Knitting can be quite fun and somewhat low cost if you don't get influenced too much. But ask any knitter about their stash and you'll discover we're all hoarders who will not hesitate to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a single skein of hand died yarn (in the ugliest colours) that most likely will end up in the stash and never get knitted. Tools are the same. Why settle for a very basic and fully functional set of needles when you can get the most expensive one?
If you know a knitter, just know they are most likely sitting on a small fortune worth of yarn and tools.
For sure. But there are ways to make it more affordable and sustainable. Seconds, OOAKs, estate sales, unravelling thrift finds, etc. If I was listening to all the yarn shops and designers I follow, I would have a collection of 250$ sweaters! (I'm not saying I don't have any mind you...)
This is a highly contagious problem, and it effects those who crochet as well. I uh, got the bug and made this yard winder from scratch for my girlfriend lol. I use it too, when I get nice yarn in hanks, but it was wildly unnecessary.
I have electronically actuated (as opposed to cable actuated) gear shifting on my bike. It's becoming way more common these days, though...but still, it's a pretty expensive piece of kit for quite marginal gains.
Front and rear derailleurs are servo controlled. These connect to a central unit that also has the shifters connected to it. This central unit can communicate with a bike computer (via ant+) to show gearing.
In addition, you can set it up so that when you shift the front derailleur, it automatically moves the rear derailler. You might want to do this in order to keep roughly the same gear ratio when changing chainrings. Or, there is a mode where you just shift up and down, and the system manages the shift for you, shifting either (or both) derailleurs, simulating a 1x drivetrain.
All of the popular group sets have a version of this: shimano, sram, and campagnolo.
It’s rechargeable battery powered. The front derailleur takes more power to do its thing, so when power is low, the system automatically drops you into the small chainring and disables the front shifting. The idea is that this will get you home relatively comfortably since you still have the full range of your cassette.
Still…a full charge lasts me many weeks of riding, and I ride quite a lot…about 10-15 hours a week.
Also, I’m describing shimano’s version of electronic shifting, where everything is connected physically via electric cables, so there’s one battery (mine is hidden in the seatpost). Sram’s offering has every component (derailleurs, shifters) communicating wirelessly and every piece has its own battery.
WTF, first I'm hearing of this. Sounds really expensive. Is this a road bike thing? Sounds like a road bike thing, I can't imagine the mountain bikers wanting something like that.
It's becoming pretty standard on the 'mid tier' specced mountain bikes. Anything with sram axs in the name. With that said the mid tier for mountain bikes jumped from 3-4k to 5-6k usd over the past few years.
Oh wow, when I was still biking actively, dropper seat posts were only becoming mainstream; shows you how long I've not ridden. And now there are electronic ones!
Nothing wrong with that. There’s something to be said for going with simplicity. Way easier to fix if something goes wrong. If I was doing some really hardcore touring through remote areas, I would definitely favor friction shifters for this reason.
For most power-tool woodworkers, it's a heavy cast-iron table saw. Versatile, accurate, stable, repairable, adjustable, and powerful. Hand tool folks may not have one at all, or maybe just a little jobsite thing to rip big boards, and there's a few people who think differently and either use a tracksaw or build up a custom work table with something smaller as its core, but the vast majority of people who are "into" woodworking will have a cast iron table saw in good repair.
If you've already got some permanent floorspace dedicated, a cast-iron top Ridgid or Delta won't take up much more at all and the current versions are basically clones of each other, down to their integrated casters. If you're having to put the thing away as an actual benchtop tool, then yeah, something is a million times better than nothing, no doubt.
I have the job site saw... Setting up the roller stands to handle big rips is a pain. But if I find the space to build it into a proper outfeed table, I think it could be about 85% of the cast iron saw.
Yeah, going from no saw to yes saw is obviously the biggest move. Beyond that, going from an aluminum table jobsite saw to a beat-up but cast-iron "motor-hanger" import contractor saw (I spruced it up and added a fence roughly equivalent to the ones that came on the Ridgid R4512) was a bigger jump than when I was using the makerspace's big 3hp and 5hp cabinet saws with Biesemeyers. For me, that first jump from jobsite to contractor is the move where the value-add is worth it and you're not too deep into diminishing returns.
I'm currently on the spiritual successor (and possibly literal, depending on which factory in Taiwan they came from) of my "project" saw, a Sawstop Contractor saw. I think it's the only one on the market that still has an outrigger motor, but I see no need to spend the money to upgrade any farther. The weight, the ability to adjust back into square, the induction motor (versus universal), the standard 27" depth and 3/4" miter slots, and the ease of adding supprt and fence capacity. Even staying out of the Sawstop argument, you get all of that with the jump to a Delta 36-725, or even an old Craftsman 113 (with SOME sort of upgraded fence).
I’ve currently got two vintage contractor saws sitting in my garage: a Craftsman 113 and a Powermatic 63. Both have beautiful cast iron tops and both have misaligned blades that I’ve spent hours trying to fix. I have PALS installed on both and for the life of me I can’t get the trunnion aligned properly. (Yes, this is a cry for help. plz help)
A really nice laminar flow hood for mycology. It basically provides a clean area so you can work with agar without worrying about introducing contamination or stuff you don't want. You can make a basic version for around $100 (or a still air box if you can't afford one), but a really nice hood is somewhere in the ballpark of $500-1000 for what is essentially a fan with a Very good hepa filter.
CRT monitors: the Intergraph Interview 28HD96, informally known as the "Carmacktron" (see picture)
A true 16:9 aspect ratio PC CRT monitor with a maximum output of 2042x1152 @ 80Hz. Not the highest horizontal frequency out there but an absolute monster in 1995.
Heheh. the others in my office made fun of me when I convinced the IT people that I needed a GMMK (full) frame with kahlil jade switches. I got my sweet sweet revenge by typing at something like 100 words per minute... it's not an open office but it doesn't matter...
although, they've since asked for 'accessibility' upgrades to theirs as well...
I feel that. I'm using an old Cougar mechanical keyboard for work still, just because it has the key feel I want. Other features are nice but if I don't get that clacky sensation I just can't write code.
Got the dygma raise last year with silent pinks and the tenting. It was a massive game changer. Of course now I’m thinking of diving into the 30% ergo keyboards and that looks like a deep rabbit hole
I'm into 3D printing, so for me right now the piece of kit I'm drooling over is the X1 Carbon by Bambu Lab. It has a lot of fancy features but what I most want is the 16-color mixer. It would be great because it would significantly reduce the painting overhead. I'm hoping to have it before the end of the year, if there's not something fancier out by then.
I'm patiently waiting for the cash free for the P1P and AMS. More colours would be cool but just being able to use a couple of different filaments without manually changing them will be wild.
A good quality micrometer. Some will go for the classic Starett, others will get a modern digital Mitutoyo. Doesn't matter if it's a lathe or mill guy, CNC or manual. Any decent machinist will have their mic.
Not all of my metrology equipment makes it back in the tool chest every time I'm done, but my Brown & Sharpe digit mics? My Starrett No. 220? My Federal indicating micrometer? Those never see a second out of their case that they don't need to see.
Windsor and Newton Series 7s were my first expensive brushes. I'm rocking Raphael 8404s right now though and I've been a lot happier.
I'd say that the Harder Steinbeck Infinity series are probably the "you've made it" of mini painting with lots of little tweaks and QoL features, but my Iwata Eclipse has been a perfect work horse for me and may be a "pinnacle" for mini painting as far as overall value.
Not sure you've made it over there yet, but feel free to join us on https://kbin.social/m/minipainting. Always love to see more work over there!
I'll see if I can't get a good shot of something with my old camera to share over there.
Ironically my next big purchase will be a new SLR. Taking pictures or videos of minis to share is as big of a rabbit hole as painting them in the first place.
It moves water. Not anywhere in particular, just makes it move within the tank. It does this job quite well. It sounds ridiculous when you try to explain it to anyone that's not part of the hobby.
my mom had one growing up. the person we got it from had a maroon clownfish that was full size. it would sometimes attack when my mom was doing stuff in the tank and even drew blood. she ended up trading it in to the dealer she bought stuff from and he put it in his display tank. youd think with now much she spent on the thing wed have had a generator of some kind but nope. i even suggested it. it sucked having to clean the tank after losing power for a week from a hurricane or winter storm.
If you like working on old Japanese motorcycles with carburetors, you really really want to have a JIS screwdriver. A Phillips will "work" ... but it'll tend to want to cam out of the bolt head, stripping it, especially if the bolts are corroded in place after 40 years. A proper JIS screwdriver has a different bit profile, designed for use with those bolts.
"So just get one, how hard can that be?" I hear you asking. A real, quality JIS screwdriver is expensive, at least in the States. And the cheap ones are often not actually JIS screwdrivers at all. Another option is replacing JIS bolts with allen head bolts, this is very common. But if you are a stickler for keeping things as original as possible ... it's got to be JIS.
For guitarists you have either the 100% analog guys that can spend tens of thousands on a collection of amps, or the ones that went more digital with modelers. The big ones being the Kemper, Fractal, Nueral DSP and Line 6. I have the Quad Cortex and it's a killer, thought I wish the rate of updates was a little faster.
I like to split the difference and use one of those nutube amps, I got a voxmv50 AC and it works very well for what I do. Tube purists will stick their noses up, modeling people will gawk at the lack of features, but for someone who doesn't even use reverb or delay it's perfect. (Plus it weighs nothing!)
If it sounds good, I’m into it. I’ve seen really, really expensive amps sound horrible, and relatively cheap ones sound great. But pretty universally, I prefer tubes amps sound.
Been into computer hardware for not very long and got dragged into the Small Form Factor PC space immediately.
The pinnacle for me for a while what getting recent hardware into a PC case as small as a shoebox
I've started with PCs as small as 20L and now have my PC in a case less that 10L. The urge to go smaller while maintaining the same amount of power is hard to resist.
There are others doing full custom watercooling loops in PCs smaller than mine but that is a whole other rabbit hole i don't think i am ready for.
In your experienced opinion, what's a good horizontal sff case that can fit in an area around the size of an old Xbox One? I want to build a pc for the tv and the media cabinet it's on has spaces that comfortably fit consoles.
I do gunpla building, and the one thing you see most builders, regardless of level, immediately want to go for, is a pair of good single-bladed nippers. Usually the holy grail are the God Hand japanese brand nippers, as they perform a very clean and close cut to remove the plastic nubs off the parts, but other less expensive options exist. Sure, there are many different ways to deal with the plastic nubs that stay when you cut off a part from the runner, but the one tool almost everyone goes for, are those nippers. Usually, to the point of keeping two pairs, one to clip parts off the runner, and one just to cut off the nubs.
What kits would you say are the most satisfying to put together? I'm new, I've built a few, and love the hobby (though I've barely seen any of the show).
Well, I have mostly built just HG kits so far, but they're all so much fun to put together I can't really pick one. I think I'm gonna go with the Origin Zaku II, and the Moon Gundam.
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