Whether it’s a cantaloupe, an anthill, or even raw steak, there’s no shortage of what’s possible for testing the effects of casting or pouring molten metal in or on natural objects – at least, as evidenced by a rising tide of YouTube videos of people doing just that. While pouring molten aluminum in both anthills (unoccupied) and cantaloupes yielded some fairly impressive results, YouTube user Tito4re recently turned his attention to pouring molten copper into a coconut. “My videos are mostly about melting copper and pouring it on random things … so sit back relax and let me do the dangerous stuff.” As for what the interior cavity of a…

With so many cool things coming out each week, it can be hard to wade through all the rock-awesomeness. With ‘Cool Tools’, we’ve done the hard work for you. This week we saw the latest classic-inspired digital camera design from Olympus, a new way of thinking about bonsai, how to create a quick and simple pour over coffee system (for the shop), the latest from The Chemical Brothers and more… Ready? Let’s go! This week we look at: DESIGN Olympus PEN-F “Rangefinder style cameras were all the rage in 1963. Now they’re back. The beautifully-crafted PEN-F is ideal for street shooters, as a second camera for studio pros, and for…

People have been using Google search since 1997 (in 1996 it was known as BackRub) to search for information on everything under the son and beyond. With the rise of desktop 3D printing, hobbyists have turned to just about every search engine (Bing, Yahoo, WebCrawler, etc.) to get their hands on any number of 3D models for their various projects, which can often become a nightmare after several hours of searching. Fortunately for them, Jessy Lee has created a solution to take away some of the headache involved with trying to find a particular 3D model with his Yobi3D online app.

Whether he’s preparing for the zombie apocalypse with his Slingshot Zombiehammer with Skull Ejector or devising new ways to split Oreo Creme with his Oreo Separation Pump Gun, Jorg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel never seems to be out of ideas when it comes to DIY weaponry. Could his latest creation be his most crazy contraption ever? Sprave recently turned to the humble Coke bottle to create – what else – an arrow-launching Gatling gun. Previously, Sprave created a similar design that used the same pressurized Coke bottle mechanism to shoot a single arrow. As he’s quick to mention – the gun is nearly as dangerous to the shooter as…

If you count yourself amongst one of the early adopters of the iPad Pro, chances are you’ve also been using the device for the bulk of your digital sketching purposes, too. But for users who still prefer analog sketching with paper for the earlier part of the ideation process, digital sketching – iPad Pro or not – will likely always be a cumbersome experience. The most common analog to digital sketching workflow consists of some variation of sketching your content on paper with traditional media and scanning (ideal) or taking a photograph of the sketch to be put in Photoshop. Once in Photoshop, the sketch can then be cleaned up…

These days, it seems like we rarely go a week without some crazy blacksmith vying for YouTube view counts with an attention-grabbing blade design. Regardless of whether the skilled blacksmiths are recreating Jaime Lannister’s Sword from Game of Thrones or demonstrating the process of repurposing a circular saw blade into a usable knife design, we’re thankful for all of it. More recently, J. Neilson of Neilson’s Mountain Hollow Custom Knives in Towanda, Pennsylvania forged a knife using “thousands of fish hooks and 1084 powder.” Yes – fish hooks. Although technically any metal – so long as it’s the right type – can be melted and forged into a blade, there’s something…