Pinhole Panoramic Camera

Pinhole Panoramic Camera
Ross Orr | Make Vol. 09- 2007 | Pdf | 12 pgs | 5 mb

PIN-O-RAMA
Lensless and low-tech, pinhole cameras have always been maker-friendly. But forget the Quaker Oats carton, and go wide with this roll-film, panorama design.

I bought a new scanner recently, and soon found myself spelunking through drawers of old photos from my many misspent years in photography. Some of the most interesting shots were the pinhole camera experiments I had done as a teenager. With ghostly outlines from multi-minute exposures, and shapes warped into boomerangs by curved film, these otherworldly images got me dreaming about pinhole cameras again.

Download | Mirror

The $5 Cracker Box Amplifier

The $5 Cracker Box Amplifier
Ed Vogel & Blind L Pete | Make Vol. 09- 2007 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

BIG SOUNDS FROM A SMALL PACKAGE
In MAKE, Volume 04,1 presented my version of the venerable cigar box guitar. The instructions for the project included adding an electric pickup so you could play the guitar through an amplifier.

People from around the world emaiIed me to tell me they'd built cigar box guitars based on my instructions. I struck up a conversation with one gentleman from Europe who goes by the moniker Blind Lightnin' Pete. He made a couple of beautiful cigar box guitars, including one he calls the Vintage Blues Texas Rattlesnake Special model. He then went one step further, and built a cracker box guitar amplifier. This outstanding little amp cost all of $5 to build (depending on where you get the parts). Pete kindly allowed me to modify his design and present it as a project for you to build. (See page 111 for a word from Pete about the origins of the cracker box amp.)

My amp differs a little from Pete's because I wanted to make a workable little practice amp with parts and tools that could be purchased "one-stop shop" at RadioShack and built in an hour.

Download | Mirror

The Bullwhip

The Bullwhip
William Gurstelle | Make Vol. 09- 2007 | Pdf | 10 pgs | 4 mb

WHIP IT GOOD
You don't have to be Chuck Yeager to break the sound barrier. You just need a good bullwhip, which converts arm movement into supersonic speed and triggers the sonic boom we call a whip crack.

Download | Mirror

Paper Water Bomber

Paper Water Bomber
Ewan Spence | Make Vol. 08- 2006 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

Winged origami missile with front-load tank deliver wet payload.

Download | Mirror

Building an Ornithopter

Building an Ornithopter
William Gurstelle | Make Vol. 08- 2006 | Pdf | 10 pgs | 1 mb

FLIP, FLAP, FLY

For millennia, men and women have studied birds, bats, and beetles, observing and experimenting, attempting to determine what humans must do to fly by flapping.

But people can't fly by flapping: not with wings covering their arms: not with pedaled, chain-driven wings: and, so far, not with internal-combustion engines, either. Nonetheless, the concept of manned ornithopters continues to hover on the periphery of aeronautical engineering. This project shows you how to build a small, rubber band-powered ornithopter we call Orly.

There are many types of ornithopter designs. Orly is a simple monoplane, meaning there is a single wing mounted above the motor-stick, and its motion is similar to a bird in flight.

Download | Mirror

Moldmaking

Moldmaking
Adam Savage | Make Vol. 08- 2006 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 1 mb

In principle, moldmaking is a simple process, but with every object you want to replicate comes a
new series of pitfalls, innovations, and solutions.

This article explains how to make a two-part, under poured block mold, which is a versatile and beginner-friendly type that's great for small, detailed objects such as jewelry, game pieces, masks, picture frames, and figurines. I learned this technique by apprenticing under some of the great moldmaking masters in the special effects industry, and this article reveals their unpublished tricks. I hope they don't get mad.

We'll make our mold out of silicone rubber, an excellent casting material, but it costs about $100 per gallon. This process uses as little of it as necessary, and it's important to follow all of these instructions, because a mistake can be costly. Then we'll cast our duplicates in opaque urethane resin (clear resin requires a more difficult process).

Download | Mirror