Hammer quiz. Identify the intended use of speciality (mostly vintage) hammers. A sister site of Puzzle Photos (previously). [more inside]
posted by Mitheral on Apr 3, 2008 - 28 comments

Cope pipe without a jig. Enter a few parameters and get a pdf that will give you a printable pattern that will allow you to notch tubing for welding or brazing to another pipe.
posted by Mitheral on Mar 15, 2008 - 35 comments

Kwout, Use it to grab a quick quotation or other screen shot from a web site and embed it into a blog or other website (one click to Flickr and Tumblr).. [via/via] [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Dec 26, 2007 - 20 comments

Hannu's Boatyard is a site by a Finnish guy who offers free plans for two dozen simple plywood boats you can build, along with photos illustrating the build process of each. He also describes basic woodbending technique and some of the design process, in a pleasing writing style that makes me want to get off the internet and make things. My favorites: Portuguese style dinghy; tiny stubby halfpea; round, Welsh-style coracle -- if you click on no other link today, click on the coracle link and scroll down at least to the black and white photo.
posted by LobsterMitten on Oct 12, 2007 - 31 comments

A wonderfully told story about a guy's exciting find. C.A. Jewett's Patternmaking Chest. (Via)
posted by growabrain on Jun 6, 2007 - 24 comments

Ichiro Hattori makes the finest knives in the world. Chef knives (gyuto KD series) start at $860 USD and top out at $1175. This hunting knife is priced at $2150. These are not collector knives. They are made for everyday use. Text and images of the process and a YouTube vid of same (23:40 mostly in English).
posted by sluglicker on May 29, 2007 - 63 comments

Picnik. Free, online photo editing tools.
posted by loquacious on Feb 1, 2007 - 8 comments

Make Life Better with a Sailboat-in-a-Closet. A multi-section plywood meditation for overcoming life's vicissitudes through apartment woodworking.
posted by paulsc on Dec 5, 2006 - 9 comments

Baseball Race. "[A]n online application that allows you to view any Major League Baseball season, split by league or division (even wild card races), as an animated, date-by-date race between the various teams you choose."
posted by brain_drain on Sep 11, 2006 - 22 comments

The 20 Greatest Tools of All Time. As chosen by Forbes magazine.
posted by empath on Mar 22, 2006 - 97 comments

Toys! Flickr Toys, that is. Like any self respecting wannabe photographer, I've been using flickr. A lot. I just found Flickr Toys at FlagrantDisregard. While QOOP has the official hookup on the flickr site, there are more silly things that can be done with FlagrantDisregard's toys and you can upload your finished masterpiece directly to your flickr account to save for posterity. I've already spent wasted too much time making Magazine Covers, Mosaics and Naughty Motivational Posters.
posted by FlamingBore on Jan 4, 2006 - 9 comments

If this doesn't convert you... you may truly be lost.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson on Dec 21, 2005 - 43 comments

Standup comedy cultural hot button Wikipedia hack. Standup comics! Need a cultural hot button topic for a joke? Check out Wikipedia articles with the most revisions. Comedy gold. Just pick a topic and start riffing.
posted by basilwhite on Nov 30, 2005 - 55 comments

A kick-ass guide to doing stuff on the web.
posted by JPowers on Oct 31, 2005 - 18 comments

A literal cornucopia of online web design resources to help you keep on top of specifications and sites related to CSS, accessibility, graphic design (color tables and theory), DOM, typography, and much, much more...
posted by Rothko on Oct 29, 2005 - 40 comments

Note-taking methods for students. Includes the Cornell method (details in powerpoint), and a Mapping powerpoint. [via GoBinder]
posted by iffley on Jul 31, 2005 - 12 comments

"Which search engine should I use?"
posted by iffley on Mar 12, 2005 - 44 comments

Old Wood Working Machines. Covering only North American manufactures, the OWWM website (referred to as the mothership) has 1160 scans of manuals, flyers, catalogs, and sales literature dating back over 100 years. The FAQ is extensive and has exploded spinning off many pertinent articles. OWWM also has almost 2200 user submitted, machinery profiles showing machines as found and/or restored. One of the highlights is a write up on what appears to be the very first (PDF) Delta Unisaw which was built before WWII and aside from mostly cosmetic changes is still built today.
posted by Mitheral on Jan 24, 2005 - 10 comments

Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary Containing over 3000 pages the Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary was billed as A description of tools, instruments, machines, processes and engineering; history of inventions; general technological vocabulary. Published in 1876 it is a great resource for those trying to figure out how things were done in the time of our great (great?) grand parents. Ilustrations, upwards of 5000 engravings, include a ride inside monocycle, trestle bridges, compound microscope, clod crushers, washing machines, spoke driver, hydraulic wagon-tipper, and a farmers tool-house. Warning: the book has been scanned in and all the item links are to 100-150K images.
posted by Mitheral on Jan 12, 2005 - 10 comments

URL Fun
Ever need to make a really long or convoluted URL shorter? Or need to hide some bit of web naming from someone? You'll want to use something like TinyURL, BabyURL , URL123, and Make A Shorter Link.

All that shortening can't be good. Fun ways to play with your enemies! HugeURL and my favorite - EvilURL (Evil - NSFW)
posted by filmgeek on Dec 17, 2004 - 27 comments

The forgotten technology - "I am a retired carpenter with 35 years experience in construction ... I have began to build a replica of Stonehenge with eight 10 ton blocks on end and 2 ton blocks on top. One man, no wheels, no rollers, no ropes, no hoist or power equipment, using only sticks and stones." (some slow loading clips on the pages)
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 22, 2004 - 31 comments

Hammers, once the pop culture for music, suddenly become popular weapons of death. Why? Anyone else find this odd?
posted by shepd on Jun 17, 2004 - 23 comments

Pictures are up from the 2004 Power Tool Drag Races (brought to SF by Charlie and Jim), an event in which people retrofit store bought power tools for racing down a track. The Ridden Class re-rigs tools to locomote vehicles. Several action-packed movies (and one boring one) can be found here. Our own CTP (in hat-->) took 2nd!
[Note: the Qbox site lists multiple photo galleries off-site. Some of them have NSFW pictures.]
posted by scarabic on Jun 16, 2004 - 7 comments

Hack your car. AutoXRAY scans internal vehicle computers and gives detailed diagnostics and real-time graphing output.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 12, 2004 - 11 comments

Let's go shopping! There's a wonderful thread on Kevin Kelly's site about interesting and offbeat catalogs, like this one. What catalogs do you love? And while you're at chez KK, check out all the "cool tools" added since crunch linked it last summer. Great gift ideas.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders on Dec 4, 2003 - 1 comment

Fecal tongs throughout history.
posted by qDot on Oct 29, 2003 - 34 comments

Why was I still writing for these clowns? Charlie Stross wrote the Linux column in UK magazine 'Computer Shopper' for over sixty months, until a regime change started to impinge on his editorial freedom. The last straw came when he submitted a column regarding weblogging tools for the Linux platform only for it to be bounced because the tools weren't actually part of the operating system ... so he produced this column for himself and emailed his resignation. Part of his decision was based on declining quality and sales. Does anyone still actively buy computer magazines anymore? [thanks Sore Eyes]
posted by feelinglistless on Oct 16, 2003 - 22 comments

Tool Making Crow
"In the experiments, a captive female crow, confronted with a task that required a curved tool (retrieving a food-containing bucket from a vertical pipe), spontaneously bent a piece of straight wire into a hooked shape -- and then repeated the behavior in nine out of ten subsequent trials." The behavior was captured on an amazing video clip.
posted by Irontom on Jul 22, 2003 - 55 comments

Graphing Google Neat little Java applet which will create pretty graphs of inter-site relationships based on Google's 'Related Sites' feature. Check out MetaFilter,BBC News and Slashdot for good examples of how deep the inter linking can go. Try graphing your own site! Neat. (Requires Java)
posted by metaxa on Apr 23, 2003 - 8 comments

Crows better than chimps at making tools? British scientists were reportedly "astonished" when a captive crow named Betty "spontaneously bent a straight piece of wire and used it to retrieve a snack." But another scientist says crows have been seen making two kinds of hook tools in the wild, although he's not sure we should say they have "insight." It's clear that there are lots of different kinds of animal intelligences, so why are humans so surprised when dolphins recognize themselves in mirrors, chimps demonstrate culture and lions engage in social problem-solving? What explains the reluctance to admit that animal "consciousness" exists?
posted by mediareport on Aug 9, 2002 - 72 comments

Another of our industries,one that actually produces something, has started what appears to be a death spiral. This industry survey was used as supporting evidence as they presented their case to the ITC in May, ahead of a report to be submitted to the House Ways and Means Committee this fall. Some of the business owners comments are here. Who benefits? Near as I can tell, This Guy. (Best if read aloud)
posted by mss on Aug 5, 2002 - 4 comments

Weblog tools overview wanna do such a cool site like meFi? google knows the answer...
posted by heimkonsole on Nov 14, 2001 - 6 comments

Language Tools has become the one resource I use for all my WORD related needs, although it unfortunately lacks a Quotations section like Bartleby or Quotations Page. (The runner-up was Refdesk , which I know as Colin Powell's favorite, put together by Drudge the Father, although its filled with too much other stuff.) Any better choices?
posted by Voyageman on Oct 31, 2001 - 7 comments

Ya gotta love interesting and useful internet directories.
posted by pheideaux on Oct 22, 2001 - 5 comments

Hot damn, look at all the cool blogging tools that have come out of Blogger API. In the last few days industrious developers have come out with wapblogger, jabber-blog-it, BlogBuddy, and my personal choice for coolest thing ever: ( blogdex ), which daily indexes the most-linked-to sites in the blogging community. (And yes, it really works!) How are you putting these tools to use on your own site?
posted by tweebiscuit on Aug 20, 2001 - 14 comments

What cool toys did you get for Christmas? Besides the neon orange Slinky, I got one of these. On the packaging, it's called an 'ultralight survival tool.' It must be true, because it apparently saved at least one life. I guess I'm all set for Y2K now. Bring it on.
posted by grant on Dec 27, 1999 - 0 comments