Wheelhouse #9

Broken Plastics, Diffraction Grating, And Deli Cups

Wheelhouse is a newsletter for makers that covers new materials, techniques, and tools.

Repairing Broken Plastic Parts

It turns out that Cyanoacrylate glue hardens suddenly when exposed to baking soda. This has been used to great effect in the hobby model world to fix and patch tiny parts. It can also be used to great effect to repair broken tabs and parts on vintage computers. Tech Tangents gives a great tutorial on several different ways to fix things.

Printing on Diffraction Grating

Diffraction grating is a plastic sheet with an extremely fine triangular pattern etched into the surface that causes light to diffract into rainbows. When used as a build surface for a 3D printer, the new parts will pick up the triangular pattern and have the rainbow effect.

Deli Cups

Deli Cups are absurdly useful in the workshop. The polypropylene containers resist sticking to almost everything, so they’re great for mixing and storing paints, epoxy, or other messes, as well as soaking things in water or isopropyl alcohol. They are also good for organizing small parts and they stack nicely. If you need smaller sizes, disposable souffle cups are good as well (h/t Lenore).

Join the Wheelhouse Discord

I’ve set up a place over on Discord for makers to show off projects and discuss new tools, techniques, and materials. Join us here!