Tool Reviews and Site Content

Alright, so it’s been quite a long time since a formal update from the blog here. Partially due to my inexperience with the site and formal blogging in general.

Recently I’ve been taking this website business a bit more seriously, and finally buckled in and added some features and content I’ve been procrastinating on since nearly September of last year.

I set up an entire section of commonly used tools from around my shop, each currently linked with an amazon affiliates link, but the future plan is to have an associated product review of recommendation link for each tool featured there. These links are just the beginning of my plan to transform the website to a hub where you can formally tune in for learning more about what I’m working on, and also to help yourself improve your skills in CAD design, mechanical design related to the field of general 3D printed blasters and makerspace culture. Cause that’s where I came from, a makerspace at my university is my origin.

In addition to this “new” section of content, the website will also be featuring a more populated and fleshed out troubleshooting guide and other supporting content for our Spring Thunder project. A much needed update, that I suppose is better late than never. For the next blaster platform, these supporting manual like documents will come sooner.

So in summary, this is about what you should be expecting in the next couple of months for this website as well as why I plan to focus on them:

– Formal Tool reviews: Highlighting the road to how I came to love and use each of my favorite tools in the shop. Most have a story of how they came to be, from ex-tools and brands I used prior, and where I’m looking to go from here on out for that tool. Each will of course have an amazon/brand affiliates link (so long as I actually recommend the tool) from where I’ll make a small commission from if you chose to make the purchase. So it’s an extra stream of income while adding some “about me” and “tool tips” content to the site.

– Design Guides: Design and building your own stuff can be pretty tough, I know I had a hard time coming to this makerspace realm of life, and I had trouble developing my skills in a satisfying way while also having fun enough projects to stick through. This series of articles is aimed to corroborate a set of design skills and techniques into smaller easier to digest kind of reference articles that you can read, learn and then later refer to as a guide in the future when you’re designing your own do-dads. My hope, is it’ll be easy enough to read and helpful enough to use like those formula reference sheets given to you in high school physics or whatever. It’ll cover topics like types of 3D printed fits in hard numbers like 0.015″ for light fits or 0.020″ to 0.025″ for sliding parts (of course, I’ll mention information such as printer tolerances and slicer offset settings). It could also feature general technique introductions to topics like compliant mechanisms, gears and sprockets. Or even just the basics such as screws types and how to read them. All will have a heavy focus on application, so I won’t have these articles mention some high brow mathematical technique or formula without also mentioning a way you can leverage it for your own usage.

I want to teach you to be a master manipulator of the physical world. One article topic at a time.

– Blaster supporting manuals: Seems like it should be the first thing on the list, but I’m still working on getting better organized. This will be things you’d expect from a LOWE’s tool manual (which let’s be honest, you’d only skim over) but perhaps a little more interesting, since the thing you’ve purchased is a glorified toy. This’ll include troubleshooting guides with lots of pictures I hope, frequently asked questions, better assembly guides (with more notes), basic diagrams showing the part names of everything in the blaster, and perhaps a glossary of terms, so that way we can understand each other when talking about the blaster.

Anyways, that’s about it, I hope to also be adding more frequent blog posts, since it seems that some people are actually subscribed to this page, so I’ll try and keep y’all updated better.