Tofu

I decided to make tofu today.

After realizing how simple it was, and the alleged taste benefits, I couldn't resist making this simple dish.

Ingredients:
*Soy Milk (Store bought non-flavored, or make your own *soon-to-be-here-diy-link...* are both great sources)
*A Coagulant (I used Epsom salt aka Magnesium Sulfate. Nigari aka Magnesium Chloride is the traditional coagulant.)

Tools:
*Cheesecloth
*Pans and Stove
*Heavy and Dense object(s)

Process:
Take 1/2 Gallon of Soy milk and pour it into a pan and heat on medium until simmering. Stir occasionally.While this is coming to a boil prepare a tablespoon of Epsom salt by dissolving it in a glass of water.
Let the Soy Milk simmer for a few moments. I also raised the heat a bit at this point as I think and have read that is helps. Add this mixture to the Soy Milk and stir until the mixture looks like this:
Time to filter and strain this mixture. I cut pieces of cheesecloth and placed them in a small strainer pan with excess cloth to fold over the top.

Pour in the mixture:Fold the excess cloth over the top and place a flat object on top, I used a bowl, and add a few pounds of weight, I added spaghetti sauce jar and a salsa jar.
Wait about 20 mins for the tofu to set and enjoy! I like really firm tofu so I let it set for about 30 mins, use less time if you prefer less firm tofu.

The Results:
It looks and tastes really good.
Store in water in the fridge for up to a week, enjoy!

Oval Gears

The past two days I have been building Oval gears, with a laser etcher.


I found this at Thingiverse.com, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:205 . I decided to cut it out of acrylic with the laser cutter, because well I have one to use, for the time being. I downloaded the file included and fired the laser! This came out.



It was a prototype. The spacing on the brackets was too close together, and the whole thing would shatter violently... Yay for prototyping! I'm pretty sure the problem lied in the fact that the laser made too little waste and the teeth meshed together and stressed the whole brace. So trial and error (x30) later I came out with my working model. Lots of help from a wonderful man, Ronald Hofman. He has helped me tremendously throughout the whole process. Thank you very much.

Laser Etched MacBook Pro

Today I etched my MacBook Pro, with a Laser.

First off, Huge thanks to the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and to the wonderful people here who let me do this. Currently here for a bit over the summer, at a program called Operation Catapult.

While working here I asked if I could use the Pinnacle laser etcher to etch my MacBook Pro, and they said yes.

Firstly I edited the image in Photoshop and then over to Illustrator to turn it into vector art, out to a high resolution BMP, and off to the laser's computer.


After that, the image was scaled and put into place, my MacBook Pro's borders were put into the computer and then the machine had to think for a little while. But after that a sheet of construction paper was laid down to test out the image and to make sure everything was ok to go onto my laptop for forever.

(Sorry its so blurry)

The trial went very well so my MBP was loaded into the machine and off it went.

Another Final pic, I love looking at this.

Brownies

Today I made a stop-motion video of some brownies. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
Box-o-brownies
2 eggs
Oil*
H2O

*I used melted clarified butter. They brownies would have been more "fluffy" with oil, but working with available resources is an aspect of DIY.

Tools:
Nikon D50
iStopMotion
Adobe Premiere Pro

**So Premiere Pro is completely overkill for a simple audio overlay into a video, but any will work. iStopMotion is a wonderful program that allows users to create stop-motion videos.

Process:
During the process of making brownies, I took photos during each step. I took 451 photos for 37 seconds of footage, this isn't a strict rate of photos per second, so play around. Trial and error is a large part of DIY, and if you really enjoy the project a lot of fun. Tip, take a lot of photos, more than you'll think you'll need, you can always remove photos or speed up the footage, very hard to add in more pictures.

After all the pictures were taken, I uploaded them into iStopMotion. From there I made a 37 second video and exported it over to Premiere Pro. Then I added in some fun music, and presto video done.

I Haven't Died

Content on the way, sorry for the outage.

Viola: Part 2

Well its playable now, well almost I need some sort of compound to keep the tuning pegs from slipping.

All I did was cut out the bridge, cut out a small block drilled some holes into it to act as a tail piece, and the shaped up the scroll. The block was just glued down to the top (all you violist may cringe at my weird design now). I have no idea what I'm doing, but this is ok. An important part to DIY is, trial and error. Go in with your best shot, and if it fails, try again with changes.

I don't know what it sounds like yet and wont be able to tell if its bad or good because I don't have a trained ear.

This brings me to another DIY point, ask your friends for help. Weather they have tools, knowledge, or skills, they can help you out. I have a good friend who plays the viola well and can tell me what needs work and what is ok, and its his opinion you'll be hearing here shortly on another post.

If this happens to make a pleasing sound, I will continue to sand and shape it, stain it, and put lacquer on it to make it pretty. A picture,

Viola: Part 1

Yes a Viola, NOT a Violin. Now that that's out of the way, onto the post.

This is my first attempt at a viol family instrument, I'm going off nothing but seeing a few in the past and research done on the internet. I made an electric guitar a while ago but that's a different mindset and build. My second attempt at this will be with a book from someone who knows what they are doing.

So like any good maker, I did my homework on the workings, parts, styles, and builds of the instrument. After I was satisfied with the collection of information (I use Google notebooks to keep info) I drew up and printed a plan at a local print shop.

After that I transferred the plan on to the wood. I picked white poplar because it's relatively easy to work with, decent strength, from my research I found it has a nice tone, and it was available.


The basic construction is the top plate on the left their has the sound holes cut into it, and unfortunately I forgot to capture a pic of it but the inside was chiseled out to make the wood thinner. Then another cutout was made and its center cut out to form a spacer layer. Then another cut out was made to form the back. It was chiseled out as well. The three layers were then glued together.


So after it was glued together, it was sanded down for smoothness and to thin the back plate even further. A notch was cut in the top for the fingerboard to fit into and it was glued into place. The fingerboard was just made from a poplar post and cut into shape. What it will basically look like.

Bridge Deux

So I would have had the bridge broken and status on how it fared reported, but the region experienced an ice storm. All daily activities were put on hold for a few days. This gave me a chance to test my bridge and I'm glad I did because the results were mediocre, at best.

Seeing the failures of the last bridge I made a second one, made many improvements, and it could even be mistaken as a bridge to boot. This new bridge has two "logs" again but they are laid like bricks to form a wall of sorts, then at the top two toothpicks broken in half give the structure stability.

The new breaking date is set for tomorrow, the second of February, results to follow.


UPDATE: The bridge was broken today, the second of Feb. On the way into the building it was damaged and two of the top support rods were severed, resulting in only a 607% efficiency. I am going to rebuild the supports, and try again. I believe it can hold much more as the main supports were in perfect condition, even after the force of the breaking.

Eye Bolt

Ok, So thing like this are why I really started this blog. My physics teacher needed a long narrow eye bolt, for his bridge breaking apparatus. The old one worked fine but was a bit to short for some bridges.

Sure he could just buy a longer eye bolt off the internet, but that's expensive and not nearly as fun, as you will find out. Also you cant customize it to the specs that you want. What one is left with is a prime time to DIY.

I went to the local hardware store and found a long threaded rod, basically the same thing as the eye bolt, just really long and straight. So I bought it and took it home with me (besides the point but I think there was a glitch in the computer because both cost me a penny...). Now I had to contemplate how to form this into the shape I wanted.

It's time for that fun I mentioned earlier. I got my oxy-mapp welding torch out, and all the safety equipment required as well! As well as some pliars. I secured the rod in my table vice, and proceed to heat it up with the torch. Once it was glowing hot, it was plenty malleable to bend the end into a loop. Presto! Custom eye bolts!

Toothpick Bridge

Well jumping right into the blog, today I made a toothpick bridge. It's for school, but why not share my findings with the world.

We had strict guidelines to follow: no more than 50 toothpicks, only "woodglues" so only PVA's and aliphatic resin emulsion, and other various building restrictions.


I decided on Titebond 2 for the glue to use on this, Titebond seems to be the leading developer of glues and this product was best for this instance. http://www.newwoodworker.com/reviews/titebond.html that site helped a lot in deciding which glue to decide on.


Basically my bridge is two beams of interlaced toothpicks, very simple and they seem to be strong. The construction of each beam is 5 toothpicks interlaced halfway on the other and a 6th toothpick, broken in half, to fill in the gap. Do that 2 more times and glue those together. At this point I put all of that in my table vice to apply even pressure. Then I made another. These will be placed over the 15cm gap and a block that the weight is mounted to will keep the two in place, or so I hope.

I'm hoping my simplicity wont cause me to fail this whole project but if it does, I will have learned a lot, and in the end that's what really matters. Or so I'm told... The goal is to have the highest efficiency, the weight carried divided by the weight of the bridge. Results will be reported on Tuesday.