January 5, 2023 • 55 mins
Derek "December" Young and Darren "Packaging" Moser recap their three favorite new tools/cons/techniques from 2022. As well as cover some of their plans for 2023. Maybe a new streaming schedule as well.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Welcome to the nerd Politeam. Welcometo the Maker's Method podcast here on the
Nerd Party Network. I'm your host, Darren Moser aka Doctor sci Fi,
and I'm joined as always by DerekGelling of Vane's Props. And again we're
(00:24):
back. Is that how we're goingto introduce every new episode? Now?
I think I don't. I don'treally know. You know, when we
started this podcast, oh way backin June of twenty twenty one, you
know, we hit some episodes outof the gate. We're doing pretty well
of doing a weekly chauffeur about almosta year, it seemed, and then
(00:50):
life just got really really busy,and now apparently we've been averaging one episode
every two months. So yeah,it's I know, you've have had a
very busy plate. It's been busyall over and while it doesn't you know,
it's still only like an hour aweek, but it's sometimes that's still
all the difference in what there hasto be done, Yeah, for sure,
(01:15):
And I think um trying to tocome up with different things to talk
about that's going to feel like itwould be interesting to people. Probably the
most challenging thing after both of ushave spent a day or weeks doing our
regular jobs, like using all ofour brain power to be super awesome at
(01:38):
those things. And yeah, soyou know, every couple of months,
we uh, we sit down fora few minutes, we catch our breath,
we come up with an idea justbefore we hit record, and like
true good podcasters do. Yeah,yeah, you know, and but I'm
still enjoying you when we are ableto record our discussions. And while we
(02:02):
don't have any plans on stopping,you know, we're not going to quite
commit to an exact schedule since we'rewe're still feeling it out, and that
happens with a lot of podcasts.They evolve, you know, they change.
I think we enjoyed kind of ourtopic of the week format. I
know we were trying to prevent itfrom becoming a what are you working on?
(02:27):
You know episode every single time,but that's often what is interesting to
talk about, and we've had somegreat guests. So yeah, we're just
still just kind of talking about themethod of making and keeping it open and
as ideas come or as ideas go, we'll just keep keep doing what we're
doing. And we've had occasionally peoplewill reach out to us and say,
(02:50):
oh, are you guys recording still? You know, I do enjoy your
episodes when they drop, And Isaid, thank you, Wait another Fortnite
and you might get another one.But but we do appreciate the nice feedback
and we're enjoying it. But there'sthere's no there's no rush. That's right,
that's right. It's the one thingin both of our lives where we
(03:12):
can say there's no rush. Yes, there's We're not waiting for that money
to come in. We're just doingit. If it's fun. It's still
fun. But it's definitely no rush. The no rush, that's the method.
The method is not rushing, whichI'll tell you what, sometimes I
kind of wish that that were,especially with paint. Right, not rushing.
(03:38):
All right, we're going to takea short little detour here before we
get into our actual episode topic.So it is January second. Things are
falling from the sky, Tears arefalling from the sky. It's also raining.
(03:59):
The tears are coming from my face. I forget, as a Angelino,
as someone who lives in Los Angeles, what it is like to paint
when there is humidity and when thereis rain. And today I made like
such an amateur mistake, and Ithought I was being really slick about it.
(04:26):
I was painting a part for anupcoming project video. It was the
last thing on my list to paint, and I knew that I needed to
wait for the weather to be justso. And the forecast for this week
says today is the one day ofthe week that there will be no rain
(04:46):
and it will be a sweltering fiftyfive degrees. Get my short shorts out,
it's gonna be it's gonna be sowarm. And so I waited it
out. The sun was out,I actually saw it and I started painting
metallic on this three D printed piece, and it laid down relatively well.
(05:14):
I didn't have any issues with it. I knew that I was going to
have to kind of bake it ontothe part because it was still so cold
outside and damp, and so Iset up a like makeshift box with some
cardboard and a space heater and didthe whole thing and thought it was going
so well, only like bring thatpart inside many hours later to do a
(05:41):
test fitting, only to notice myfingerprints in the paint. It's like a
cardinal sin. I mean, anyonewho who's worked with metallics. It's a
tricky paint. It takes forever tocure. It seems on the best of
cases. And let me qualify too, it's metallic paints from a rattle can.
(06:04):
Stuff like all Clad and Illuma lustlike those flash off relatively quickly and
can be handled. I mean Imuch faster. I would brag during the
summer to my other maker friends andother parts of the country because summer is
Oh, it's like you go outside, even with a rattle can, even
(06:27):
with metallics, I could paint somethingand it would like flash dry and be
done in like a minute, andit was just so nice. That is
not the time of year we arein right now. No, no,
and they're expecting that Thursday of thisweek will be like monsoon rain from our
area. It's it is, youknow, like God is laughing at my
(06:56):
plans right now. I will eventuallyhave to repaint this piece. I was
able the paint was still soft enoughthat I could kind of brush out my
fingerprints, like I was able torub my finger over the spots with my
fingerprint in it and soft and smoothit out. But then I ended up
(07:18):
catching a corner and peeling off someof the metallic which I'm still a little
confused as to how that even happened. But at this point it was going
too well. It was going toowell. And this particular prop is like
it's a small piece and the partthat is painted with this metallic spray paint
(07:42):
is sort of the largest part ofthe entire build. So for it to
look this way, it's just notgoing to fly. And so now I'm
gonna have to like figure out away to repaint it and get it looking
better. It's a hassle, butthat is definitely one of those cases where
(08:03):
having a little extra time would bereally nice time with good way to have
it. Yeah. Well, yeah, although we will say it seems like
our portion of America has dodged thecollective subzero temperatures that the rest of the
(08:24):
nation has been experiencing. So Imean, we complained, yet it's still
very not too bad. True,true, although I will say this,
So for the holidays, my wifeand I went back east to Vermont,
and when we got there, itwas ten degrees and with the wind chill
(08:45):
was like negative two, but itwas super dry, Whereas in Los Angeles
and most of southern California, rightnow. It's super damp, and so
even though it's like in the fortiesand fifths here, it's it feels colder
to me here at fifty degrees withone hundred percent humidity than it did in
(09:11):
Vermont at like ten degrees and zerohumidity. Was the strangest thing because I
was walking around there in like aT shirt and jeans. Here, I've
got like layers on, you know, I got to wear a beanie if
I'm going outside. It's it's likealmost a little ridiculous because you do hear
(09:31):
about people in other parts of thisof the country that are like, oh
no, it's like legitimately below freezing, possibly even below zero, and we're
like, yeah, it's a's seventyeight degrees on Christmas Day here in Los
Angeles. Yeah, that's that wasour little mini heat wave. I call
it California cold. When it's likefifty or sixty, it's like for us,
(09:54):
that's cold, but for the restof the world that's nothing. Yeah.
Well, we wanted to recap alittle bit about last year, although
we also realized that our last threeepisodes were recap episodes about checkpoints throughout the
year. So Derek, you hada good thought of kind of talking about
(10:16):
some new methods or tools or youknow, applications, different things that we
kind of brought into our making thislast year. So I thought that would
be fun. So I'm gonna letyou go first. Cool. Yeah,
it's it's always interesting to stumble acrossproducts or tools or techniques that are new,
(10:48):
just because you know, everything onthe internet, like it all travels
so quickly, and so you know, it seems like somebody will have an
idea for something and we'll think thatthey're the first person who have come up
with this idea, only to findout that like multiple people have all kind
of had the same idea at thesame time. It's a weird phenomenon,
(11:09):
but it does happen. And sowhen I do actually find something where I
see that not a lot of peopleare talking about it and I'm able to
get my hands on it or tryit and have some successes with it,
I'm always like really amazed. Butso all of that said, the first
(11:31):
thing on my list of tools orproducts that we're extremely handy for me this
year is it's a solvent called IPSwell Done sixteen And if you do a
lot of three D printing, particularlywith filament, the go to tends to
(11:58):
be either like a I've been atepoxy or superglue, and epoxy is messy,
you know, air quotes messy,and superglue can be finicky. I've
(12:20):
found and this solvent, this welldone sixteen is like a weird intersection of
the two. It comes in atube like toothpaste. You spread it on
your three D printed part, youhold it together. It sets up relatively
quickly, but it's like a tougherchemical bond than you would get with epoxy.
(12:52):
Or does it matter if it's PLAversus ABS. Is it like have
to be a specific type of plasticor just a three D print? That
is a thing that I don't knowbecause I typically only print in PLA or
PLA plus. Okay, so weknow at least works for that, but
unsure if it works for other threeD print materials. Yeah, although I
(13:16):
would say, you know, ifyou're if you're working in ABS, then
I would just like make a slurrywith isoperobol alcohol and leftover pieces of filament
and go that route because it's essentiallythe same type of thing, like it's
a chemical bond. But yeah,I'm working on a project for an upcoming
(13:41):
video where I'm making a floor lampwhere the vertical portion of the lamp is
a moisture vaporator from Star Wars obviously, and the lamp shade part is a
R five A droid head, Andso I started printing out parts of the
(14:07):
droid head using Michael Badley's files,and I've been trying to I've had like
a couple of different things where I'vebeen gluing stuff up using superglue, and
it just wasn't kicking as fast evenwith kicker, and the bonds weren't as
good. And I don't know ifit's just because I've kind of left that
(14:28):
jar of superglue out and it's beingimpacted by temperature or exposure to sunlight or
you know, who knows what,but it just isn't working quite as well
as it has in the past,and I was looking for something different,
And in the process of researching thisproject, I stumbled across Happy Trooper's website.
(14:50):
A Happy Trooper is a YouTuber butalso has a blog, and they
made an R five D four unitsome time ago and they had recommended this
well done sixteen and I thought,well, you know what, I'm always
open to try and find new waysto do some of the things that I've
(15:11):
been doing the same way for somany years, and maybe this is like
a better solution, and I amhappy to say it seems to be.
Yeah, I've been seeing some ofyour Instagram posts and as you were working
on pieces of the R five dome, and yeah, it would be fun
(15:33):
to see that all come together.I know a couple makers who have done
the droid frigile a lamp kind ofdesign, and it's always an interesting take
on just mating Star Wars with furniturebasically, which is really cool. Yeah.
Well, I was looking for anotherproject to do after doing that Ikea
(15:56):
calex hack that I did a coupleof years ago, because it was it's
fun to kind of like make normalthings look a little bit more Star Wars
ee. And I've wanted to doa droid project of some kind for a
really long time, and I'd gonethrough the trouble of printing out an R
(16:22):
two dome probably three years ago orsomething like that, and that project got
stalled out and I ended up sellingthe dome to somebody else who I think
eventually turned it into an actual droid. And you know, like, like
I've said in many episodes on thepodcasts, like every week, I'm trying
(16:45):
to come up with a new ideaand do something different, and you know,
the idea of doing something that's likea little bit bigger always feels like
a good idea, like it's goingto be more interesting to see a larger
build rather than a smaller build.And so that kind of led me down
this path. But thankfully it's avery well traveled path, and there's a
(17:11):
lot of information to read over beforeI get myself in a spot where I
can't get myself back out. Yeah, and as a lamp shade, you
know, you're not having to addelectronics or many other things. It's very
cosmetic on the outside. So thatsounds like a great project though, Yeah,
(17:33):
it should be interesting. You know. I'm designing it with the idea
of like it would be essentially likethreading a needle. So I'm building all
of the parts for the moisture evaporatorthat will then kind of slide over the
top of an existing floor lamp.Oh okay, And I end up like
finding somebody on offer up who hada lamp, and after a bunch of
(17:57):
back and forth about you know,how tall is it and what's the bulb
arrangements? You know, what doesall that look like? And they were
like, you know what, I'vehad this thing posted up here for like
four months. I'll just give itto you. You can just have it,
you know. So anytime you cancut down on your costs, it's
a good thing. But so youknow, now I'll basically just be able
(18:21):
to make some parts, print someparts, and then just kind of attach
them to an existing structure. Soit should it should be interesting. No,
I can't wait to see it.That'll be a fun, fun project
for sure. Yeah, fingers crossed. So what's on your list? What
do you What's what's one of yoursfor last year? Yeah, my list
(18:45):
is definitely not going to all betool based. So I'm going to start
with a application that I am goingto hopefully be using a lot more this
next year called pro Movie. It'san iOS app, But what's unique about
it is it has a lot morecontrol and kind of information on the screen
(19:11):
while you're recording. So it's ait's a video recorder, you know.
But the main reason I purchased itwas it allowed me to select different audio
sources, specifically my my earbuds thatI had. I could say, I
just want to use my Bluetooth earbudas a microphone versus the default you know,
(19:37):
built in microphones that are on theiPhone, right, and you know
it's got like audio levels and whitebalance and all those you know, fiddly
controls, iris lock and things likethat. So yeah, so the goal
of that is just if I wantto shoot something and use that as a
quick and dirty microphone, it can. I don't have to, you know,
(20:00):
worry about it using room tone orsomething like that. Sum and you
know, and it's fortunately it wasjust a single buye it wasn't a subscription
model or something like that. SoI have it, and it's it's all
done. And I'm also excited Iwas finally able to upgrade my iPhone,
which we'll be getting here later thisweek, or as I call it,
(20:22):
my movie studio in a box,because that's basically why I'm upgrading. But
yeah, I'm going from a iPhoneseven plus to a fourteen Pro Max,
which is a little bit of aso for comparison, the forward facing camera
of my new iPhone is the samenumber of megapixels as the main rear camera
(20:48):
of my current phone. That's howmuch technology has advanced past me. I
mean, as someone who also justrecently updated their iPhone and who uses it
almost more so as a recording devicethan a phone, I will say it
(21:10):
is worth the spend. Yeah,now I please. With my purchase,
I went with the slightly bigger screen, primarily because because the specs are the
exact same between the Pro and theMax, it's just the screen size.
But I went with a little bitbigger screen primarily because if I'm using it
as a forward facing camera on myself, it's a little more real state to
(21:34):
be able to see what is inthe frame. And and you know,
I mean I just went from aseven to fourteen. So if that doesn't
tell you about my iPhone purchasing habitsand how many more years is going to
be till I replace this one?Yeah, it's worth I think the investment.
And I'm trying to streamline things whereyou know, it's just it's easier,
(22:00):
Not that's easy, but it's justit's, Yeah, it's grabbing a
really nice camera that's going to shootclearly and really quickly, and then I
and I don't know. A partof me wants to kind of try doing
just editing with the phone or it. Maybe if it's quick enough to just
throw it in my computer and getthat faster turnaround. We'll see, We'll
(22:22):
see how that all goes. Yeah, it's reduced the friction, is what
I'm trying to do for sure.For sure. And I'm in the same
boat, you know. I whenI started making videos, I was using
my phone, and then I switchedover to using a dedicated camera like a
DSLR. Yeah, and eventually wentback to using my phone, mainly because
(22:52):
they do a better job at justsort of capturing everything and being a bit
indiscriminate about it all, whereas DSLRsare like, well, you've told me
that this is what you want andthat's the only thing I'm giving you,
right, And yeah, I havea DSLR and I even purchased like a
little monitor and like a microphone.But they're big, they're heavy. I
(23:18):
mean, I got beautiful depth offield shots, which I might I can
still do. It's not like Idon't have it anymore, but it's I
feel the same thing where it's likeI feel like this is what I'm going
to reach for every time, andI can shoot time laps, and I
can shoot SloMo, and I canshoot cinematic or whatever. I mean.
I was messing around with some ofthe iPhones at the Apple store because it's
(23:41):
like, I haven't had held anew iPhone in ages, so it's just
playing with their photo app. I'mlike, oh my gosh, all this.
I was like, well, whathappens if my finger gets in the
way of the lens? And asI purposely moved my finger in front,
it automatically shifted to another camera lensadjusted, which adjusted the depth of field
(24:06):
a tiny bit, but it wasbasically automatically trying to make sure I didn't
put my finger in the in thephoto. And I'm like, that's crazy,
but I mean it's great, butit's I didn't even know it did
that. Yeah, they definitely they'vegot some tricks up their sleeve, that's
for sure. So that's that's myfirst new new thing of the year that
(24:30):
I have used once or twice.I wanted to record a quick video and
get it online of a process Idid on a three D map, and
I'm like, okay, if Ijust shoot this right now, literally just
filming my screen and filming myself andgetting it done, because if I don't
do it right now and get itdone and post it to this community,
(24:53):
then I'm never gonna do it.Like it's just gonna have to move on
to the next thing. So Idon't care that it as an ev music.
It's not that type of video.It's literally just a hey, someone
asked how I did it, andI'm going to take eleven minutes and explain
it and then move on. Andthat that app let me use my built
(25:14):
in or my earbud, which Ithink was a better my quality. Nice.
So the second thing on my listeverything is a tool or product,
I should say, but the secondone is something that I didn't think would
(25:37):
be as useful, and now thatI have them, I kind of kick
myself for not getting them sooner.And that is a little tiny one inch
spring clamps. Like we've all gotthe pot. You can never have too
(25:59):
many clamps, right, and there'slike, you know, there's all different
kinds and whatnot. But I endedup finding these ones that like the mouth
on them is only about an inchor so fully open, and so for
a very small word, very small, and the clamps themselves I think are
only two inches in at their longestdimension. But I'll tell you what,
(26:25):
when you've got like a weird threeD print or something that you're trying to
piece together and you can't put afull sized spring clamp in there, and
you know you need something that's likesmaller than a clothespin, it's a great
option. I am. I'm alwayssurprised when something's so sort of simple becomes
(26:52):
such a favorite thing. But whenyou when you're printing in a lot of
pieces and you need to make surethat things are staying where they're supposed to
stay, having the right tool forthe job really does make all the difference.
And this is one of those things. It's like a small spend for
something that is extremely helpful. Yeah, I have a couple of small clamps
(27:19):
like that. I think I gotthem when I was working on the desk
star doors and needed you know alot of coverage. But I need I
think I need to pull them outagain because I found sometimes when I'm clamping
my acrylic pieces together, the forceon the clamp that I have is too
strong, and so it'll almost startto shift it and slide it because the
(27:41):
glue hasn't set yet or set enoughto prevent that. So I need just
enough to add a little bit ofpositive pressure, but not enough where it
is almost rearranging it as it dries, because that would not be good.
Yeah, yeah, it's It isone of those dumb things where, you
know, people always say, canyou ever have? Is there such a
(28:03):
thing as too many clamps? Andthe answer is always going to be no,
because no matter how many you have, you're always going to need one
more. So they'll get yourself somesmall clamps people, Yeah, or like
Harbor Freight, you know, byI think that's what I did. I
went to Harbor Freight and got alike a box of you know, two
and like they were like a buckor two each. So they're very very
(28:26):
cheap, and I'm sure they'll breakeventually, but they'll do their job for
long enough well, and honestly,based on the kind of stuff that you
and I both make, at somepoint, you're going to get some kind
of glue or something on them pageas well as they did when you first
(28:48):
got them. And so, youknow, while the idea of something being
disposable in that way isn't great,it's negligible. It definitely feels better when
you're like, well, you know, I got it Harbor Freight and I
got this box at twenty for threeninety nine, right, Well, yeah,
well that kind of goes into mysecond choice. And this was kind
(29:12):
of a new packaging method that Idid. So semi recently, I've had
a couple of my items that I'veshipped from my Etsy store not quite make
it in transit, and I takefull responsibility on that. It was I
was kind of getting by with goodenough in my packaging, but these,
(29:34):
you know, there's still acrylic piecesand they're still glue involved, and you
know, I can't control the lastten feet or whatever GPS does to get
it there. But I'm like,okay, well, how how am I
going to rectify this? And soI have a couple of sheets of you
know, I think it's half inch, yeah, twelve millimeter half inch floormat
(29:57):
foam, and I can put thatin the glow forge and it cuts it
really well. I have settings alreadyprogrammed in my favorites for eleven millimeter foam
for cutting and scoring, and soI took my vector files and whipped up
some inserts for the types of boxesthat I shipped things out of and now
(30:19):
I'm gonna always ship these things outin with custom inserts that hold each piece
in place inside the box. Andyou know, there'll still be a little
bit of bubble wrap thrown in there, but I think that should go a
long way from the kind of shocktrauma that could happen if the box gets
(30:40):
hit or falls. Yeah, andI think the thing is I had to
find a way of like, well, how can I do this, you
know, cheaply so it's not increasingmy shipping a lot, but also you
know quickly where I can just throwone of this pieces of foam in the
glow forge. It'll cut in aminute, and I can if I want
(31:00):
to put a little contact of menand glue it to the bottom of the
box, I can, but they'rethey're tight enough that it fits in there.
Um. But it also, youknow, it's it's all winning all
around because it looks better, youknow, I'm sure when they open the
box, it looks more custom andfinished. And it also means I have
less product I have to resend for, you know, due to due to
(31:23):
damage. Sure, now this isn'ton my list, although it could be,
but we've decided that we would onlydo three things, but it does
sort of fit right in with whatyou're talking about. Um. I h
a buddy of mine and fellow makerNick Walters from Walter's Works, was talking
(31:48):
about using water activated tape basically likethe same type of tape that your Amazon
boxes come wrapped with, right theycome out of the machine. It goes
over a thing and it activates theglue and exactly once you put it on
at Bonds. Yeah, And he'dlike bought some of his tape and was
(32:09):
using it on his packaging, andI'd just recently been like advertised about it
again, and so it was backon my radar and I'd finally decided to
give it a try after hearing thathe'd had, you know, some pretty
good success using it. And letme tell you someone who ships things out
(32:29):
pretty regularly, it's the process takesa little bit longer just because it's like
a little tricky. But I willsay cutting down on the amount of packing
tape, like the clear cello packingtape, has been really nice and I
(32:50):
feel like when the boxes go outthat the tape is not going to come
off of them, Like I havehad the occasion to feel when I've shipped
stuff out with regular clear packing tape. So yeah, when I took the
plunge, not for tape, butfor a thermal printer for the labels,
that paid for itself. I meanthe ease and convenience, because I think
(33:15):
I was printing it on normal paperand I was manually cutting out the label
and then laminating it with packing tapeonto the And now it's just hitting the
button making sure it's set in theright dimensions, and it's right next to
my computer. It spits it out, I slap it on the box,
and it's so so much more convenient. Yeah. Yeah, those two things
(33:38):
are big improvements if you're doing anytype of like I have never had one
of those moments, which I don'tknow exactly what moment creates that effect where
someone will have like an Etsy storeand they're like, oh, today was
such a good day, and yousee the machine and it's literally just like
(34:00):
getting out labels, and I'm like, did you do print? Is there
a print all option? I don'tknow about, and maybe there is,
but I'm like that would be crazybecause then I have to find the right
label, like I'm only printing ituntil when I met the exact step to
put the box together and put iton the dunpile. Like, I don't
(34:21):
think my brain would function if Ihit a button and it spat out twenty
labels and then I had to keepand get them straight. That's how things
get shipped to the wrong place.Yeah, it's it's a whole thing.
I can show you where it's allat once we get done recording, But
I'm with you. I do everythingsort of piecemeal, like once that item
(34:43):
is ready to go, Yeah,that label is getting printed unless it's something
where I can batch things out.And I was gonna say batching like,
okay, if there's twenty of these, this one item, and it's going
to be the same for every singleone of these labels, So it doesn't
matter which label ends up where.That's the only case I can think of
that that and drive me nuts.Yeah, it's a whole thing, all
(35:04):
right. So that was my secondWhat about your third favorite of twenty two?
My third? Um so uh sponsorfor my channel. Duramic three D
is a filament company, and theyrecently sent me a roll of PLA plus.
(35:29):
Now, for as long as I'vebeen three three D printing I've just
been using standard PLA. I tendto not use much else. You know,
I think I've done like a rollof PTG, But generally speaking,
I just go with what's easiest.And I will say that the marketing materials
(35:50):
that you see from from any ofthese filament manufacturers seems to be pretty accurate.
It is a good middle ground betweensomething like ABS and PLA, and
that it's super easy to run throughyour machine. It's not as finicky with
temperature like ABS can be. UM, it's sands pretty nicely UM and seems
(36:17):
to be extremely durable UM and uh. And so I think at this point,
I feel like it's safe to saythat I will probably not be buying
just standard PLA anymore, and we'llswitch over to, you know, using
PLA plus for for the bulk ofthe things that I print, just because
(36:38):
of um, how much nicer theuh, the quality and UM and all
that is for for the parts thatI'm printing with it. Yeah, I
actually have a role of PLA plus. I haven't even taken it out of
the sealed bag yet because I haven'thad the time to recalibrate my printer.
(37:02):
But yeah, I did the samething where I kind of I was like,
Okay, you know, it's alittle bit more expensive than PLA,
but I was like, I wantedto try it and see if it was
better. And because I need todo some serious dialing in my parts are
not adhering together the layers as wellas they should, and so I know
(37:24):
I should have a more stable printcoming out. So but again, it's
just having the moment to do allof that and put all that together.
Yeah, three D printing is oneof those things where when your machine is
doing well, it's great, youcan almost ignore it. When it is
not doing well, it's like youhave to babysit every single thing. So
(37:51):
I have definitely been in your position. But yeah, I would totally give
the PLA plus a go. Idon't know that it will solve your problems,
but I will say that I've justgenerally been much happier with the pieces
that I've gotten out of my machineusing PLA plus. Well, for my
(38:12):
third favorite of twenty two, I'mdoing an entire convention because why not,
So I'd say, I mean,obviously I could say celebration, but celebration
comes but once every once in awhile. But Silicon the maker centric convention
in the San Jose area was somuch fun to attend. It is really
(38:38):
it's it's close enough that I coulddrive to, you know, and dedicate
a day or two to visit.I mean, I've always said I'd like
to get up to like Emerald Cityor Rose City up in the Pacific Northwest,
but that'd be a bit of driving. So yeah, I had a
great time, and I just wentfor one day on Sunday. But I
(39:00):
can see myself putting this on myto go list every year and making a
weekend of it, and you know, bringing the droids along and have it
a really good time. So Ican't wait. I don't know. They
haven't announced the dates for this year. For twenty twenty three, I did
get a survey from last year sayinglike, hey, what did you like?
(39:23):
What did you not like? Andthey listed a couple of different options
for like would you attend if itwas on these days? And I think
some were like late August and somewere like early September. And it also
set another convention center that's near tothe one it was at, saying like
(39:44):
would you attend if it was here? So I'm getting the sense that they're
kind of feeling out where it's goingto be. Usually, when things are
a little more stable, you kindof announced the next year when the first
year is done. And not thatthis is a new con it's been around
for a while, but um,this was kind of the first year they've
been back since the pandemic, Sothey're kind of ramping up and maybe they're
(40:07):
growing because maybe they need more space. That could always be be good.
But yeah, I'm definitely wherever itis, it'll be in that area generally,
in that time of year generally.But um, I definitely am looking
forward to to go into that thisyear, which means I gotta get stuff
done. I gotta I gotta finishthis. Yeah, I mean, I'm
(40:27):
pretty sure that K twosos and piecesbehind you. I Mean he's missing an
arm and his hip is just dislocated. But that's that's nothing. That's it's
finey walk it off. Nope,me, you literally can't. That's the
that's the problem. Um Yeah,I know. And and another thing we
wanted to kind of touch on wassome of our plans for this upcoming year
(40:52):
twenty twenty three. You know,because we always stick to our plans,
we always hit every single one rightnow, that tailed it now every time,
every time, that's every maker alwayshits their plans. But no,
it's I think it's still good tohave goals for the new year and kind
(41:13):
of take stock and measure. Maybethis will be the year that I start
that YouTube channel I keep talking aboutfor the last several years. But step
one was getting the new iPhone,So that'll be that's going in the right
direction. Yeah, I mean,look, progress is a step forward and
(41:36):
at least it's not a step back, true, But Pete, Yeah,
but now I had a few thingson my list, two things for the
store and two things for kind ofdroids. I'll go through through my list
first and I'll let you pull thecurtain back on Van Oaks Props Incorporated,
(41:58):
LLC DMD. So, yeah,so some of the things I'm wanting to
add to the Etsy store. Thestocking stuffer planks did really well, and
so develop some new ones of those, but also kind of branch that off
into some sort of like party favorthat could be customized for a kid.
(42:20):
It's the same thing where it's apiece of MDF and you pop out the
models and assemble them, but it'smore marketed for like parties or party favors.
So you could buy a batch andthen here's a fun gift you could
give to your guests as they leave, And I think that could be That
could be fun if it finds theright crowd. And then I'm also going
(42:46):
to probably start a second Etsy storebecause from what I've been able to glean,
if you're if you're going with somethingspecific, it sometimes better to have
its own kind of store that peoplewill come across and be like, oh,
well, you sell X, whichmeans I'm kind of expecting that you're
(43:09):
good at X, versus oh,I'm a generalist and here's eighty things that
are all under the same banner.It's kind of how you're perceived, is
what I'm going for. But atChristmas time, I made a five layer
MDF and acrylic map of my cousin'siron Man race and he was really he
(43:31):
really liked that, and it gotme thinking that, you know, obviously,
you know iron Man is is atrademark name and logo, but but
a race and a path and acity and a time and a BIB number
are all just data. So I'mplanning to make a handful of different maps
(43:55):
and different you know that could becustomized for racers, you know, the
races of themselves could buy them tocommemorate their race, or a friend or
relative could give it as a gift. Have a little spot for the metal
to slide in and display. AndI think I think there's a market for
it. I haven't seen anything specificallylike that out there, but it could
(44:17):
be another silo of laser cut items, which I think could be good since
I don't want to keep everything inthe semi star Trek bucket in case that
goes away, because you never know. Well, my list is a bit
(44:42):
more abstract, I guess you couldsay. I think, well, I
will say this because I'm pretty surethat anyone that listens to this podcast will
relate to it. I really wantto try and finish up a lot of
the like personal projects I started lastyear or the year before, mainly because
(45:07):
I'm sort of tired of looking atthe graveyard of unfinished product or projects.
You need room for that lamp,you got to clean it out. I
do. So that's kind of towardsthe top of the list, But generally
speaking, I want to get betterat what I do. I want to
(45:28):
get better at making videos. Iwant to get better at being sort of
a educational storyteller, which I thinkis a slightly different approach to how I've
been doing videos for the past coupleof years. They've been more so about
sort of the you know, here'sall of the steps that you need,
(45:49):
and I feel like how too,versus a story. Yeah, and I
feel like, you know story.I think people kind of make an assumption
based off the word story, ButI think the way that I'm thinking about
it in my head is that Idon't just want to tell you what the
steps are. I want to tellyou why the steps are important, or
(46:13):
how I got to the decision thatthis was the right step for this particular
project. And I think that islike, that's the kind of stuff that's
always been interesting to me, andit's never something that I've conveyed to people
who watch my videos, because I'vealways kind of had one eye on the
(46:34):
clock because I didn't want to makea twenty minute video when I knew it
could be done in five. ButI think the sweet spot is to maybe
spend an extra minute or two andto kind of fill in some of those
blank spots to say, like youknow, I'm not just telling you to
do this because this is the onlyway that it can be done, but
(46:55):
to say that, you know,I'm doing this because of the following reasons.
I think helps helps us all tohave a better understanding of how things
are made. And you know,the decision making process of being a maker
and taking on a project I thinkwill always be interesting to people. Yeah,
(47:19):
I mean, I get what youmean by story. I think a
better word would almost be journey.You're telling the journey of the project and
yourself as a maker in that project. Yeah. And then you know,
the only other thing, and thisis you know, always kind of subject
to change. But I kind oflike the idea of taking on maybe some
(47:43):
larger scale projects. You know,this lamp is definitely the biggest thing that
I've made since doing the New Orleansstyle crypt back in Hollywood. I mean
larger as in like volume, orlarger as in like amount of time it
takes to make, or both.It might be both. You know,
(48:04):
I've had a couple of projects thathave been like multiple parts that I I
wouldn't want to watch an hour ofsomebody trying to make something, but I
would watch you know, five tenminute videos. But I kind of also
(48:25):
liked the idea of doing something ofa bigger scale. You know, we
kind of talked about doing the IkeaBookcase Star Wars Hack thing a while back,
and that was like a larger thing, and it was just a lot,
a lot of fun to to dosomething that was not like a little
(48:46):
hero prop or a small detail thatyou know, only somebody like me would
really be into. So yeah,I think I kind of want to do
something bigger, either in format orin the scale of the project. Um.
(49:07):
So, no, those are good. Those are good goals. Uh
maybe get to fifty thousand uh subscriberson on YouTube or is it is it
forty we're almost hitting Oh no,it's it's fifty. It's fifty. We're
right around the corner, everybody,but so close. Stop telling your friends
about it now. Yeah. No. And and for me, you know,
(49:30):
besides the store goals, um,you know, I feel like the
Broken Record, like K two,so upgrades. It's like there's always upgrades.
And I've even had some people saylike why are you are you like
letting feature creep And I'm like,maybe maybe not. It's more I it's
(49:51):
a he's almost he's I think he'salmost six. Like he's I've had this,
you know, project for a longtime, and he'll always be around
and always be making upgrade. AndI think, like most upgrades, it's
just kind of having a deadline havinglike obviously for me, it's like silicon,
So okay, that gives me xamount of months to do some of
the updates that I want to doto help bring more of the character out.
(50:15):
And yeah, so it's just prioritizing, you know, It's he's always
been. There's a bit of prioritizingin some upgrades that were for celebration last
year, and there'll be some morefor this year. And and then I'm
you know, because you can't haveone project, could have multiple. I
(50:35):
do want to start on a newdroid, and this is going to be
my first remote control droid because I'menvious of all my friends who can,
as I quote, sit back andpuppet from Afar in a nice chair.
I don't know what that's like.For me. Puppetry is a workout and
(50:58):
a lot of effort. But whatI'm interested in doing is I'm calling him
Beat six and it's going to bea beady unit that is bolted standing on
top of a MSc six mousetroid.So I'll have a single controller that will
one joystick drive the mousetroid and onejoystick drive the Beaty's head. And the
(51:22):
goal is that something that can rollaround but still puppet and interact with people.
And I think that could be alot of fun. Nice. I
look forward to seeing this all cometogether. Oh yes, yes, this
is total commitment right here. Justit's definitely gonna happ there first, folks.
(51:43):
I don't know when by Maybe I'llsay by the time Celebration gets back
to California. That sounds like agood a good timetable whenever that may be.
Yeah, cool. Well do youhave anything else to add before we
wrap up this episode? Um no, I've just been still enjoying the laser.
(52:05):
It's really really fun how fast youcan go from prototype idea to done.
I mean it could be a map. I mean I made that map
for my cousin in two days.I made the files in about three hours
on Friday before Christmas, and thenon Saturday, Christmas Eve, I just
(52:27):
did the cut assembly and I justwithout all stuff I had on hand.
But yeah, I just love that. I could. I've I can think
three dimensionally enough to make those filesand spit them out, and you know,
if I make a mistake, it'sMDF, so it's very inexpensive mistake
to make. So Yeah, soI'm definitely going to continue making new ideas
(52:52):
and new things to sell and tocreate and to enjoy. Maybe maybe try
to get more back into some threeD printing pieces as it stands, But
I feel like, you know,as Adam Savage says, every tool is
a hammer when you have a laser, Like everything is a laser project,
(53:14):
and it's like you start to thinkof everything in one eighth inch increments.
But it's not always the best tool, but it is a very fast tool.
Agreed. What about you? Anythingelse for this this new year now?
Now? Just you know, tryingto stay focused, stay motivated,
(53:37):
more podcasting, keep making things,you know, carve out some more time
to actually have conversations like this withwith my friends. And yeah, I
think probably for me, the ideaof like scheduling is going to start to
(54:00):
become more and more important, andyeah, now is as good a time
as any to really try and likecommit to that idea. Yeah, I
bought a big wall calendar one ofthe you know, three ft by two
foot, but it's got every monthon it all at once. And I
mean I have that electronically, butthere's something about seeing it all that access
(54:25):
is a different part of your brain. So hopefully that'll help a little bit
for sure. Well, we thankyou great listeners for sticking with us as
we've worked through our new slightly slowerschedule. We're worth it, but we
are still looking forward to podcasting morein the new year. Who knows,
(54:45):
we might go to monthly or biweekly, no promises, but we know
we'll chat every time we have somethingto say and or even are just catching
up. But we'll probably have somemore guests on because that's always fun to
do every once in a while.Well, thank you for listening to Maker's
method, and as always, keepmaking
Welcome to the nerd Politeam. Welcometo the Maker's Method podcast here on the
Nerd Party Network. I'm your host, Darren Moser aka Doctor sci Fi,
and I'm joined as always by DerekGelling of Vane's Props. And again we're
(00:24):
back. Is that how we're goingto introduce every new episode? Now?
I think I don't. I don'treally know. You know, when we
started this podcast, oh way backin June of twenty twenty one, you
know, we hit some episodes outof the gate. We're doing pretty well
of doing a weekly chauffeur about almosta year, it seemed, and then
(00:50):
life just got really really busy,and now apparently we've been averaging one episode
every two months. So yeah,it's I know, you've have had a
very busy plate. It's been busyall over and while it doesn't you know,
it's still only like an hour aweek, but it's sometimes that's still
all the difference in what there hasto be done, Yeah, for sure,
(01:15):
And I think um trying to tocome up with different things to talk
about that's going to feel like itwould be interesting to people. Probably the
most challenging thing after both of ushave spent a day or weeks doing our
regular jobs, like using all ofour brain power to be super awesome at
(01:38):
those things. And yeah, soyou know, every couple of months,
we uh, we sit down fora few minutes, we catch our breath,
we come up with an idea justbefore we hit record, and like
true good podcasters do. Yeah,yeah, you know, and but I'm
still enjoying you when we are ableto record our discussions. And while we
(02:02):
don't have any plans on stopping,you know, we're not going to quite
commit to an exact schedule since we'rewe're still feeling it out, and that
happens with a lot of podcasts.They evolve, you know, they change.
I think we enjoyed kind of ourtopic of the week format. I
know we were trying to prevent itfrom becoming a what are you working on?
(02:27):
You know episode every single time,but that's often what is interesting to
talk about, and we've had somegreat guests. So yeah, we're just
still just kind of talking about themethod of making and keeping it open and
as ideas come or as ideas go, we'll just keep keep doing what we're
doing. And we've had occasionally peoplewill reach out to us and say,
(02:50):
oh, are you guys recording still? You know, I do enjoy your
episodes when they drop, And Isaid, thank you, Wait another Fortnite
and you might get another one.But but we do appreciate the nice feedback
and we're enjoying it. But there'sthere's no there's no rush. That's right,
that's right. It's the one thingin both of our lives where we
(03:12):
can say there's no rush. Yes, there's We're not waiting for that money
to come in. We're just doingit. If it's fun. It's still
fun. But it's definitely no rush. The no rush, that's the method.
The method is not rushing, whichI'll tell you what, sometimes I
kind of wish that that were,especially with paint. Right, not rushing.
(03:38):
All right, we're going to takea short little detour here before we
get into our actual episode topic.So it is January second. Things are
falling from the sky, Tears arefalling from the sky. It's also raining.
(03:59):
The tears are coming from my face. I forget, as a Angelino,
as someone who lives in Los Angeles, what it is like to paint
when there is humidity and when thereis rain. And today I made like
such an amateur mistake, and Ithought I was being really slick about it.
(04:26):
I was painting a part for anupcoming project video. It was the
last thing on my list to paint, and I knew that I needed to
wait for the weather to be justso. And the forecast for this week
says today is the one day ofthe week that there will be no rain
(04:46):
and it will be a sweltering fiftyfive degrees. Get my short shorts out,
it's gonna be it's gonna be sowarm. And so I waited it
out. The sun was out,I actually saw it and I started painting
metallic on this three D printed piece, and it laid down relatively well.
(05:14):
I didn't have any issues with it. I knew that I was going to
have to kind of bake it ontothe part because it was still so cold
outside and damp, and so Iset up a like makeshift box with some
cardboard and a space heater and didthe whole thing and thought it was going
so well, only like bring thatpart inside many hours later to do a
(05:41):
test fitting, only to notice myfingerprints in the paint. It's like a
cardinal sin. I mean, anyonewho who's worked with metallics. It's a
tricky paint. It takes forever tocure. It seems on the best of
cases. And let me qualify too, it's metallic paints from a rattle can.
(06:04):
Stuff like all Clad and Illuma lustlike those flash off relatively quickly and
can be handled. I mean Imuch faster. I would brag during the
summer to my other maker friends andother parts of the country because summer is
Oh, it's like you go outside, even with a rattle can, even
(06:27):
with metallics, I could paint somethingand it would like flash dry and be
done in like a minute, andit was just so nice. That is
not the time of year we arein right now. No, no,
and they're expecting that Thursday of thisweek will be like monsoon rain from our
area. It's it is, youknow, like God is laughing at my
(06:56):
plans right now. I will eventuallyhave to repaint this piece. I was
able the paint was still soft enoughthat I could kind of brush out my
fingerprints, like I was able torub my finger over the spots with my
fingerprint in it and soft and smoothit out. But then I ended up
(07:18):
catching a corner and peeling off someof the metallic which I'm still a little
confused as to how that even happened. But at this point it was going
too well. It was going toowell. And this particular prop is like
it's a small piece and the partthat is painted with this metallic spray paint
(07:42):
is sort of the largest part ofthe entire build. So for it to
look this way, it's just notgoing to fly. And so now I'm
gonna have to like figure out away to repaint it and get it looking
better. It's a hassle, butthat is definitely one of those cases where
(08:03):
having a little extra time would bereally nice time with good way to have
it. Yeah. Well, yeah, although we will say it seems like
our portion of America has dodged thecollective subzero temperatures that the rest of the
(08:24):
nation has been experiencing. So Imean, we complained, yet it's still
very not too bad. True,true, although I will say this,
So for the holidays, my wifeand I went back east to Vermont,
and when we got there, itwas ten degrees and with the wind chill
(08:45):
was like negative two, but itwas super dry, Whereas in Los Angeles
and most of southern California, rightnow. It's super damp, and so
even though it's like in the fortiesand fifths here, it's it feels colder
to me here at fifty degrees withone hundred percent humidity than it did in
(09:11):
Vermont at like ten degrees and zerohumidity. Was the strangest thing because I
was walking around there in like aT shirt and jeans. Here, I've
got like layers on, you know, I got to wear a beanie if
I'm going outside. It's it's likealmost a little ridiculous because you do hear
(09:31):
about people in other parts of thisof the country that are like, oh
no, it's like legitimately below freezing, possibly even below zero, and we're
like, yeah, it's a's seventyeight degrees on Christmas Day here in Los
Angeles. Yeah, that's that wasour little mini heat wave. I call
it California cold. When it's likefifty or sixty, it's like for us,
(09:54):
that's cold, but for the restof the world that's nothing. Yeah.
Well, we wanted to recap alittle bit about last year, although
we also realized that our last threeepisodes were recap episodes about checkpoints throughout the
year. So Derek, you hada good thought of kind of talking about
(10:16):
some new methods or tools or youknow, applications, different things that we
kind of brought into our making thislast year. So I thought that would
be fun. So I'm gonna letyou go first. Cool. Yeah,
it's it's always interesting to stumble acrossproducts or tools or techniques that are new,
(10:48):
just because you know, everything onthe internet, like it all travels
so quickly, and so you know, it seems like somebody will have an
idea for something and we'll think thatthey're the first person who have come up
with this idea, only to findout that like multiple people have all kind
of had the same idea at thesame time. It's a weird phenomenon,
(11:09):
but it does happen. And sowhen I do actually find something where I
see that not a lot of peopleare talking about it and I'm able to
get my hands on it or tryit and have some successes with it,
I'm always like really amazed. Butso all of that said, the first
(11:31):
thing on my list of tools orproducts that we're extremely handy for me this
year is it's a solvent called IPSwell Done sixteen And if you do a
lot of three D printing, particularlywith filament, the go to tends to
(11:58):
be either like a I've been atepoxy or superglue, and epoxy is messy,
you know, air quotes messy,and superglue can be finicky. I've
(12:20):
found and this solvent, this welldone sixteen is like a weird intersection of
the two. It comes in atube like toothpaste. You spread it on
your three D printed part, youhold it together. It sets up relatively
quickly, but it's like a tougherchemical bond than you would get with epoxy.
(12:52):
Or does it matter if it's PLAversus ABS. Is it like have
to be a specific type of plasticor just a three D print? That
is a thing that I don't knowbecause I typically only print in PLA or
PLA plus. Okay, so weknow at least works for that, but
unsure if it works for other threeD print materials. Yeah, although I
(13:16):
would say, you know, ifyou're if you're working in ABS, then
I would just like make a slurrywith isoperobol alcohol and leftover pieces of filament
and go that route because it's essentiallythe same type of thing, like it's
a chemical bond. But yeah,I'm working on a project for an upcoming
(13:41):
video where I'm making a floor lampwhere the vertical portion of the lamp is
a moisture vaporator from Star Wars obviously, and the lamp shade part is a
R five A droid head, Andso I started printing out parts of the
(14:07):
droid head using Michael Badley's files,and I've been trying to I've had like
a couple of different things where I'vebeen gluing stuff up using superglue, and
it just wasn't kicking as fast evenwith kicker, and the bonds weren't as
good. And I don't know ifit's just because I've kind of left that
(14:28):
jar of superglue out and it's beingimpacted by temperature or exposure to sunlight or
you know, who knows what,but it just isn't working quite as well
as it has in the past,and I was looking for something different,
And in the process of researching thisproject, I stumbled across Happy Trooper's website.
(14:50):
A Happy Trooper is a YouTuber butalso has a blog, and they
made an R five D four unitsome time ago and they had recommended this
well done sixteen and I thought,well, you know what, I'm always
open to try and find new waysto do some of the things that I've
(15:11):
been doing the same way for somany years, and maybe this is like
a better solution, and I amhappy to say it seems to be.
Yeah, I've been seeing some ofyour Instagram posts and as you were working
on pieces of the R five dome, and yeah, it would be fun
(15:33):
to see that all come together.I know a couple makers who have done
the droid frigile a lamp kind ofdesign, and it's always an interesting take
on just mating Star Wars with furniturebasically, which is really cool. Yeah.
Well, I was looking for anotherproject to do after doing that Ikea
(15:56):
calex hack that I did a coupleof years ago, because it was it's
fun to kind of like make normalthings look a little bit more Star Wars
ee. And I've wanted to doa droid project of some kind for a
really long time, and I'd gonethrough the trouble of printing out an R
(16:22):
two dome probably three years ago orsomething like that, and that project got
stalled out and I ended up sellingthe dome to somebody else who I think
eventually turned it into an actual droid. And you know, like, like
I've said in many episodes on thepodcasts, like every week, I'm trying
(16:45):
to come up with a new ideaand do something different, and you know,
the idea of doing something that's likea little bit bigger always feels like
a good idea, like it's goingto be more interesting to see a larger
build rather than a smaller build.And so that kind of led me down
this path. But thankfully it's avery well traveled path, and there's a
(17:11):
lot of information to read over beforeI get myself in a spot where I
can't get myself back out. Yeah, and as a lamp shade, you
know, you're not having to addelectronics or many other things. It's very
cosmetic on the outside. So thatsounds like a great project though, Yeah,
(17:33):
it should be interesting. You know. I'm designing it with the idea
of like it would be essentially likethreading a needle. So I'm building all
of the parts for the moisture evaporatorthat will then kind of slide over the
top of an existing floor lamp.Oh okay, And I end up like
finding somebody on offer up who hada lamp, and after a bunch of
(17:57):
back and forth about you know,how tall is it and what's the bulb
arrangements? You know, what doesall that look like? And they were
like, you know what, I'vehad this thing posted up here for like
four months. I'll just give itto you. You can just have it,
you know. So anytime you cancut down on your costs, it's
a good thing. But so youknow, now I'll basically just be able
(18:21):
to make some parts, print someparts, and then just kind of attach
them to an existing structure. Soit should it should be interesting. No,
I can't wait to see it.That'll be a fun, fun project
for sure. Yeah, fingers crossed. So what's on your list? What
do you What's what's one of yoursfor last year? Yeah, my list
(18:45):
is definitely not going to all betool based. So I'm going to start
with a application that I am goingto hopefully be using a lot more this
next year called pro Movie. It'san iOS app, But what's unique about
it is it has a lot morecontrol and kind of information on the screen
(19:11):
while you're recording. So it's ait's a video recorder, you know.
But the main reason I purchased itwas it allowed me to select different audio
sources, specifically my my earbuds thatI had. I could say, I
just want to use my Bluetooth earbudas a microphone versus the default you know,
(19:37):
built in microphones that are on theiPhone, right, and you know
it's got like audio levels and whitebalance and all those you know, fiddly
controls, iris lock and things likethat. So yeah, so the goal
of that is just if I wantto shoot something and use that as a
quick and dirty microphone, it can. I don't have to, you know,
(20:00):
worry about it using room tone orsomething like that. Sum and you
know, and it's fortunately it wasjust a single buye it wasn't a subscription
model or something like that. SoI have it, and it's it's all
done. And I'm also excited Iwas finally able to upgrade my iPhone,
which we'll be getting here later thisweek, or as I call it,
(20:22):
my movie studio in a box,because that's basically why I'm upgrading. But
yeah, I'm going from a iPhoneseven plus to a fourteen Pro Max,
which is a little bit of aso for comparison, the forward facing camera
of my new iPhone is the samenumber of megapixels as the main rear camera
(20:48):
of my current phone. That's howmuch technology has advanced past me. I
mean, as someone who also justrecently updated their iPhone and who uses it
almost more so as a recording devicethan a phone, I will say it
(21:10):
is worth the spend. Yeah,now I please. With my purchase,
I went with the slightly bigger screen, primarily because because the specs are the
exact same between the Pro and theMax, it's just the screen size.
But I went with a little bitbigger screen primarily because if I'm using it
as a forward facing camera on myself, it's a little more real state to
(21:34):
be able to see what is inthe frame. And and you know,
I mean I just went from aseven to fourteen. So if that doesn't
tell you about my iPhone purchasing habitsand how many more years is going to
be till I replace this one?Yeah, it's worth I think the investment.
And I'm trying to streamline things whereyou know, it's just it's easier,
(22:00):
Not that's easy, but it's justit's, Yeah, it's grabbing a
really nice camera that's going to shootclearly and really quickly, and then I
and I don't know. A partof me wants to kind of try doing
just editing with the phone or it. Maybe if it's quick enough to just
throw it in my computer and getthat faster turnaround. We'll see, We'll
(22:22):
see how that all goes. Yeah, it's reduced the friction, is what
I'm trying to do for sure.For sure. And I'm in the same
boat, you know. I whenI started making videos, I was using
my phone, and then I switchedover to using a dedicated camera like a
DSLR. Yeah, and eventually wentback to using my phone, mainly because
(22:52):
they do a better job at justsort of capturing everything and being a bit
indiscriminate about it all, whereas DSLRsare like, well, you've told me
that this is what you want andthat's the only thing I'm giving you,
right, And yeah, I havea DSLR and I even purchased like a
little monitor and like a microphone.But they're big, they're heavy. I
(23:18):
mean, I got beautiful depth offield shots, which I might I can
still do. It's not like Idon't have it anymore, but it's I
feel the same thing where it's likeI feel like this is what I'm going
to reach for every time, andI can shoot time laps, and I
can shoot SloMo, and I canshoot cinematic or whatever. I mean.
I was messing around with some ofthe iPhones at the Apple store because it's
(23:41):
like, I haven't had held anew iPhone in ages, so it's just
playing with their photo app. I'mlike, oh my gosh, all this.
I was like, well, whathappens if my finger gets in the
way of the lens? And asI purposely moved my finger in front,
it automatically shifted to another camera lensadjusted, which adjusted the depth of field
(24:06):
a tiny bit, but it wasbasically automatically trying to make sure I didn't
put my finger in the in thephoto. And I'm like, that's crazy,
but I mean it's great, butit's I didn't even know it did
that. Yeah, they definitely they'vegot some tricks up their sleeve, that's
for sure. So that's that's myfirst new new thing of the year that
(24:30):
I have used once or twice.I wanted to record a quick video and
get it online of a process Idid on a three D map, and
I'm like, okay, if Ijust shoot this right now, literally just
filming my screen and filming myself andgetting it done, because if I don't
do it right now and get itdone and post it to this community,
(24:53):
then I'm never gonna do it.Like it's just gonna have to move on
to the next thing. So Idon't care that it as an ev music.
It's not that type of video.It's literally just a hey, someone
asked how I did it, andI'm going to take eleven minutes and explain
it and then move on. Andthat that app let me use my built
(25:14):
in or my earbud, which Ithink was a better my quality. Nice.
So the second thing on my listeverything is a tool or product,
I should say, but the secondone is something that I didn't think would
(25:37):
be as useful, and now thatI have them, I kind of kick
myself for not getting them sooner.And that is a little tiny one inch
spring clamps. Like we've all gotthe pot. You can never have too
(25:59):
many clamps, right, and there'slike, you know, there's all different
kinds and whatnot. But I endedup finding these ones that like the mouth
on them is only about an inchor so fully open, and so for
a very small word, very small, and the clamps themselves I think are
only two inches in at their longestdimension. But I'll tell you what,
(26:25):
when you've got like a weird threeD print or something that you're trying to
piece together and you can't put afull sized spring clamp in there, and
you know you need something that's likesmaller than a clothespin, it's a great
option. I am. I'm alwayssurprised when something's so sort of simple becomes
(26:52):
such a favorite thing. But whenyou when you're printing in a lot of
pieces and you need to make surethat things are staying where they're supposed to
stay, having the right tool forthe job really does make all the difference.
And this is one of those things. It's like a small spend for
something that is extremely helpful. Yeah, I have a couple of small clamps
(27:19):
like that. I think I gotthem when I was working on the desk
star doors and needed you know alot of coverage. But I need I
think I need to pull them outagain because I found sometimes when I'm clamping
my acrylic pieces together, the forceon the clamp that I have is too
strong, and so it'll almost startto shift it and slide it because the
(27:41):
glue hasn't set yet or set enoughto prevent that. So I need just
enough to add a little bit ofpositive pressure, but not enough where it
is almost rearranging it as it dries, because that would not be good.
Yeah, yeah, it's It isone of those dumb things where, you
know, people always say, canyou ever have? Is there such a
(28:03):
thing as too many clamps? Andthe answer is always going to be no,
because no matter how many you have, you're always going to need one
more. So they'll get yourself somesmall clamps people, Yeah, or like
Harbor Freight, you know, byI think that's what I did. I
went to Harbor Freight and got alike a box of you know, two
and like they were like a buckor two each. So they're very very
(28:26):
cheap, and I'm sure they'll breakeventually, but they'll do their job for
long enough well, and honestly,based on the kind of stuff that you
and I both make, at somepoint, you're going to get some kind
of glue or something on them pageas well as they did when you first
(28:48):
got them. And so, youknow, while the idea of something being
disposable in that way isn't great,it's negligible. It definitely feels better when
you're like, well, you know, I got it Harbor Freight and I
got this box at twenty for threeninety nine, right, Well, yeah,
well that kind of goes into mysecond choice. And this was kind
(29:12):
of a new packaging method that Idid. So semi recently, I've had
a couple of my items that I'veshipped from my Etsy store not quite make
it in transit, and I takefull responsibility on that. It was I
was kind of getting by with goodenough in my packaging, but these,
(29:34):
you know, there's still acrylic piecesand they're still glue involved, and you
know, I can't control the lastten feet or whatever GPS does to get
it there. But I'm like,okay, well, how how am I
going to rectify this? And soI have a couple of sheets of you
know, I think it's half inch, yeah, twelve millimeter half inch floormat
(29:57):
foam, and I can put thatin the glow forge and it cuts it
really well. I have settings alreadyprogrammed in my favorites for eleven millimeter foam
for cutting and scoring, and soI took my vector files and whipped up
some inserts for the types of boxesthat I shipped things out of and now
(30:19):
I'm gonna always ship these things outin with custom inserts that hold each piece
in place inside the box. Andyou know, there'll still be a little
bit of bubble wrap thrown in there, but I think that should go a
long way from the kind of shocktrauma that could happen if the box gets
(30:40):
hit or falls. Yeah, andI think the thing is I had to
find a way of like, well, how can I do this, you
know, cheaply so it's not increasingmy shipping a lot, but also you
know quickly where I can just throwone of this pieces of foam in the
glow forge. It'll cut in aminute, and I can if I want
(31:00):
to put a little contact of menand glue it to the bottom of the
box, I can, but they'rethey're tight enough that it fits in there.
Um. But it also, youknow, it's it's all winning all
around because it looks better, youknow, I'm sure when they open the
box, it looks more custom andfinished. And it also means I have
less product I have to resend for, you know, due to due to
(31:23):
damage. Sure, now this isn'ton my list, although it could be,
but we've decided that we would onlydo three things, but it does
sort of fit right in with whatyou're talking about. Um. I h
a buddy of mine and fellow makerNick Walters from Walter's Works, was talking
(31:48):
about using water activated tape basically likethe same type of tape that your Amazon
boxes come wrapped with, right theycome out of the machine. It goes
over a thing and it activates theglue and exactly once you put it on
at Bonds. Yeah, And he'dlike bought some of his tape and was
(32:09):
using it on his packaging, andI'd just recently been like advertised about it
again, and so it was backon my radar and I'd finally decided to
give it a try after hearing thathe'd had, you know, some pretty
good success using it. And letme tell you someone who ships things out
(32:29):
pretty regularly, it's the process takesa little bit longer just because it's like
a little tricky. But I willsay cutting down on the amount of packing
tape, like the clear cello packingtape, has been really nice and I
(32:50):
feel like when the boxes go outthat the tape is not going to come
off of them, Like I havehad the occasion to feel when I've shipped
stuff out with regular clear packing tape. So yeah, when I took the
plunge, not for tape, butfor a thermal printer for the labels,
that paid for itself. I meanthe ease and convenience, because I think
(33:15):
I was printing it on normal paperand I was manually cutting out the label
and then laminating it with packing tapeonto the And now it's just hitting the
button making sure it's set in theright dimensions, and it's right next to
my computer. It spits it out, I slap it on the box,
and it's so so much more convenient. Yeah. Yeah, those two things
(33:38):
are big improvements if you're doing anytype of like I have never had one
of those moments, which I don'tknow exactly what moment creates that effect where
someone will have like an Etsy storeand they're like, oh, today was
such a good day, and yousee the machine and it's literally just like
(34:00):
getting out labels, and I'm like, did you do print? Is there
a print all option? I don'tknow about, and maybe there is,
but I'm like that would be crazybecause then I have to find the right
label, like I'm only printing ituntil when I met the exact step to
put the box together and put iton the dunpile. Like, I don't
(34:21):
think my brain would function if Ihit a button and it spat out twenty
labels and then I had to keepand get them straight. That's how things
get shipped to the wrong place.Yeah, it's it's a whole thing.
I can show you where it's allat once we get done recording, But
I'm with you. I do everythingsort of piecemeal, like once that item
(34:43):
is ready to go, Yeah,that label is getting printed unless it's something
where I can batch things out.And I was gonna say batching like,
okay, if there's twenty of these, this one item, and it's going
to be the same for every singleone of these labels, So it doesn't
matter which label ends up where.That's the only case I can think of
that that and drive me nuts.Yeah, it's a whole thing, all
(35:04):
right. So that was my secondWhat about your third favorite of twenty two?
My third? Um so uh sponsorfor my channel. Duramic three D
is a filament company, and theyrecently sent me a roll of PLA plus.
(35:29):
Now, for as long as I'vebeen three three D printing I've just
been using standard PLA. I tendto not use much else. You know,
I think I've done like a rollof PTG, But generally speaking,
I just go with what's easiest.And I will say that the marketing materials
(35:50):
that you see from from any ofthese filament manufacturers seems to be pretty accurate.
It is a good middle ground betweensomething like ABS and PLA, and
that it's super easy to run throughyour machine. It's not as finicky with
temperature like ABS can be. UM, it's sands pretty nicely UM and seems
(36:17):
to be extremely durable UM and uh. And so I think at this point,
I feel like it's safe to saythat I will probably not be buying
just standard PLA anymore, and we'llswitch over to, you know, using
PLA plus for for the bulk ofthe things that I print, just because
(36:38):
of um, how much nicer theuh, the quality and UM and all
that is for for the parts thatI'm printing with it. Yeah, I
actually have a role of PLA plus. I haven't even taken it out of
the sealed bag yet because I haven'thad the time to recalibrate my printer.
(37:02):
But yeah, I did the samething where I kind of I was like,
Okay, you know, it's alittle bit more expensive than PLA,
but I was like, I wantedto try it and see if it was
better. And because I need todo some serious dialing in my parts are
not adhering together the layers as wellas they should, and so I know
(37:24):
I should have a more stable printcoming out. So but again, it's
just having the moment to do allof that and put all that together.
Yeah, three D printing is oneof those things where when your machine is
doing well, it's great, youcan almost ignore it. When it is
not doing well, it's like youhave to babysit every single thing. So
(37:51):
I have definitely been in your position. But yeah, I would totally give
the PLA plus a go. Idon't know that it will solve your problems,
but I will say that I've justgenerally been much happier with the pieces
that I've gotten out of my machineusing PLA plus. Well, for my
(38:12):
third favorite of twenty two, I'mdoing an entire convention because why not,
So I'd say, I mean,obviously I could say celebration, but celebration
comes but once every once in awhile. But Silicon the maker centric convention
in the San Jose area was somuch fun to attend. It is really
(38:38):
it's it's close enough that I coulddrive to, you know, and dedicate
a day or two to visit.I mean, I've always said I'd like
to get up to like Emerald Cityor Rose City up in the Pacific Northwest,
but that'd be a bit of driving. So yeah, I had a
great time, and I just wentfor one day on Sunday. But I
(39:00):
can see myself putting this on myto go list every year and making a
weekend of it, and you know, bringing the droids along and have it
a really good time. So Ican't wait. I don't know. They
haven't announced the dates for this year. For twenty twenty three, I did
get a survey from last year sayinglike, hey, what did you like?
(39:23):
What did you not like? Andthey listed a couple of different options
for like would you attend if itwas on these days? And I think
some were like late August and somewere like early September. And it also
set another convention center that's near tothe one it was at, saying like
(39:44):
would you attend if it was here? So I'm getting the sense that they're
kind of feeling out where it's goingto be. Usually, when things are
a little more stable, you kindof announced the next year when the first
year is done. And not thatthis is a new con it's been around
for a while, but um,this was kind of the first year they've
been back since the pandemic, Sothey're kind of ramping up and maybe they're
(40:07):
growing because maybe they need more space. That could always be be good.
But yeah, I'm definitely wherever itis, it'll be in that area generally,
in that time of year generally.But um, I definitely am looking
forward to to go into that thisyear, which means I gotta get stuff
done. I gotta I gotta finishthis. Yeah, I mean, I'm
(40:27):
pretty sure that K twosos and piecesbehind you. I Mean he's missing an
arm and his hip is just dislocated. But that's that's nothing. That's it's
finey walk it off. Nope,me, you literally can't. That's the
that's the problem. Um Yeah,I know. And and another thing we
wanted to kind of touch on wassome of our plans for this upcoming year
(40:52):
twenty twenty three. You know,because we always stick to our plans,
we always hit every single one rightnow, that tailed it now every time,
every time, that's every maker alwayshits their plans. But no,
it's I think it's still good tohave goals for the new year and kind
(41:13):
of take stock and measure. Maybethis will be the year that I start
that YouTube channel I keep talking aboutfor the last several years. But step
one was getting the new iPhone,So that'll be that's going in the right
direction. Yeah, I mean,look, progress is a step forward and
(41:36):
at least it's not a step back, true, But Pete, Yeah,
but now I had a few thingson my list, two things for the
store and two things for kind ofdroids. I'll go through through my list
first and I'll let you pull thecurtain back on Van Oaks Props Incorporated,
(41:58):
LLC DMD. So, yeah,so some of the things I'm wanting to
add to the Etsy store. Thestocking stuffer planks did really well, and
so develop some new ones of those, but also kind of branch that off
into some sort of like party favorthat could be customized for a kid.
(42:20):
It's the same thing where it's apiece of MDF and you pop out the
models and assemble them, but it'smore marketed for like parties or party favors.
So you could buy a batch andthen here's a fun gift you could
give to your guests as they leave, And I think that could be That
could be fun if it finds theright crowd. And then I'm also going
(42:46):
to probably start a second Etsy storebecause from what I've been able to glean,
if you're if you're going with somethingspecific, it sometimes better to have
its own kind of store that peoplewill come across and be like, oh,
well, you sell X, whichmeans I'm kind of expecting that you're
(43:09):
good at X, versus oh,I'm a generalist and here's eighty things that
are all under the same banner.It's kind of how you're perceived, is
what I'm going for. But atChristmas time, I made a five layer
MDF and acrylic map of my cousin'siron Man race and he was really he
(43:31):
really liked that, and it gotme thinking that, you know, obviously,
you know iron Man is is atrademark name and logo, but but
a race and a path and acity and a time and a BIB number
are all just data. So I'mplanning to make a handful of different maps
(43:55):
and different you know that could becustomized for racers, you know, the
races of themselves could buy them tocommemorate their race, or a friend or
relative could give it as a gift. Have a little spot for the metal
to slide in and display. AndI think I think there's a market for
it. I haven't seen anything specificallylike that out there, but it could
(44:17):
be another silo of laser cut items, which I think could be good since
I don't want to keep everything inthe semi star Trek bucket in case that
goes away, because you never know. Well, my list is a bit
(44:42):
more abstract, I guess you couldsay. I think, well, I
will say this because I'm pretty surethat anyone that listens to this podcast will
relate to it. I really wantto try and finish up a lot of
the like personal projects I started lastyear or the year before, mainly because
(45:07):
I'm sort of tired of looking atthe graveyard of unfinished product or projects.
You need room for that lamp,you got to clean it out. I
do. So that's kind of towardsthe top of the list, But generally
speaking, I want to get betterat what I do. I want to
(45:28):
get better at making videos. Iwant to get better at being sort of
a educational storyteller, which I thinkis a slightly different approach to how I've
been doing videos for the past coupleof years. They've been more so about
sort of the you know, here'sall of the steps that you need,
(45:49):
and I feel like how too,versus a story. Yeah, and I
feel like, you know story.I think people kind of make an assumption
based off the word story, ButI think the way that I'm thinking about
it in my head is that Idon't just want to tell you what the
steps are. I want to tellyou why the steps are important, or
(46:13):
how I got to the decision thatthis was the right step for this particular
project. And I think that islike, that's the kind of stuff that's
always been interesting to me, andit's never something that I've conveyed to people
who watch my videos, because I'vealways kind of had one eye on the
(46:34):
clock because I didn't want to makea twenty minute video when I knew it
could be done in five. ButI think the sweet spot is to maybe
spend an extra minute or two andto kind of fill in some of those
blank spots to say, like youknow, I'm not just telling you to
do this because this is the onlyway that it can be done, but
(46:55):
to say that, you know,I'm doing this because of the following reasons.
I think helps helps us all tohave a better understanding of how things
are made. And you know,the decision making process of being a maker
and taking on a project I thinkwill always be interesting to people. Yeah,
(47:19):
I mean, I get what youmean by story. I think a
better word would almost be journey.You're telling the journey of the project and
yourself as a maker in that project. Yeah. And then you know,
the only other thing, and thisis you know, always kind of subject
to change. But I kind oflike the idea of taking on maybe some
(47:43):
larger scale projects. You know,this lamp is definitely the biggest thing that
I've made since doing the New Orleansstyle crypt back in Hollywood. I mean
larger as in like volume, orlarger as in like amount of time it
takes to make, or both.It might be both. You know,
(48:04):
I've had a couple of projects thathave been like multiple parts that I I
wouldn't want to watch an hour ofsomebody trying to make something, but I
would watch you know, five tenminute videos. But I kind of also
(48:25):
liked the idea of doing something ofa bigger scale. You know, we
kind of talked about doing the IkeaBookcase Star Wars Hack thing a while back,
and that was like a larger thing, and it was just a lot,
a lot of fun to to dosomething that was not like a little
(48:46):
hero prop or a small detail thatyou know, only somebody like me would
really be into. So yeah,I think I kind of want to do
something bigger, either in format orin the scale of the project. Um.
(49:07):
So, no, those are good. Those are good goals. Uh
maybe get to fifty thousand uh subscriberson on YouTube or is it is it
forty we're almost hitting Oh no,it's it's fifty. It's fifty. We're
right around the corner, everybody,but so close. Stop telling your friends
about it now. Yeah. No. And and for me, you know,
(49:30):
besides the store goals, um,you know, I feel like the
Broken Record, like K two,so upgrades. It's like there's always upgrades.
And I've even had some people saylike why are you are you like
letting feature creep And I'm like,maybe maybe not. It's more I it's
(49:51):
a he's almost he's I think he'salmost six. Like he's I've had this,
you know, project for a longtime, and he'll always be around
and always be making upgrade. AndI think, like most upgrades, it's
just kind of having a deadline havinglike obviously for me, it's like silicon,
So okay, that gives me xamount of months to do some of
the updates that I want to doto help bring more of the character out.
(50:15):
And yeah, so it's just prioritizing, you know, It's he's always
been. There's a bit of prioritizingin some upgrades that were for celebration last
year, and there'll be some morefor this year. And and then I'm
you know, because you can't haveone project, could have multiple. I
(50:35):
do want to start on a newdroid, and this is going to be
my first remote control droid because I'menvious of all my friends who can,
as I quote, sit back andpuppet from Afar in a nice chair.
I don't know what that's like.For me. Puppetry is a workout and
(50:58):
a lot of effort. But whatI'm interested in doing is I'm calling him
Beat six and it's going to bea beady unit that is bolted standing on
top of a MSc six mousetroid.So I'll have a single controller that will
one joystick drive the mousetroid and onejoystick drive the Beaty's head. And the
(51:22):
goal is that something that can rollaround but still puppet and interact with people.
And I think that could be alot of fun. Nice. I
look forward to seeing this all cometogether. Oh yes, yes, this
is total commitment right here. Justit's definitely gonna happ there first, folks.
(51:43):
I don't know when by Maybe I'llsay by the time Celebration gets back
to California. That sounds like agood a good timetable whenever that may be.
Yeah, cool. Well do youhave anything else to add before we
wrap up this episode? Um no, I've just been still enjoying the laser.
(52:05):
It's really really fun how fast youcan go from prototype idea to done.
I mean it could be a map. I mean I made that map
for my cousin in two days.I made the files in about three hours
on Friday before Christmas, and thenon Saturday, Christmas Eve, I just
(52:27):
did the cut assembly and I justwithout all stuff I had on hand.
But yeah, I just love that. I could. I've I can think
three dimensionally enough to make those filesand spit them out, and you know,
if I make a mistake, it'sMDF, so it's very inexpensive mistake
to make. So Yeah, soI'm definitely going to continue making new ideas
(52:52):
and new things to sell and tocreate and to enjoy. Maybe maybe try
to get more back into some threeD printing pieces as it stands, But
I feel like, you know,as Adam Savage says, every tool is
a hammer when you have a laser, Like everything is a laser project,
(53:14):
and it's like you start to thinkof everything in one eighth inch increments.
But it's not always the best tool, but it is a very fast tool.
Agreed. What about you? Anythingelse for this this new year now?
Now? Just you know, tryingto stay focused, stay motivated,
(53:37):
more podcasting, keep making things,you know, carve out some more time
to actually have conversations like this withwith my friends. And yeah, I
think probably for me, the ideaof like scheduling is going to start to
(54:00):
become more and more important, andyeah, now is as good a time
as any to really try and likecommit to that idea. Yeah, I
bought a big wall calendar one ofthe you know, three ft by two
foot, but it's got every monthon it all at once. And I
mean I have that electronically, butthere's something about seeing it all that access
(54:25):
is a different part of your brain. So hopefully that'll help a little bit
for sure. Well, we thankyou great listeners for sticking with us as
we've worked through our new slightly slowerschedule. We're worth it, but we
are still looking forward to podcasting morein the new year. Who knows,
(54:45):
we might go to monthly or biweekly, no promises, but we know
we'll chat every time we have somethingto say and or even are just catching
up. But we'll probably have somemore guests on because that's always fun to
do every once in a while.Well, thank you for listening to Maker's
method, and as always, keepmaking
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