do I avoid posting real programming, mechanical and engineering challenges? Do I really think makers are so easily frightened that I'll scare them off by posting professional level tasks?

Until now, my biggest worry was that I bounce around between so many materials, techniques and project types that it will take a year before I post a similar project. What if people show up because of my electronics projects and are disappointed to find arabesque shadow screens instead, or wood carving, or halter tops, or graphic design tips? That is, after all, why I chose such a weird name for the blog, "You've been warned, you knew what to expect from the title."

Maybe I need to stop limiting the types of things I post here and start sharing the full range of project types and levels of difficulty.

Okay, that's enough overthinking and public rumination for one post. Time to go do something, make something, create something... doesn't really matter what I call it now does it... as long as I do it.

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