DIY

Yesterday's mystery tool is officially known as the Monitor model 107 "Patented Wire Stitcher" manufactured by the Latham Machinery Company of Chicago, IL. Bookbinding operations like the one that gave the machine to me used it to place those big staples in thick stacks of pages to be bound. I'm sure you've always wondered what kind of stapler it takes to make that staple. This is it.

In my post about vernier calipers, I highlighted one rugged option for making highly accurate measurements. When building projects that involve things like sliding fits, interference fits, shafts and bearings, rotating parts, measuring sheet metal thickness (and the list goes on, and on), accurate and repeatable measurements in the range of 1/1000 of an inch become very important. In this Tool School, I look at another option: the micrometer. A standard micrometer is capable of the same 1/1000-inch accuracy as the vernier calipers, and micrometers that incorporate a vernier scale are capable of measurements an order of magnitude more accurate: 1/10,000 of an inch. In addition, the variety of forms micrometers take allow measurement of a far larger variety of things than would be possible with calipers. Here's how to use one.

If you were anything like I was as a kid, you'll remember fondly the time spent soldering electronics kits. In recent years, I've been busy building things like pink camouflage tanks, and have mostly missed the recent electronic-kit resurgence. That is, until I had the need to broadcast live video images from the cockpit of a recent project to TV screens piled around the arena, and rediscovered an awesome kit source.

Last week, we inaugurated a new challenge for you here on PopSci.com that lets you show off your deep tool knowledge and walk away with not only our abiding respect, but a less obscure tool of your own.

Here's how it works: We post a picture of a strange object from my shop, maybe a clue or two, and you guess what it is in the comments section below. The first and most precise among you to guess correctly will win the prize. This week, it’s a 30-foot Stanley FatMax tape measure. Pretty sweet.

A new refrigerated cargo box for moving pharmaceutical products has attracted the likes of delivery giant UPS, but its inventor may go out of business first because of a lengthy review process by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Military surplus equipment is more than just cheap, weird and green. For me, it's a design study in what happens when usability and ruggedness are given priority and production cost is forgotten. Check out the photo gallery for two of the coolest pieces in my collection—the AN-GRR-5 shortwave radio and the TA-1042 digital field telephones—and read on for more on military gear and my favorite sources.

With the move to the new shop, I've been forced to revisit our approach to storage and organization. The first area to get the treatment was the stash of valves, miscellaneous bearings, telephone parts, solenoids and a few thousand other small to mid-sized parts. At this point in time, it looks like Rubbermaid is my savior.

Looking to get away to Paris this winter, but concerned about the cost? Worry not; for the price of a pair of lab safety goggles, a cardboard box and an HTC Magic (even better if the HTC magic comes in a large cardboard box), this DIY augmented reality headset can transport you anywhere in the world, just as long as the Google Street View team has been there first.

Pictured here is a machine with which I've had a strange obsession ever since it randomly happened into my life several years ago for $25; one of the last holdouts in a liquidation sale of a former mass mailing business, and the very machine with which that business had been started one generation prior. It is known as a Graphotype.