Preface - Workshop Mastery with Jimmy DiResta: A Guide to Working with Metal, Wood, Plastic, and Leather - Jimmy DiResta, John Baichtal

Workshop Mastery with Jimmy DiResta: A Guide to Working with Metal, Wood, Plastic, and Leather - Jimmy DiResta, John Baichtal (2016)

Preface

Looking back on my career, I’ve encountered many different materials and have learned to use a bunch of tools unique to those materials. Because of this diversity I’ve mostly divided the chapters of this book by material. Let’s go over the projects, tools, and techniques you’ll encounter in the pages ahead:

Chapter 1, The Making of a Maker, introduces me and my background. I’ve worked on a lot of crazy projects over the years.

Chapter 2, Woodshop Mastery, expands your knowledge of woodworking tools and presents four cool projects that make use of those tools: a tool cabinet, a dovetail-joined bench, a toolbox made out of a pallet, and an electric guitar designed to look like an AK-47 assault rifle.

Chapter 3, CNC Projects, switches gears and talks about computer-numerically controlled (CNC) tools, specifically routers. I’ll cover two projects I worked on involving these tools: a dart board enclosure and a wooden sign.

Chapter 4, Working with Metal, switches gears and covers the metal shop, and I’ll comment on the various tools I use for my projects. Then I’ll introduce you to four very different metalworking projects: a box sign cut on a band saw, a machete cut out of a saw blade, a wooden table with aluminum legs shaped on a lathe, and a skull belt buckle made out of cast metal.

Chapter 5, Plastic Projects, describes using styrene, one of my favorite materials with a lot of utility and flexibility. I also show how I built some styrene channel letters, and detail a chess set that I first machined on my lathe in brass, then cast in black and white resin.

Chapter 6, Working with Leather, focuses on the tools and practices of a leatherworker. I show you how I made a sheath for a big knife I forged as well as a leather backpack.

Chapter 7, Building Your Own Tools, concludes the book the best way possible, by describing my love affair with tools. I love playing with tools: using them, of course, but also restoring them and modifying them. I’ll share a number of my favorite tool modifications, then describe five projects showing different approaches toward tool building. The first project shows how to add an aluminum handle to a double-bitted antique axe. I follow that with a lathe-turned mallet, a metal locket with functional keys attached to it, a brass-ringed wooden mallet, and an ice pick that I mass-produced for my online store.

Safari® Books Online

Safari Books Online is an on-demand digital library that delivers expert content in both book and video format from the world’s leading authors in technology and business.

Technology professionals, software developers, web designers, and business and creative professionals use Safari Books Online as their primary resource for research, problem solving, learning, and certification training.

Safari Books Online offers a range of plans and pricing for enterprise, government, education, and individuals.

Members have access to thousands of books, training videos, and prepublication manuscripts in one fully searchable database from publishers like Maker Media, O’Reilly Media, Prentice Hall Professional, Addison-Wesley Professional, Microsoft Press, Sams, Que, Peachpit Press, Focal Press, Cisco Press, John Wiley & Sons, Syngress, Morgan Kaufmann, IBM Redbooks, Packt, Adobe Press, FT Press, Apress, Manning, New Riders, McGraw-Hill, Jones & Bartlett, Course Technology, and hundreds more. For more information about Safari Books Online, please visit us online.

How to Contact Us

Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher:

§ Maker Media, Inc.

§ 1160 Battery Street East, Suite 125

§ San Francisco, CA 94111

§ 877-306-6253 (in the United States or Canada)

§ 707-639-1355 (international or local)

Maker Media unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages. Maker Media celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any Technology to your will. The Maker Media audience continues to be a growing culture and community that believes in bettering ourselves, our environment, our educational system—our entire world. This is much more than an audience, it’s a worldwide movement that Maker Media is leading. We call it the Maker Movement.

For more information about Maker Media, visit us online:

§ Make: and Makezine.com: makezine.com

§ Maker Faire: makerfaire.com

§ Maker Shed: makershed.com

To comment or ask technical questions about this book, send email to bookquestions@oreilly.com.

Acknowledgments

Jimmy DiResta: To my father, Joe DiResta, for giving me tools at a young age, and my mother, Eileen DiResta, for giving me patience to learn how to use them.

John Baichtal: The lion’s share of thanks goes to Jimmy. I enjoyed working on the book with you and learned a ton. Let’s do another one! Special thanks go to Brian Jepson and Roger Stewart for making this book possible. Finally, thanks beyond words go to my wife Elise, mom Barbara, mother-in-law Barbara, and kids Arden, Rose, and Jack for having continually encouraged and inspired me over the years.