I didn't finish the video I really wanted to do (on sculpting with polymer clay) so this is just a quick tip. It won't work for all tripods, but it should work for most of the ones that use hinges to tighten the legs.
The adhesion test video is in the next post.
This was the chart I kept for the drying tests. Temperatures were around 12 C for those days like I mentioned in the video. Probably around 20 C inside, maybe less (heater is off at night).
Regarding the "watercolors" I know I called them a watercolor substitute, but it's more like they've substituted watercolors for me specifically because they're slower drying, portable, and won't crack. But they're more like something between gouache and oils and yet they have a distinct sticky feel (like warm honey). They're more opaque then watercolors, but they stay wet longer, and yet they have that tendency to stay in that sticky watercolor stage on paper. My mix is about 1:1, more and they flow too much, less and they'd dry in the box because it's not airtight (if the box were airtight I could use less).
I also like them because I can paint at the consistency they're at without accidently over diluting them with water like I usually do watercolors. For example, for a sky, I'll outline the object, then I'll go back on the paper and spread the color around with a water-brush there.
One thing I forgot to mention is that you should use professional grade acrylics for them if you want them to keep their opacity. Additionally if you like gouache you can mix in a bit of titanium white with all your colors to make the even more opaque.
I will do a video with them in the future.
You can also find this post as an instructable.
I’ve had four Andy Drawers (two red, two grey) for years. They’re great. I really like them because they’re really light and portable but at the same time they do have some problems. The first is the dust. This wasn’t so bad before but now I live somewhere really dusty and I had to stop storing any sort of paper in them because they’d get all gross. The second is that if you happened to get the ones with a matte finish (grey), the drawers don’t slide nearly as nicely as with the glossy ones.
Lastly, only two really fit under my desk, I can’t see anything when I go search for something, I bump into them with my chair all the time, and the other two are always in the way when I don’t need them, and too far when I do. So apart from fixing the first two problems I’ve also decided to put them one on top of the other both to save space and fix the light problem.
You can also find this post as an instructable.
I’ve also submitted this instructable to the Leftovers Challenge contest over there, so please vote for it if you like it.
You can also find this post as an Instructable
I’d hoped to have my drawers done by now but they’ve taken longer than planned even though I’ve been working an average of one hour a day for a month, which is incredibly productive given my state. The structure is finished but it’s the little details that are taking a long time. I don’t want to stop posting completely though so in the meantime I’ll be making a few posts about the things I did to make the project easier on myself. These will technically be posted in reverse order that I made them because I only have the prototypes now, I didn’t actually make the finished tools.
Also since figuring out a method to get paid I’ve been working on creating a Patreon, and getting a YouTube channel set up and everything so I’ve been very busy. It’s not done yet, but if you want to support me check it out and/or share my posts.
We all know what a pain it is to pour paint out. I tried to google to see if there was some sort of life hack for this but found none so I made my own. I honestly don’t even know why we still use cans shaped like they are. I get not using plastic because the metal is probably easier to recycle and more resistant (plus it keeps out light), but surely they could add better lids. This isn’t so much a problem on big cans for me, so this solution doesn’t work for them. With bigger cans you usually need to use large amounts at once and you tend to use the can all at once (say to paint a room) so controlling the amount isn’t such a problem. But with small cans this works great and I’m sure you could modify this to something larger if you find a large enough bottle, or you could pour larger cans into smaller empty ones and reuse them if say you bought something in bulk but only use a small amount at a time.
I’ve been busy with a big project so in the meantime, here’s the chest again. I finally varnished it with a polyurethane matt (or semi-gloss?) varnish. I thinned it down and gave it two coats. It came out really nice except for in a few places there was extra glue I hadn’t seen and wiped off so the varnish looks white there. You can’t really tell, but it’s something I’m keeping in mind for my next project and others that require a lot of glue.
Before/After
This post is also available as an instructble.
I added a piece of paper so you can see the glass better. I plan on adding contact paper and painting the back gray.
In this post I'll be showing you how I made the wooden chest.