{"id":37697,"date":"2021-01-14T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T16:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=37697"},"modified":"2021-01-12T11:20:43","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T18:20:43","slug":"hole-center-measuring-attachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/hole-center-measuring-attachment\/","title":{"rendered":"Hole Center Measuring Attachment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the first\u00a0GTTST<\/em>\u00a0of 2021! I\u2019m really looking forward to where we can take the newsletter this year and how I can best serve you. I\u2019d love to\u00a0hear from you<\/a>. What would you like to see more of? Less of? Is there anything I\u2019m not covering that I should? I see this publication as a conversation, so I\u2019m always looking to hear your tips, stories, tool and supplier recommendations, and anything else related to making, inspiring creativity, and self-reliance.<\/p>\n

Hole Center Measuring Attachment<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Find

Find your center, man.<\/p><\/div>\n

On\u00a0Facebook<\/em>,\u00a0Sean Ragan<\/strong>\u00a0shared\u00a0this Thingiverse file<\/a>. It\u2019s for printing adapters that go over the external jaws of a set of calipers to accurately measure the center of holes. In response to the post,\u00a0Evil Mad Scientist<\/a>,\u00a0Lenore Edman<\/strong>\u00a0pointed out that you can get the same result using this trick (which I\u2019ve written about before): \u201cYou can get center-to-center measurements by measuring your hole\u2019s diameter, zeroing out your calipers, then taking an outside-to-outside measurement. (Zeroing essentially subtracts the diameter of one hole.)\u201d Sean Ragan responded: \u201cI know that trick, but it\u2019s not terribly accurate because you don\u2019t get good indexing on the curved interior surfaces of the holes in either step, whereas turned, tapered caliper heads can be relied upon to be kinematically on-center in round holes with no wiggle room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breadboard Basics and Tips<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Neatness

Neatness counts.<\/p><\/div>\n

I love seeing the different working techniques of makers and their reasoning behind them. In\u00a0this Ben Eater video<\/a>, he runs through the ways he prototypes circuits on a\u00a0solderless breadboard<\/a>. He describes why he likes to keep it loose (using flexible jumper wires) when first testing out a circuit (to not let all of the fussy measuring and wire cutting get in the way of his creativity). And then he shows, once he\u2019s decided on a circuit design, how he tightens things up with measuring, cutting, and installing neater wire hookups. Ben also describes why he doesn\u2019t always use an\u00a0auto-stripping wire cutter<\/a>\u00a0and how he accurately measures and cuts wire lengths using an\u00a0old-school stripper<\/a>. He also explains why he doesn\u2019t use bending tools, preferring to let experience show him where to properly bend his leads. One great tip when cutting wires: Measure three breadboard tie-point holes beyond where you want to plug in your wire, cut there, and then strip the wire back by three holes. This will give you perfect wire length and perfect depth in the tie-point hole.<\/p>\n

Noting Paint Colors Inside of Switch Plates<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Message

Message in a switch plate.<\/p><\/div>\n

On the\u00a0Acme Tools Instagram<\/a>\u00a0page, they shared this wonderful tip. To keep track of what paints were used in a room, list them on the backs of switch plates in that room<\/p>\n

This reminded of a piece that\u00a0Sean Ragan<\/strong>\u00a0posted on Make:<\/a>\u00a0years ago about writing a time-capsule about your time in the house and pasting it on the back of a switch plate for future occupants to discover.<\/p>\n

\"Every

Every switchplate tells a story.<\/p><\/div>\n

Story Board Templates<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"3D

3D printed story-telling tools.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sophy Wong<\/strong>\u00a0has\u00a0a new video<\/a>\u00a0up where she shows her 3D printable storyboard and thumbnail templates and how to use them in a sketchbook. I wrote about these in the newsletter ages ago when Sophy first showed them on\u00a0Twitter<\/em>\u00a0and have been looking forward to her making the files available and telling us more about how she uses them. Here is the\u00a0project page<\/a>\u00a0on her website and the\u00a0files on Thingiverse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adding Magnet Switches to the Savage Workbench Lights<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"You

You can never have too many lighting options.<\/p><\/div>\n

The\u00a0Adam Savage<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cOne Day Build\u201d that\u2019s had the biggest impact on me was his project for\u00a0building bendable LED workbench lights<\/a>\u00a0using\u00a0video light panels<\/a>\u00a0and Loc-Line tubing (parts\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>, and\u00a0here<\/a>). I bought the parts immediately, built my own, and my workbench has never been the same. In this follow-up video, he shows how he used\u00a0magswitches<\/a>\u00a0(magnets you can switch on and off) to add bench-wide mobility to his lights.<\/p>\n

Toys!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The

The iFixit Tech Toolkit<\/p><\/div>\n

Certain tools are so beloved that, if you mention them to owners of said tool, they light up like a Christmas tree and can\u2019t stop talking about how much they love it. Such is the case with the\u00a0iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit<\/a>. This kit has everything you might need for taking apart and repairing personal electronic devices, from a 64-piece bit driver set, to spudgers (tools for opening pressure-fit plastic components without causing damage), tweezers, a suction cup phone-screen remover, and a grounding strap. If you repair your own computers, game consoles, phones, and other consumer electronics, you want this kit (if you don\u2019t already have it).<\/p>\n

Shop Tale: They Almost Called Him Stubby<\/strong><\/p>\n

Newsletter reader (and general contractor)\u00a0<\/em>Jack B<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0sent in this cautionary tale. It\u2019s a fine example of what I call The Kenny Rogers Rule (knowing when to hold \u2018em, fold ’em, and when to walk away from a project). If you have a shop tale to share,\u00a0<\/em>email me<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The weather had been terrible, one huge snowstorm after another. We were way behind on a four-plex build and that meant that even the general contractor (me) had to pitch in and work hard to finish.<\/p>\n

Late into the night before Christmas, I was cutting OSB (oriented strand board) with a Skilsaw. I had two full sheets on sawhorses and was cutting along when it dawned on me that I might not have the blade set low enough. Without thinking, I reached under the OSB to see if I could feel the blade. In the fog of fatigue, feeling a spinning blade with my fingers made perfect sense. As luck would have it, I was only cutting through one of the sheets, so my fingers were safe. When I realized what I\u2019d just done, I immediately stopped for the night. Being nicknamed \u201cStubby\u201d for the rest of my life seemed too great of a price to pay.<\/p>\n

Maker’s Muse<\/strong>
\n\"googlyeyes\"<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales – Issue #75<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2371],"tags":[2372],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37707,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37697\/revisions\/37707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}