Inventions

I really like to make things.  Sometimes I just make things because I have to or I am just interested in how things work.  Here is a gallery of things I have made.

The Tomato Paste Can Mini Stage Lamp.  

I found some old dichroic halogen lamps in a bag near the garbage and discovered that they fit perfectly inside of a tomato paste can.  I used the bottom of a beer can to create a lamp mount and some angle iron I recovered from some renovation garbage, to make a hanging clamp.  I had enough materials to make three!  I only had to buy nuts and bolts which cost me about $3.  I also cut some snap on gel frames out of a beer can.  I found everything, including the gels, near dumpsters and in alleys…the system runs off of a rechargeable 12 volt battery.

Styrofoam Club House

One day my daughter and I found a huge lie of styrofoam so I whipped out my Box cutter and made a small snap together house.

It lasted about a day.  Styrofoam is very messy because it tends to crumble as you play with it, when unpainted.  Painting styrofoam takes time and paint I didn’t have. But if I did, I would have painted it to make it look like an old medieval cottage.

High Chair Design

One day I needed to build my daughter a high chair.

I wanted to make something that didn’t need any nails or screws, so I came up with this design that held itself together and secured it with dove tailing and pegs to stop it from rattling loose.  First I made a cardboard model, to make sure my concept was sound, then I built it out of some plywood I had in the garage using a friends workshop.  My daughter out grew it in a matter of months.

Toothpick Structures

When I was 10 I used to make furniture and buildings out of toothpicks…

When I was 10 I used to make buildings and furniture out of toothpicks and whiteglue.   had to use a special kind toothpick called a “Curedent” because it was triangular shaped and that allowed me to glue them together to create square “planks” of 4, 8 or 16 toothpicks.  It was n elaborate process.  I made this desk and found this section of wall and door.  I used to make it so that the doors would open and close and the locks would function.  By sticking  toothpick inside the chamber of the toothpick lock you could engage a tab that “locked” the door.

The drawers in the desk opened and I made a few chairs in the ‘French Provincial’ style (using the chair at my Dad’s desk as an example)  where I had to sand the toothpicks into dowels to create the back of the chair.