Page 290 - Making things move_ DIY mechanisms for inventors, hobbyists, and artists

Chapter 9 Making Things and Getting Things Made 267

Remember that DIY doesn’t have to mean do it all yourself. Hack together off-the-shelf
parts instead of making things from scratch. You can still breathe life into your mechanism
during the integration phase, but if you spend too much time in fabrication, you may
never get there. That said, there will be times when you need to make some simple parts
yourself or modify store-bought parts to fit your needs. We’ll go through a handful of
useful tools for manual fabrication, and then cover a lot of ways to get custom parts made
from digital files. This section covers subtractive methods (cutting away material) and
additive methods (creating objects by adding sequential layers of material).

Analog Fabrication
Measure twice, cut once. Actually, make that measure once, go back and check your
measurement calculations, measure again, and then cut. We’ll cover a variety of ways
to drill and shape materials, most of which you can do without expensive tools. However,
if you need a tool you don’t own and don’t want to buy (a lathe, for example), look
into local shared workspaces and shops, especially if you live near a big city—there’s
TechShop in San Francisco, 3rd Ward in New York City, and The Hacktory in Philadelphia,
to name a few. Check the list of hackerspaces at www.hackerspaces.org for more.
You can also find local machine shops to make custom parts for you.

Drilling
A portable drill and/or Dremel are handy tools to keep around. A Dremel tool is good
for small holes in thin material, but a portable handheld drill is better for drilling
bigger or deeper holes quickly, since it has much more torque.

The first step in drilling anything is to put on your safety glasses. Then secure the part
you’re working on by clamping it down to your working surface (try a C-clamp or
two, such as McMaster 5133A15). If you’re drilling into wood, you can just place the
tip of the drill bit where you want the hole and start drilling. If you’re drilling into
metal or even plastic, it’s a good idea to use a center punch (like McMaster 3498A11)
or other sharp, hard object to make a little dimple for your drill bit to start. This will
prevent the always frustrating outcome of the drill bit skipping or walking away from
the intended starting point.