You’ve seen lots of bowls, giant eggs, and other semi-round shapes hand-shaped on a lathe, but have you ever seen the creation of a bowl within a bowl? How do you imagine you would even go about turning it? With inspiration from German woodturner, Martin Adomat, YouTube creator SteRa Turning tried his hand (quite successfully)…

After working on the Stadtfuchs, their previous 3D printed urban bike, you would think German bike manufacturer, Urwahn Bikes, would take some time off, go for a ride, and soak in the bliss of a successful product launch. But just like the cyclists who use their bikes, there is no way these guys are slowing…

Even though humankind has gone pale and pasty from excessive indoor living, they somehow still find joy in eating outdoors. Trees rustling, birds chirping, congealed hame and cheese on whole grain wheat, Ahhhhhh. It’s one of life’s great mysteries; there’s something about nature that makes eating more satisfying. Of course, you’d be remiss to go…

SolidSmack readers are a rowdy, capable bunch, professionals in their field and able to take on just about any project. If any of these projects have called for a square hole, you’ve done your fair share of measuring twice and cutting once… then trimming a bit. But what if you could make that square cut…

Always one to test the limits of what’s possible, designer Daniel de Bruin makes sure to devote a little time each week to a “single day build” which aids his work. One of his more recent projects captures the process of building a CNC camera slider to help with his client work (which is already…

If you’ve ever looked at your remote control car and wondered why they seem to lack the “oomph” of other RC cars, odds are it’s the power, the gear, the weight – it could be lots of things, but did you ever consider the suspension? Obviously, RC cars don’t weigh as much as real cars.…

Despite it not being proven (yet), the Loch Ness Monster has its fair share of cult followers; not all of whom are as crazy as you think. Some just like the idea of a giant sea creature guarding the waters of Scotland, so much so that they want to make a giant wooden egg in…

If you ever wanted to recreate some of your favorite movie shots but didn’t have the Hollywood budget for a high-end camera, then be glad you live in the 20th century. Almost all cameras these days, be they on the higher or lower end, have a good photo and video-taking capabilities. Even if you don’t…

Have you ever wondered how new machine gears get their intricate, well-defined grooves? The answer is just like anything new made in this world: through the pain and suffering of much older gears and machines. Medley’s Mechanical Engineering is an Instagram page dedicated to showing the behind-the-scenes work done by machines that make parts for…

While most of the topics we share on SolidSmack show the beneficial and awesome aspects of design, there are some which are… less than savory. Just take a look at how digital artist Simon Weckert takes advantage of Google Maps’ GPS locator technology to create his own personal traffic jam: Now you’re probably thinking where…

You may know them for their cars, but Rolls-Royce is currently looking to the sky instead of just the roads. ACCEL – their new electric plane project which stands for “accelerating the electrification of flight” is a single seat, electricity-powered airplane that aims to reach a top speed of 300 mph. Made in collaboration with…

Here’s something you’ve never seen before: a barcode scanner being used as a musical instrument: Part of the Electronicos Fantasticos project which aims to reuse old consumer electronics by turning them into instruments, this “Barcoderess” may look like normal prison attire but is in fact a piece of clothing covered in a number of different…

Do you remember being told off for burning ants and leaves with a magnifying glass when you were a kid? If so, congrats; your parents made sure you wouldn’t go blind from staring at focused sunlight for too long. Taking a page out of this timeless childhood pastime, artist and filmmaker Michael Papadakis of Sunscribes…

Designers, artists, and developers are often so focused on working on their next project that they forget the little marvels which help them get to where they are. Take the simple pencil, for example: Sure, we all know it’s made of wood and lead, but a lot of time and effort goes into making these…

It was bound to happen sooner or later, so it comes as no surprise when someone made a working drone using the world’s most buildable children’s toy. The Brick Experiment Channel takes LEGO blocks to the sky and shows us how to make our own toy drones: The motors, propellers, and drone body are entirely…

Now those are two words I thought I’d never see together – Sleek + Chicken Tractor. But that’s just one attribute of the Chicken Caravan, a chicken tractor design created by Designers on Holiday’s Tom Gottelier and Bobby Petersen. It’s a simple mobile coop design created for The Ecology Center – a non-profit organization dedicated…

If you’ve watched Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, you can never forget the iconic scene where the rebels use their ships’ harpoons to trip up a couple of giant AT-AT walkers by flying through and around the machines’ legs. While it would take years to recreate such a large scale battle with real death…

Though they can be quite useful with their cordless design, Airpods can sometimes look as appealing as a cotton bud sticking out of your ear on a public train. Eager to give them a bit more class, jeweller and designer Pablo Cimadevila took a normal pair of Airpods and gave them an 18-karat gold treatment:…

When you think of a blender, what usually comes to mind is a cylindrical machine capable of grinding, juicing, or mulching down food into elderly-friendly portions. The second thought which comes to mind is the noise; as almost all blenders operate with as much subtlety as an inconsiderate construction worker. Eager to distance kitchen appliances…

You’ve seen dozens of wood builds, metalworks, and resin casts on SolidSmack, but there’s a real scarcity here on sculptures made of cheese. You heard me right: cheese. Not many people in their right mind would dare work with such a mushy, pungent, and easy expiring material, but thankfully Lawrence Becker is the exception to…

If you’ve ever looked at a bike and thought “Man, I wish this thing had a bunch of freakin’ legs instead of wheels”, then you’re probably just as awesome as the people behind YouTube channel The Q. Taking inspiration from Dutch designer Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests (kinetic sculptures which move with the wind), this bicycle’s rear…

If you’ve ever wanted to get into photography but were always hindered by how expensive cameras can be, then Ethan Moses has you covered. Provided you have your own 3D printer, you only need $40 worth of filament to make his patented panoramic Cameradactyl Brancopan: The Brancopan isn’t your run-of-the-mill, cheapo analog camera. Nope. Though…

While most of the world relies on dominoes and LEGOs to make large toppling sculptures, the Dutch have something a little bit different: Kapla blocks. These sets consisting of wood pieces measuring 11.7cm x 2.34cm x 0.78cm are very similar to dominoes, the only difference being Kaplas were made for construction and not for playing…

You’ve seen pieces of wood get mixed with resin and turned into kitchen pieces before, but here’s one you can actually use to help with your cooking. Using a piece of old cherry tree burl and some blue resin, YouTube channel gavel coulee woodworking has crafted a resin bowl as smooth as the concoctions you’ll…

How many soap bottles do you throw out each year? Yeah, enough for the eco-terrorist elite and Leonardo DiCaprio to make you feel guilty for a few seconds while you mock their hypocrisy. All the while, despite our best efforts to rid ourselves of evil plastics, we still produce tons of waste which takes ages…

While most of us reuse old newspaper to wrap breakables, hold fish and chips, or create paper-mache sculptures of our pets, Atsushi Adachi has a much more creative use for them. A Japanese visual artist, Adachi takes old newspapers and uses them to create replicas of machines FROM THE PAST. If you’ve ever been to…

While there’s nothing particularly wrong with traditional horizontal doors, diagonally-opening “sideways-folding” metal doors look way cooler when you open them. Case in point, YouTuber Phil Vandelay’s folding metal door for his new workshop: Despite its daunting appearance, all it takes to make this futuristic door are a few sheets of metal, some metal frames, and…

It’s barely been a week into the new year and Wacom has already kicked things off with a new, more affordable tablet for digital creators. Announced at CES 2020, the Wacom One has a 13.3-inch screen, a 1920 x 1080 HD display, weighs 2.2 pounds (1kg), and covers all the basics of a drawing tablet:…

The weapons of the titular Star Wars Jedi, lightsabers are nothing short of freaking cool. Fictionally powered by kyber crystals, these glowing portable beams have unique colors, handles, and best of all, can cut through pretty much anything. Countless replicas have been made since the original movie’s 1977 release, but seeing as kyber crystals aren’t…

While there’s nothing quite as bad as stepping on a stray LEGO block, a close second is having to sort out the mess of bricks once you (or your kids) are done using them. It’s bad enough finding all of the little buggers, but when you’re a LEGO aficionado who plans on using specific parts…

As we inch closer to the future promised by the late 20th century (still waiting on you, flying cars), technology we thought to be impossible is now starting to become reality. Just take a look at Everett Lawson, a research assistant at MIT’s Media Lab. Born with congenital clubbed-foot, his left leg was weaker and…

Most craftsmen think of CNC machining as a means to an end, but for the filmmaker and digital artist Dom Riccobene, it’s the best way to make miniature landscapes of both real-world and fictional locales. We’ve already seen his AR map of Game of Thrones’ Westeros, but this time around, he’s gone back to the…

We’ve seen matchstick art before, but most of the time it usually involves a stupid amount of tiny, normal-sized matches. What Eduard Krawchenko from Our Vidos TV (OVT EN) wants to do instead is make one large match. It’s OBNOXIOUSLY large, ugly and has us laughing at the result. It’s just something you have to…

19 years after it was first released, the Nokia 3310 has been known to be THE phone when it comes to durability. It’s been dropped from high altitudes, run over by all types of vehicles, and even shot with firearms. And most of these times, the phone has lived to play mobile Snake another day.…

Ever find yourself in a situation where you wish you had a hacksaw on hand? Instead of lugging around a traditional hacksaw, YouTuber Cemal Açar shows how you can create your own portable version that fits neatly inside of a pen-like case: Taking a saw blade from an electric hacksaw, Cemal first sharpens the blade…

Has there ever been a time when you looked at your tool box/bin/pile and thought, “I wish I had more space”? Creator and craftsman, Hassan Abu-Izmero, has. Funny enough, he looked at an empty gasoline can and thought it was the perfect size for his most used tools. Let’s see how he made it: After…

While the best (and easiest) ways to keep memories are through writings, photos, and videos, they aren’t quite as creative as what woodworker and filmmaker Frank Howarth has come up with. Taking an ordinary wooden sphere, he engraves a terrain map of Newberry Crater —located in Central Oregon’s Deschutes Forest — onto the wood before encasing…

It’s all happened to us before: one minute you’re tightening a bolt, the next one you’re scrambling to free it from its enclosure. Whether it be due to exaggerated machismo or bad bolt design, the fact of the matter is that you wound a bolt too tight and now you can’t get it out. DTI…

Even though the new Tesla Cybertruck is supposedly going to usher in a new age of electric offroad vehicles, some people think the design is a bit… lacking. Like a CG model whose textures haven’t loaded in or a long lost drawing Elon Musk made when he was 4-years-old, the Cybertruck doesn’t exactly give off…

Whenever a YouTube channel hits certain subscription milestones, they are awarded a YouTube Play Button. You get a silver one at 100,000 subscribers, a gold one at 1,000,000, a diamond one at 10,000,000, and a customized Play Button upon reaching the seemingly unreachable 50,000,000 subscribers. The only problem with these Play Buttons is they aren’t…

While most augmented reality technology is used in things like interactive workspaces, VR/AR company Pixelcase is applying it in other fields. For example, has anyone ever thought of using AR to view real properties before they are set up? This AR doorway lets real property buyers, owners, and developers get a sneak peek at what the…

If you haven’t seen it yet (and you definitely should), the new live-action series The Mandalorian (available via Disney+) is pretty much all any Star Wars fan talks about these days. It’s dirtier, grittier, and has way more personality and lore than the recent films of the past decade. It’s no surprise then that Brick…

So it’s finally happening. After a year of teasing and countless knock-off designs, Tesla has unveiled its new EV pickup truck. In the mere second it took for Elon Musk to breath its name, it was established as an icon for all eternity. And along with it, establishing “Cybertruck” as the monicre we would immediately…

What happens to skateboards after they’ve shredded their last bit of pavement? Some boards go to a wood chipper, where they are broken down to make new skateboard or *shudder* office supplies. A few lucky boards with sentimental owners get put on shelves or frames – a reminder of the person’s glory days. But the…

We all know robots go through rigorous testing before being put on the market, but what if we pushed them just a bit too far? The guys at Corridor Digital may not be the most experienced robotics engineers, but they do make awesome CGI videos to watch. Using some expert camerawork and special effects, the…

With the rise (fall, rise, plateau, small rise, little fall, and rise again) of 3D printing and its ability to let us create, basically, anything (except for money, which is illegal), it was only a matter of time before its close cousin, injection molding, got in on the accessible, mass part-producing action. Formlabs recently released…

Back in an age they called “the late 90s”, people used to use floppy drives to store data on computers. These thin, somewhat portable disks could hold a whopping 2.88 MB of data by the turn of the century, so it’s no surprise they were rendered obsolete come the 2000s… at least in terms of…

They say the best way to learn how to do something is to just do it, but in the case of power tools, this isn’t always the case. Being handed a chainsaw when you’re a complete novice can be a daunting (not to mention dangerous) task, so it helps to have someone with prior experience…

If drones changing shape on the fly and shooting streaks of hot flames weren’t enough to make you question what will rule the skies in the future, then this might change your mind… A few weeks ago, the 2019 Nanchang Flight Convention was held in China. From November 2-3, the convention showcased the best China…

They say it’s always good to get some exercise in wherever you go, but I don’t think “they” meant anything like this. Novice Garage, a group of YouTubers who thrive on making tires out of anything remotely round, are at it again. They’ve already made dune buggy tires out of soft saran wrap, so why…