Mad 4x4 Fabricating Skillz & a Killer Truck Built by Hand!

So what do you do when you've just got to have a second generation, double cab, Toyota 4x4, but you live in the Land of the Free where it's against the law to import that vehicle? You build your own out of junkyard parts of course! And while you're going to all that trouble you'd want to make it bigger and better than the original. This is America after all. Well a fellow who calls himself Talon84x4 on the MarlinCrawler forums has done all that and more.

Above is a Photoshopped image that the dude made as his first step. Now most guys who have these kinds of dreams don't usually even get this far, but Talon84x4 is not a regular bench racing, big talkin sort. This is a guy with skills and drive to back up his ideas.

In this picture you can see how far the guy has actually gotten. And the picture doesn't do justice. It took parts from three different cabs and some serious modifications to make what you see here. He's even got doors and a bed pretty close to ready for installation. And all that stuff is excellent too! Do yourself a favor and check out the thread for this project over at the MarlinCrawler forums. It runs about 21 pages, but it reads like an adventure novel if you love this stuff like I do.


Here's another link to the awesome and inspiring Low & Slow 1984 Quad Cab Project.

Caswell Inc: For Metal Finishing Supplies & Techniques

When I first saw Caswell Metal Finishing in the 1990’s I really liked it. Now it's even better with a wealth how-to information and supplies for plating, polishing, powder coating and anodizing metal, these guys have the interests of the do-it-yourself crowd at heart.


And now their forums have grown, so you can expect quick answers to all your metal finishing questions. Want to build your own powder coating oven? They’ve got the plans, parts and forums for support. You could even start a metal finishing business! These guys are ShopKulture diehards.


Go to Caswell Inc.

A Success Story: The Promise of Real Change That You Make Yourself!

So you say that you've never heard of Marcin Jakubowski! Well you may want to find out about him quick, because this is a guy going places. He was recently granted a TED fellowship for his project to remake the world. He's all about putting people back to work making the stuff they need, locally. Jakubowski is a young guy with a PHD in physics and a boatload of constructive energy and it looks like he just may be succeeding.

Open Source Ecology (OSE) is the name of his game. And building Resilient Communities with a Global Village Construction Set is his goal. What it all boils down to is this: With the right tools and some modern computer assisted technologies, he says, we can take control of our lives back from impersonal, multi-national organizations. 

Making the dream real, Jakubowski is well on his way to creating the tools that make up what he calls the Global Village Construction Set. He's building prototypes for machines like small tractors made from used car parts and salvaged steel. He's building machines that crank out compacted soil building blocks, shop tools for building better machines and much, much more.

Jakubowski builds all his farming and community building equipment from common, easily sourced parts. And his plans are being made available free to anyone. That's what open source ecology is all about, helping people use tools and technology to make their lives manageable down at the community level once again.

Jakubowski and his cohorts want to see more people powering their homes and farms from electricity made on site or in the local community. He wants people to be able to tell the regional mega-utility to take their behemoth coal-fired power plant and shove it. And why not, with a solar micro-turbine in your backyard, that you built yourself, you'll be producing all the environmentally friendly energy you need.

Marcin Jakubowski wants you to imagine not having to buy stuff that was produced on the other side of the world, because somebody in your community or region is producing high quality products locally at affordable prices. 

Resilient communities, he believes,  make the conditions right for jobs, prosperity, environmental healing, social well-being and personal freedom. He says that all we need are good tools, open source sharing of ideas and a can-do spirit to reach these goals.

There is way more to this movement than I can tell you in a short message, but from what I have seen I can say that this could be the beginning of something that it is extremely exciting and full of good potential. I urge people to get familiar with the open source ecology movement and then to spread the word.

There is a chance right now to help shift this project into overdrive. Make Magazine is holding a Green Project Contest to find a great, green, do-it-yourself, idea to promote. Vote now for Marcin Jakubowski's Global Village Construction Set.



New! Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) in 2 Minutes - 2 min video

Backyard Metal Casting and Machine Tool Building

Ok. This home-shop metalworking stuff is getting better and better the more we look into it!  Just in the past day we've come across several backyard and home-shop metalworking websites where people with creative minds are casting molten metal and building machine tools from materials sourced from other people's trash. There are people out there who have a passion for this stuff and they are proving that with a little ingenuity, resourcefulness and persistence you can do great things with little money. And thankfully the internet makes it easy to hook up with these people and learn their methods.

The website Backyard Metal Casting is a gem of a resource. Check it out. If you are into the ShopKulture lifestyle you'll love it.

A home shop operation that can cast metal parts and then machine those parts into precision pieces can build or repair just about anything. And if you are building and salvaging stuff it seems reasonable that you'd want to use your skills to furnish your own shop with affordable tools and equipment . In any case, it sure looks like a lot of fun.

A lathe is said to be the heart of a good metalworking operation. If you want to make some serious parts (and maybe you've got some fresh metal castings in need of machining) you'll want to have one. Serious lathes start at around $3000 and go up from there quickly. Even used lathes are usually well over $1000. Did you know that it's possible to build your own lathe from scrap metal and used automotive parts? This won't get you a "tool room", high precision, piece of equipment, but with some care it will get you a machine that is accurate enough to make parts for all those shop tools and equipment we were talking about building and salvaging for pennies on the dollar.

A few good resources for lathe building information are the Open Source Machine website and MultiMachineYahoo Group, and the books of David G. Gingery available from Lindsays' Technical Books. Just from the looks of it we like the MultiMachine information best, but we think there's a lot to learn from Gingery's approach too. That and Gingery has other plans for making bandsaws, drill presses, milling machines and a bunch of other stuff. Here's a list.

If you are just learning machining, you'll know a whole lot more after you build these projects. There's nothing like hands-on experience to teach lasting knowledge. And we figure that once we have some fundamental shop tools working we'll be able to figure out how to put them to work to bring in some cash so that we can afford to buy a fine old (factory built) South Bend Lathe and a Bridgeport milling machine.

The Self-Education Revolution is Underway!!

Self-education, it is one of the most important tools independent minded people have at their disposal. As conventional American education methods and outcomes continue to be revealed as ineffective and/or too expensive for today's students the great news is that resources for self-education are becoming more and more available every day. The internet and other modern tools of communication and publication are making it easier than ever to find learning resources, including texts, curriculum and human assistance to study almost anything.

In an earlier ShopKulture post, A Great Online Math & Science Resource, we were very excited to have discovered the Khan Academy, an online resource that uses youtube video to make more than 1000 video lectures and presentations available to help people learn math and science. Well it looks like we weren't the only people who noticed that good things were going on over at the Khan website. Now a program, undertaken by the internet giant, Google, to fund "inspiring organizations working on solutions to ... global challenges" has generated a grant of two million dollars ($2M) to help foster the Khan project!

When you consider this great news along with the fact that institutions like MIT and the University of California at Berkeley are putting more and more of their lectures and course materials online, you start to think that we are moving into an era where powerful learning resources are with in reach of almost everyone.

At ShopKulture we are excited about these trends. We believe that it's a great fit with our main idea which is to unleash thousands of home shop inventors and self-trained engineers to tackle the world's problems with human scale solutions and to build resilient economies and vibrant communities of free people.

Teach Yourself Machining: Video Courses

 

Machining parts out of raw metal to make, modify and repair useful machines is fast becoming our passion. Now We've never been much for attending classes or going to school, so we're working to teach ourselves to operate tools like lathes, milling machines, drill presses and surface grinders, etc. Self-teaching is our favorite method of learning and that's why We're excited about the instructional videos that SmartFlix has in their rental library. They have a fairly thorough machine shop course by the American Gunsmithing Institute and various offerings by master machinist Rudy Kouhoupt and others. The American Gunsmithing series consists of about 14 DVDs and costs about $1300 to purchase outright. However, thanks to SmartFlix you can rent the whole series for about $200!!



But wait a minute, how about some free videos to get started. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has a free video series on the basics of machine shop tools and practices. Every semester MIT has a new crop of engineering students who need to learn machining in a hurry. They need to be able to work in the university's well equipped student machine shop where they will make the parts for projects in robotics. Most 17 year olds are a bit short of machining experience so the school has put together a series of ten videos to help jumpstart the student's practical abilities. We watched the first four of the videos. They covered layout, drill press operations, belt sanding & grinding, and vertical milling, We found them well made, interesting and informative (to my novice perspective anyway). So get busy my fellow ShopKulturians and WrenchTech(nicians). Go forth and learn. Next time we'll talk about how to build you own multi-purpose machine tool from scrap metal and automotive parts.

ShopKulture and the Future of the Garage Based Shop

We've seen the future and it looks like making stuff is coming back in a big way. This message is not lost on us. The luxury of playing around with sports cars, motorcycles and 4x4's is great fun, but it is a luxury after all. The serious economic times we are in require serious thoughts and actions. So we've been thinking about tools and equipment for productive work lately. What about building a tractor, a shop heater, a bandsaw lumber mill? And what if you could build this stuff from junk cars, appliances and scrap steel? Count us in!

A movement with the tentative name Open Source Ecology is doing just that. They are putting their money and effort where it counts right now. The stuff they are building is cool and functional. We're so excited we've got to get on this bandwagon!  

 Don't let the name fool you either. These are not a bunch of idle dreamers, these guy and gals are mad fabricating geniuses. They are building great stuff from scrap and low cost parts; lumber mills, tractors, shop heaters, farming implements, construction equipment, well drilling, and most importantly machine tools to aid in their low cost manufacturing approach.


Think what you could do with a computer numerical control (CNC) torch table that let you rapidly cut metal with computer accuracy. Or a CNC router table that could cut precision parts from wood or plastic while you did other things. A serious person could start making some real money and an independent lifestyle that didn't depend so much on the ups and downs of the overall economy.  

Now think about the fact that plans for building metal working lathes, milling equipment, heating systems and CNC tools are now circulating freely on the internet. And not just plans, support groups, blogs and discussion forums as well.  These are great times to be a Maker, a ShopKulture person, a Wrenchtech type.


Keep watching this blog as we focus like a laser beam on these new trends and work to pull together all the information and resources we can find to promote this thing that we love; MAKING COOL USEFUL STUFF ON THE CHEAP!

Don't forget to check out  The Open Source Ecology website. and maybe become a supporter of theirs at $10/mo. I have and I do.