Hey, Ask Lemmy, we all know that people love to talk about themselves, and I’d love to hear about some of your pleasant experiences. So, please, no matter how big; no matter how small, tell me something that you are proud to have made :)
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Years ago I was asked to make a website to educate the public and promote a campaign to bring back a formerly-declared-extinct species.
There were scientists, zoologists, researchers and volunteers in the field who did the REAL work. I had the easy part.
But when the website was launched, I received ‘thank you’ emails from all over the world. Reading all of those letters was one of the most rewarding feelings.
And the best part . . . Though it’s still a threatened species (I’m told recovery potential is strong), today there are more than 500 of these animals living in the wild.
What animal? Critter pics please!
Thanks for helping them out. It’s definitely something to be proud of.
handsome little fella
What a wonderful lizard!
Last year I built this cupboard and hutch, along with a matching buffet.
Longtime woodworker here, I’ve never built a traditional china cabinet - that’s mighty nice work! Hat tip.
Greetings fellow craftsman! Thank you very much. It was a big but worthy project.
Damn, that looks fine!
Thank you.
I’m impressed
This was the biggest woodworking project I’ve tackled yet.
I once sanded and (poorly) refinished a nightstand. In my defense, it was my first time and I don’t think it was stain grade wood. It was always meant to be painted. That’s as far as my skills go. Although, where I moved, inherited quite a few very nice wood working tools so, I might be learning once some of the house maintenance is under control!
Finishing is an entire discipline unto itself. The finish on the cabinet above: I took the surfaces to 180 grit with a random orbit sander, then sanded along the grain at 220 by hand, vacuuming and tack clothing between each grit. Popped the grain with water, sanded at 220 again, and a final tack clothing. No stain, and a polyurethane finish, first coat was 2 parts urethane to 1 part thinner, the remaining 3 coats are 50/50. Wiped on with a cotton rag, cut from an old T-shirt, rubbed out with a piece of paper grocery bag between each coat followed by a light tack clothing to remove the whisper of dust. Do that between each, but not after the last coat. The result is a durable shell coat that still has the texture of wood, you get the depth from wetting the surface but not a visibly thick layer of plastic.
Granted, I did start with $9/board foot black walnut that I hand selected from the lumber yard, not some random night stand. But, I’ll assert there’s no such thing as “stain grade” or “paint grade” wood. People take wormy maple and make stuff like this out of it:
I will grant you that some species of wood have open and uneven grain that will absorb stain at different rates across the surface, creating a hideous blotchy appearance, and wouldn’t you know it most of those species are cheaper, easily available species that have bland and boring grain like pine and birch. Most “stains” look terrible on wood like that. My choice is to go with little to no stain, let the wood speak for itself, maybe subtly tint it with the top coat, or use shellac, either as a top coat or as an intermediate layer. If the wood you’re working with is very prone to blotching, start with a coat or two of blonde shellac to fill up the pores, then switch to your darker garnet or whatever. Shellac is compatible with basically all finishes and is sometimes used as a compatibility layer between water and oil based finishes so you can top coat over it if you want something more durable than beetle poo.
Great info, thank you for taking the time to share!
I would kill to have that cabinet, it’s so pretty… Thank you for your contribution :)
I took a lot of the design elements from Vermont Wood Studios’ 50" Shaker China Cabinet. They price theirs, in Walnut, at $14,927. I’d build you one for, say, $12,000.
did you name it Jimmy or Warren?
Phoebe.
Back in the 90s, we bought an 87 year old house that had been neglected for decades, but the neglect was what we liked. That meant that nobody had “upgraded” or modernized it.
We spent the next 7 years renovating it, fixing every wall, repairing plumbing, installing a cast-iron woodburning stove, etc.
When we were done, we had turned the ugliest house on the street into a museum piece, and sold it for far more than any house on the street had ever sold for.
Nowadays I barely have energy and time to cook and maybe go to gym. Was it easier back then regarding work life balance?
We had more free time back then because there was no Internet, no streaming. You have no idea how much time people waste today, just sitting and scrolling for hours every day. Also, back then, people didn’t need to have multiple jobs just to pay their basic bills.
Music was still big (way bigger than it is today) so you’d just put on some music, and start painting.
why did you sell it?
We loved the house, and our neighborhood, but we hated the city we lived in. I was self-employed, and could do my job from anywhere, so we sold it and moved to Florida, when Florida was still a nice place, and not MAGA HQ.
Turns out it was haunted.
I wish it were true, but we never had any hint of haunting.
I’ve been making plans to do something like this for a while, if only to build something that satisfies my own eccentricities. I’d love to know how the process was for you.
It was a blast. My wife made most of the design choices, which was cool with me, we generally have similar tastes, and I was enjoying learning how to use tools, and fix things properly. It was like a college degree in house renovation.
Most of the time it didn’t feel much like work, except for that one room that had five layers of wallpaper, with several layers of paint between them, and wallpaper on the ceiling with several layer above that. Scraping all that garbage off the walls and ceiling was one of the most unpleasant jobs I’ve ever done. Once it was all stripped, though, the rest seemed easy.
I considered becoming a Flipper, long before that was a thing. I wish I had done it.
It’s no longer online in order to minimize data exposure, but during some major wildfires a decade ago, a small city was evacuated with my city being the nearest safe place to be (~4 hours away), so I built a site within a couple of hours to let people with spare rooms offer space to evacuees. For nearly a week I became the place to find vetted information about resources for everything an evacuee needed to know. It took the province and Red Cross 4-5 days to get their systems up and running so I was an important stop gap. I’ve since devised a system for evacuee information that I can deploy in less than an hour (it’s always running, but I confirm data for each deployment to make sure links and phone numbers are still valid).
You are a hero.
I don’t know about that. If you see someone that needs help, you help. I do appreciate your kind words though!
All it really takes to be a hero is the willingness and ability to help meeting opportunity. A pinch of humility while we’re at it.
You’re really cool. I hope one day to be skilled enough at something I can help people with like that. :)
Aww, thanks.
The best way to gain skills is just to start. Find a problem that needs solving and try to solve it! On that note, if anyone is interested in building a similar site for their area, reach out. I’d be happy to clone what I have and help with the setup to build out a network of sites that are ready to go, The tech is fairly basic - the hardest part is the initial time to find all the information that will be needed and having someone ready to run point in their area when bad things happen.
As the saying goes “You’ll know a hero from a coward when you see which way they run.”
People like you make the world a better place.
Thanks. Very kind of you.
My name is on a plaque (along with dozens of others) attached to the Nancy Grace Roman telescope that just launched. I don’t think I’ll ever top that. I also had a hand in building the primary mirrors for JWST, seeing images come back from it has been incredibly rewarding! Working in aerospace definitely has its awesome moments, despite being “just a job” most of the time.
Something out of myself. Raised poor, lived in a renovated chicken coop for a while. Almost homeless a few times. My wife and I now have two nice paid off cars, a nice home, good jobs, our kids are all doing well and we spoil the shit out of our granddaughter.
We just had this delivered to her! Something I always wanted as a kid and wanted to be able to afford for our kids but couldn’t.
Hell yeah! Overcoming circumstances you didn’t choose is the hardest fucking thing.
You’ve done so well, you have my congratulations :)
A free mobile game “Wandering Alchemist” I’ve released on both Android and iOS. Free as in offline, no ads, no in-app purchases (Besides a fully optional “support the developer”). It’s a GPS walking game where you gather ingredients, brew potions, sell them to merchants and decorate your neighborhood.
On some days it’s awesome, on other days I ask myself why I do this to myself. But overall it’s fun :)
I’m currently working on a big update that reworks all the visuals, a lot of them are still from early on and look really shoddy. For example before and after:
brew potions, sell them to merchants and decorate your neighborhood.
“Potion sellah! I require your most powerful potions!”
“You cannot handle my powshuns, adventurah… they’re much too strong for you.” :>
A classic!
I do have a few small jokes/Easter eggs in the game, but nothing too egregious. Would be fun if a merchant explodes when your potion is too strong, though that would be bad for the age rating (:
That’s really cool! Seems like you’ve done an excellent job and I’m happy to see a dev get such glowing reviews. :) Very nicely done and such a cool concept!
Would be fun if a merchant explodes when your potion is too strong, though that would be bad for the age rating (:
LOL!..it could be a comical poof that leaves them frazzled, like the old “chemistry set going boom” trope 😂.
I make music. It’s not amazing music but it’s mine and doing it brings me great joy. I have a recording studio in my house, and use much of my down time for writing and recording music. I’ve slowly been teaching myself audio engineering and production, try to drop a song or two each year, and am working on a full-length album.
Unfortunately I can’t really share that here without doxxing myself. I do still maintain a Reddit account solely for the purposes of promotion and networking with other amateur recording artists, only because the music making communities on Lemmy are not very active.
Audio engineer here, if you need assistance let me know.
I make video games on occasion. My portfolio is mostly jams and unfinished prototypes, and while I am working on something special, at this rate it will be a million years before it’s ready for release.
I catch my wife playing this one sometimes and it makes my heart happy
Sometimes I paint minis. These were a couple of characters I played where I made a custom figure
Kurt is technically a kitbash. I took a figure that was originally a bard holding a harp, cut out the harp and gave him some books. He was a gifted kid turned wizard-college-dropout, really pulling from life experience there.
For Robin I made a couple of additions with clay. I’m really bad at that, but it makes me happySolid job on the minis!
I sculpted this tiki mask using blender and then milled it out of aluminium using a 3 axis mill.
You can make your own, if you have a 3D printer or a milling machine: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4636877
Woah, That’s Cool! How did you get the wood-like effect on the 3rd image? Or was it a render? Also, What influenced your material choice to be metal?
Thanks. The third image is a render.
After I designed and 3D printed it I brought it to school when I was an apprentice (now I teach there), where a classmate thought it looked cool and wanted to make it out of aluminium that he got from his job. I got jealous that is was so much cooler than the 3D print, so I also got a large piece of aluminium to make my own.
Something I’m still proud of was a diorama I made in 5th grade for Halloween. It was called the “Peanut House of Horror” and featured dried peanuts with little googly eyes being disassembled in every conceivable way on cardboard torture devices — think a stretcher rack pulling one in half, a “pit and the pendulum” device slicing into one, etc. with peanut shells all over the floor. My parents supported the creativity and humor. Other parents, not so much. But to paraphrase John Waters, you need to possess good taste to appreciate poor taste.
Mr Peanut? NOOOO!!!
I made a t-shirt from pieces of other t-shirts. It’s messy as fuck but I wear it with pride. I want to make more and improve.
Pics or it didn’t happen! Lol jk but I am curious because that sounds like my kind of style.
Keyboards (home and work)
Macro-pad (for me and the Mrs)
Hitbox controllers (for playing Street Fighter 6)
My last two PCs
Turned a broken laptop into an emulation console
A bunch of “Ikea hack” furniture pieces around the house that I don’t have pictures of currently.
All of this is cool but I specifically love IKEA hack furniture, what’s your favorite?
Thanks.
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I cut a bunch of Pax wardrobes down to size to be full length fitted wardrobes in the bedrooms.
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A room has a nook with an awkward sized gap next to a wardrobe. I got a narrow CD shelf unit from Ikea and attached 3 of them together to make a narrow and deep shelving unit that fits perfectly to fill up this nook.
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Our bathroom had little space and little storage. The Ikea over sink medicine cabinet had the correct depth to fit, so I got 2, cut and modified them and fixed one on top of the other to make a narrow stnading bathroom storage cupboard.
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Got an Ikea oak kitchen counter top and cut it to fit alongside a wardrobe to make a long double computer station for the Mrs and me to be able to do computer work from home.
That’s awesome. I need a pantry and I don’t have a lot of space to fit it, just one small empty wall. Been kind of looking at a few IKEA options. Unfortunately there isn’t one near me so I have to order for shipping and can’t see things in person.
It is much easier to go to a showroom with measuring tape to find something. If you’re only looking online then it is going to be difficult to compare the measurements of all things or see if it could still be put together after being cut down. Sometimes solutions lie in garage storage or bathroom storage to find things that would fit in your pantry.
Also worth looking at some other non-Ikea furniture shops.
Yeah that’s very true. When I go back to visit my family I have to pass an IKEA so I’ll have to stop by. But yeah I wasn’t limiting it to just IKEA. I have a feeling for the small space I have, I’ll end up having to make one. I’m currently using a storage rack meant for bins but due to a terribly placed vent, it’s like 10" from the wall.
Good luck
Thank you!
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I like the space theme on both. :) It’s a nice touch. But, may I ask why the spacebar is split into 3?
It was originally two, but the left and right keys wanted some space.
Thanks. They’re custom keyboard layouts. The backspace is split into 2 buttons and so it the right shift. The row to the right of spacebars is also not standard. I wanted to make the keyboards as small as possible while having as many buttons on it as possible. All buttons are programmable and you can make them do whatever you want so it’s handy to have more buttons. e.g. I’ve got a single button shortcut for copy/paste. Can also make it do things like: if I hold right shift it acts as a shift key but if I tap right shift then it acts as an up arrow key. There’s one key that inputs my full email signature and one for an abbreviated signature.
even cooler now tbh! i didn’t even notice the other keys didn’t have the labels that they usually would. it is kinda cool to see what people do with custom keyboards and the like!
I made a printable pattern that allows you to origami fold two d6 dice from a sheet of letter paper. It means I can give my acute psych patients board games if they ask and even if they’re sick enough to insert them into their orifices there’s very minimal harm possible.
spoiler
I have other games that also utilize pieces made very similar to the pieces used by this chess set and have even made checkers to accompany that set.
You are awesome.
That’s a brilliant solution, I had never even considered anything along those lines. Sounds like you’ve really helped some people out - I’m absolutely saving this template for later use.
https://newdawnowl.itch.io/microtonal-grid
I made a pure code, microtonal step sequencer that makes it really easy to try out what microtonal music is like.
I’m also very proud of how quickly and easily I implemented the conway’s game of life into it, only took me about an hour or so.
I’m not proud of how long it took me to get rid of the “clicky” bug.
I don’t know what microtonal music is. I don’t understand beats, notes, or any of those numbers or scales or who Conway was, but I just spent about an hour playing on this thing🤩. Bravo sciencey music person!
Thank you so much for your kind words. Just a reminder that if there’s something you particularly want to show off to people, you have a “share code” you can use to send it to people and they can import it in.
Also, you are the exact audience for this tool. I wanted to let people who didn’t have the music theory knowledge of microtonal theory to be able to try out microtonal music, or just western music in various scales just to have fun with.
The Conway’s game of life thing is just an idea that I had.
EDIT : You can try any TET suggestion from the Xen Wiki :
Conway was a mathematician who suggested a mathematical variant of a life simulation. It’s an interesting … thought experiment? on emergent behaviours in systems with simple rules leading to complex and unpredictable results…
This is really cool. Simple, fun, and easy to understand. Nice work!
thank you. I purposefully made it so that there were layers of complexity that could be enjoyed by different levels of user. If you want to just make music on a grid, you can, there are preset systems if you want to try them, and you can custom create scales too, only use the UI, or import in using text instead of the UI by using the share window.
