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Make It Yourself

makeityourself.org

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For context since it's not mentioned on the website: This is a project by n-o-d-e[1], they make blog posts and videos about diy tech/mods. This specific project is described in [2].

[1]: https://n-o-d-e.net/

[2]: https://n-o-d-e.net/makeityourself.html

They also have techno-optimistic YouTube channels that I love. There haven't been any new videos for a while, but some of the older ones are worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/@NODEtv/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@MOSFETnet/videos

I think all of the videos have a written version on https://n-o-d-e.net/ for those who prefer that style of content.

Anything on DIY piezoelectric actuators?

Why a PDF? The PDF is just pictures of things that link to an external site (Thingverse, various blogs, etc) where you find the actual instructions. The PDF itself doesn't contain instructions at all - just an index/catalog, really.

Seems like it would be a lot more accessible for a lot of people if it were a set of HTML pages.

I expect that whatever was used to create the PDF could be configured to produce a website...

also on a webpage you would be able to filter it by available tools/knowledge

Or not. Maybe you'd get "infinite scroll". Or some other modern webdev bullshit that's strictly inferior to PDF (or plain HTML) and CTRL+F.

I'm actually surprised by the anti-PDF sentiment here (in general case, not necessarily this book). Modern web is so bad, that almost every day I end up on some page that would be strictly better if it were a PDF. So, to play devil's advocate, PDFs are cool because:

- The links may rot, but they remain, and so does surrounding content. Once you get a PDF, no one can take it away from you.

- It's self-contained. It can easily be transferred between devices and read without an Internet connection.

- It's a file. Yes, it's important to mention because in 2024, files cannot be taken for granted.

- Rich format without spurious dynamics and other web nonsense. Sure, PDFs technically can run arbitrary JavaScript, but hardly any reader supports that.

- Can't track you or spy on you (theoretically it could, in practice, see previous point).

I could come up with a few more. Point being, you could do worse, and modern web quite often is worse.

As for what could be an even better format, my mind is drawn towards CHM[0]. You know, like the help files in old Windows software. A self-contained file built of interlinked HTML pages, complete with index and internal search/xref. Kind of a better EPUB[1].

(Ironically, marketers should actually love PDF - total control over presentation is exactly what they've been trying to gain on the web all these years.)

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Compiled_HTML_Help

[1] - Despite being a decade older.

I guess the sentiment is because

a) it cannot be automatically reflowed

b) it’s a complete mess of a file format with tech deb spanning 30 years

c) the linked ressources info

Everything else is fine with it and apparently lotta folks write plenty of software to read it.

Perhaps epubs (and .mobi etc) come close but they are not universally adopted

I do agree, especially on

- It's self-contained. It can easily be transferred between devices and read without an Internet connection. - It's a file. Yes, it's important to mention because in 2024, files cannot be taken for granted.

(Btw it’s a sad state of affairs that we can less and less own our files)

But I do think in the post here, the issue is that the PDF in itself is pretty useless : it doesn’t contain any information and only links to … websites.

(Btw I wouldn’t criticize this a lot because I’m admirative of the indexation work, it’s pretty cool !)

n-o-d-e publishes most (all?) projects as open source, I'm sure the book sources are/will be available somewhere

Had the same thought - it's also annoying to update the PDF once links die, so I doubt that'll happen often. I guess it might be helpful if you want it as a coffee table book...

While I enjoy the content, I find myself surprisingly annoyed at choice of PDF as the format. It's the worst of both traditional and web publication modes; low accessibility AND low portability

This isn't the first time I've read a comment criticizing PDF, but it is the first time I can recall the Portable Document Format (PDF) being accused of low portability.

Yeah that is ironic regarding both the name, and the fact that it's one of the most viewable formats on any given system.

> most viewable

It is, but the UX trying to read a A4/letter sized PDF document on a phone is absolutely horrible.

This is basically the same reason I think sports cars are horrible... trying to fit a 10 ton roll of steel in the backseat is nearly impossible.

It shouldn't be. 10 tons of steel takes up just about 1,300 litres. That should fit nicely in the back seat. Remember to secure your load.

> Remember to secure your load

I don't know much about steel coils, and I'm hoping that something that fits in your back seat isn't as dangerous as those featured in YouTube videos, but the idea that the primary concern is just strapping the thing down is kinda funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC6pn8n7MeY

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kDGfk-dOjq8

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=steel+coil+unwi...

No one wants to carry a 10 tons rol of steel in a sports car. The majority of people getting a PDF on their phone though, do want to be able to read the information in it easily and they can't.

So no, that's not the same type of complaint

only a4 sized pdf.

You can make a phone-sized PDF and it'll be just fine.

it's not the file format.

And then the experience on a larger screen will be bad.

It is, unless PDF supports reflow?

By design it doesn't. It is a stated goal.

Shouldn't "portable" in the context of a document format mean "comfortably viewable on most systems" rather than "yeah you can view it but it's gonna suck and you'll get eye strain"?

I believe this is called "responsive design", a useful but differentiated concept.

It's pretty cool how PDFs don't typically load resources from an external website or CDN. They are self-contained, and thus demonstrably portable.

Gross analogy: Have you ever been to a multi-day music festival? A port-o-potty in the dark is disgusting, but still somewhat useable compared the alternative of going to the bathroom in public. PDF artifacts are in the same ballpark.

Also, I think I'd personally dislike a "portable document format" that doesn't look identical on all systems. By making it visually identical everywhere, you of course sacrifice comfort on smaller screens by nature. But to me that's an acceptable tradeoff for knowing I'm looking at the document, as it was intended to be displayed. I don't think of PDFs the way I think of websites. My physical papers don't reflow text.

I'd call it low-portability. They're designed for large screens yet they're often viewed on phones where you need to manually zoom in and view each page some tiny portion at a time.

Was at a restaurant with a QR code that led to a PDF if their paper menu. It was horrible. For reference it was the Ralph Lauren Cafe in Omotesando Tokyo.

A pdf should not reflow nor be responsive. Aside from zoom/pan, how else could you possibly interact? I think it works fantastic, like holding a magnifying glass and panning around a surface

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-ac...

Oh wow, that’s awful. ‘Like the web, but on a pdf and done entirely by Adobe.’

That's exactly why they're saying it's "not responsive". It wasn't designed to be, and it's not.

PDF is over 30 years old. I’m pretty sure people had different idea of „portable” back then. It’s still really good for printing…

I'd prefer a static PDF I can pinch, zoom, and move about on my own than some crappy, overwrought, slow, "mobile" website that forces me to jump around to different sections of the menu with links that it *hides* anytime I scroll, which of course I have to because only 3 menu items are going to be able to fit on the screen at a time.

All that, VS a PDF that shows the entire menu that I can navigate spatially, show as much as I want depending on light levels, interest, and screen size, and can all fit in one, static tab.

Of course, the real answer is that electronic menus at sit down restaurants opened with QR codes are trash. Paper never really had these problems unless the restaurant was bad at menu design. I dislike being forced to use my phone at all when I'm out with friends or family for a nice dinner. Growing up, if I used my phone at the dinner table I would've been scolded.

Covid probably had something to do with the PDF menu trend. I think we can go back to printed menus now.

When the PDF is a version of the paper menu, we can understand they only produced one version, and the alternative was no digital version at all (which is the case for an awful lot of restaurant)

If it's PDF or nothing, I'll be glad to take the PDF.

PDFs were born to make real life documents manageable in digital form, that is, letter, legal, A4 etc; nothing that would (and could) have been used on a phone back then. If they don't display properly on a phone I'd say it's on the phone itself. They're not computers usability-wise, not even close: too many compromises with ergonomics, information density and readability fighting against each other in the name of portability. That restaurant had sloppy management/techies, as finding that the .pdf was the wrong size would probably take ten seconds to any of them, the correct the problem by having the QR point to a correctly sized .pdf generated automatically by reading the same db the bigger .pdf was created from. PC sees the link to the bigger one, phone reads the QR containing a link to the mobile one. not hard at all to solve, it's not a .pdf format fault.

Dynamically generating PDFs on the fly based on the user’s screen size sounds downright Kafkaesque. I feel a deep sense of dread any time I have to touch PDF-rendering code. Any halfway decent CMS (or just plain old HTML and CSS) can easily create a good-looking, responsive, accessible webpage with a fraction of the work. Leaning on PDFs in this case is a classic example of, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

The PDF format can’t necessarily be blamed for its inability to be responsive to screen size, but that’s one of several good reasons to discourage the use of PDFs for purely digital documents. Its design is linked to a specific historical context, and it should be limited to that context.

(Of course, I imagine the actual reason for the PDF is that it’s just an export of the InDesign/Photoshop/whatever file that was used to create the original paper menus. There probably is no “database.”)

> Any halfway decent CMS (or just plain old HTML and CSS) can easily create a good-looking, responsive, accessible webpage with a fraction of the work.

Easily? Because it's not a fraction of the work. Let's just assume you mean to use someone else's solution (of the literal thousands, each with their own quirks), to make your bespoke website.

PDFs have a standard. Libraries to resize are not difficult to find. Most people are able to run a PDF through their printer driver for a resize, because it's a solved problem.

I would say creating a job that outputs a bunch of PDFs is going to be easier than a build system for different devices (CMS or not), every time.

Sure, they can render at different resolutions, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a PDF that has a responsive layout. A restaurant website is probably going to use some very user-friendly CMS like Squarespace that can absolutely provide you with easy responsive layouts.

Large screen phone + landscape mode if needed usually works for me.

> low accessibility AND low portability

The two main pain points everyone said PDF had solved for documents, when it was introduced.

A growing horror is how Windows handles them. On a Mac they open and work fine, but on Windows they grind the system to a halt. What’s going on?

This sounds like a good job for a fancy LLM.

”For each entry in this PDF, follow the link and give a structured explanation of how to make the thing."

I don't know if any off-the-shelf tool is capable of that today though.

A picture says more than 1000 words

pdf is a common malware delivery mechanism

Yeah it seems like a wrong choice. It’s useless in any context that cannot be linked back to the actual content. It’s a 220 page printable index.

It's a strange choice to put a PDF with links on a website that contains just links. Why don't put the links on the web site, as the web was invented to be used for? What's the benefit?

Never done it before, but https://cloudconvert.com/pdf-to-html did a very nice job in about a minute

Funny, I have a folder of links of this very stuff: Future rainy day projects. Oh, to have the free time and focus!

Good job on the illustrations and the cultivating of so many projects into one book. I think you've given me a lifetime of weekend projects!

One note: you might want to put 'download' in the link to the PDF, so it downloads instead of showing up in a new browser window, which seems to be your OG design choice: <a href="https://makeityourself.org/MIY.pdf" download target="_blank"><div class="download">Download</div></a>

You mentioned the folder, now please share it! I enjoy these ideas very much.

Nope! Way too big to be shared, and no organization at all. It's embarrassing to show people my messy room!

It’s one of the main reasons I use Notion.so and its extremely flexible “database” pages, I can quickly drop links into them, and expand as-needed with more details.

I use git repos for anything that gets far enough to warrant a folder with files, but only because I tend to swap computers too often to reliably maintain a fixed file directory, but along the way I found that “plain git + files” is a surprisingly effective foundation for a project/knowledge management system.

> One note: you might want to put 'download' in the link to the PDF, so it downloads instead of showing up in a new browser window

I strongly disagree with this suggestion. My browser is my PDF viewer, if I want to actually download the PDF I can do it after the browser renders it.

There are precious few situations where <a download> is appropriate for PDF files. This is certainly not one of them. The user probably wants to view the content, let them handle it however.

The experience of PDFs that insist on triggering a download is sufficiently unpleasant that I use a browser extension <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/no-pdf-downlo...> that removes any `Content-Disposition: attachment` headers, and inserts `Content-Disposition: inline` headers, which in Firefox (but not Chrome, I believe) overrides even an <a download> attribute.

As the button says 'Download', I expect that result - a download. 'View PDF' would be the appropriate button name in your case... He can put two buttons that distinctly describe the resulting actions.

Why isn't this a Web page?

Sidenote: I want to get started with wood working, can anyone recommend a resource?

That's a pretty broad statement. Do you own any woodworking tools? Do you want to make furniture or do you want to make decorative pens on a lathe? How new to it are you?

I started with just a circular saw and a drill (would not now recommend [1]) and bought "handy panels" from the local big box store to make crappy book cases and such. I was very much demonstrating the aesthetic of the School of College-Dorm.

Eventually I got a table saw and started making MAME cabinets, dance pads, etc.

When I eventually started seeking out better quality plywood I began to make things like speaker enclosures (and better looking book cases).

I was getting into woodworking when television was still a thing so Norm Abram's "New Yankee Workshop" on PBS was my inspiration. Not only is a lot of that on YouTube now [2], but so too are hundreds of others uploading videos on woodworking. We live in a rich time when it comes to hobby how-to videos.

I think of YouTube sometimes more as inspiration ... where I want to get to. For example I like Paul Seller's videos [3] where he makes everything more or less with hand tools. Ishitani Furniture [4] is my where I wish I were.

But if videos are not your thing, archive.org is back and their Magazine Rack [5] has plenty of magazines on woodworking. Just look around.

[1] Forget the circular saw unless you're doing hime construction. Opt for an inexpensive "panel saw" instead — and also an 8' sheet of 1-inch-thick insulating foam to put down underneath the wood you'll be cutting on the floor of your basement or driveway.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/@newyankeeworkshop

[3] https://www.youtube.com/@Paul.Sellers

[4] https://www.youtube.com/@ISHITANIFURNITURE

[5] https://archive.org/details/magazine_rack

What are the big differentiators between a circular saw and panel saw? I’m just getting into this stuff myself and have been using a circular saw and a Kreg track/guide system.

I own Kreg's track saw and table. It's great if you're doing a lot of sheet cutting. But if you're just getting started I'd recommend a regular circular saw. You can always clamp a straight board or level to a sheet to simulate a track.

A couple of tips: You'll need a lot of clamps. Don't spend much money on tools until you know what you're going to build. It's really easy to get caught up in precision and having everything cut perfectly. This is important in finish work, but for everyday stuff you don't need to worry about it.

If using hand tools is of any interest to you, I highly recommend the Anarchist's Design Book, Anarchist's Tool Chest. All by Christopher Schwarz and available from his press Lost Art Press. I discovered them via a comment here a few years back. His basic philosophy is woodworking for regular people to make stuff that are going to last and usable. Lost Art Press' website has a lot of book samples and full books in PDF form. It's worth checking out.

Good luck!

I think a Kreg track saw is a better place to start than a circular saw. I think the cleaner, more precise cuts you get with the track saw will help encourage a new woodworker.

What I have is a circular saw (specifically a Skilsaw). There’s a sled that you clamp on for use on the Kreg tracks. When I have it set up like that, is it similar to what I could do with a panel saw?

More or less. A panel saw combined with the track it is intended for will have often have a "zero clearance" strip along the track to prevent a lot of the wood being torn up when cutting. So, nicer cuts.

For me, having the sled "built-in" on a true panel saw makes for a less awkward experience using the tool.

It would be one thing if I went back and forth between using the circular saw and the panel saw but I truly haven't touched my circular saw in maybe ten years now.

It's just a lot of money for someone starting out. If I had to do it over again I wouldn't have purchased it.

You may be right. But a Kreg is on the entry-level end (about $300) and with the price of lumber these days ... $300 is not a big ask.

What do you think about combination squares? They look super useful and the common advice seems to be get a Starrett or maybe a PEC. Less expensive options probably aren’t a better value.

I'm glad you chimed in. I misremembered the price by a wide margin.

A few thoughts:

* Circular saw: a basic hand-held circular saw that can cut through stuff.

* Track saw: the cousin of the circular saw; comes with (essentially) a big metal ruler which the hand-held saw part 'locks' into. This means it can be super-accurate (to a fraction of a mm) and also do very long straight cuts (limited only by the length of your track). Personally, highly-recommended, and can sometimes do work that almost nothing else can, especially if you're working on a larger scale. Can do everything a circular saw can, but a lot more besides, and can cut boards into larger pieces than a table saw can manage.

* Mitre saw: a circular saw on a tilting rotatable arm, that allows you to do precisely-angled repeatable shorter cuts. For example, great for cutting lumber down into lots of shorter lengths for a project, or creating angled cuts for the corner of a frame, or similar. Recommended.

* Table saw (I think this is what you mean by panel saw?): an upside down circular saw sticking up out of a wide flat table, with an adjustable 'fence'. Great for quick efficient repeatable cuts on boards; for example, if you're making a load of shelves, or drawers, and lots of the pieces have the same width, you set your fence once than then push the board through the saw multiple times. Can also do mitre cuts but not as conveniently as a mitre saw. Can also cut 'rabbets' (slots) in wood more easily than most other tools. Recommended.

* Panel Saw: Large rack that can hold an entire sheet of plywood (4x8 or EU size 5x5) Saw runs on a tube/sled that lets you cut up / down on the plywood sheet. To make horizontal cuts the saw is rotated 90 degrees. On some panel saws the entire tube and slide will slide from left to right on the saw. On less expensive panel saws there will be a series of rollers along the bottom that lets a panel roll with the fixed saw making the cut. Most panel saws are mounted to walls. I've seen smaller panel saws that can be rolled around (panel sits at a 30 degree angle)

In my shop I have a track that my circular saw, jig saw and router can use for long pieces. I can break full sheets of plywood down. I use foam board insulation. Either on the floor for breaking down a full sheet, or for smaller pieces I put foamboard on my 3x5' workbench.

I have a Mitre saw that I use for small 8" crosscuts. For bigger crosscuts back to the track.

All of my tools are Dewalt 20v tools so I don't need to wrangle cables. The only think I can't do easily is rip small widths of long pieces.

Ah, thanks for clarifying - I've only ever seen one of those in a hardware store, and never heard of anyone having one in a hobby workshop!

Out of interest, which system do you have which allows a jigsaw and router to use your track?

It's an aftermarket track. I bought it because the track comes in 50 inch pieces that can be connected together. I custom built the three sleds (Circular saw, Jig Saw and Router) to use the track as support. But there isn't anything from stopping you from using the track as a long straight edge and sliding the shoe of all the tools along it. It just takes a little finesse to keep the power tool tight to the slide and not let it wobble off.

The three sleds took about 45 mins to make the first one (fiddle-fiddle-fiddle-some-more-fiddle) and then the other two took about 15 mins each.

Try Steve Ramsey: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBB7sYb14uBtk8UqSQYc9-w

He's got a very nice approachable style (almost the Bob Ross of woodworking?) and has some great beginner videos, including guidance on which tools to prioritise (and deprioritise) at the start of the hobby. He also sells a course with plans for gradually increasingly challenging projects. No affiliation, just watched a lot of his videos when I was first getting started with woodworking.

There are also (as you'd expect) thousands of other Youtubers doing woodwork, too. Steve's just a great starting place.

Join a Makerspace (if you have one near you). Getting started with woodworking can be tough if you don't have the right tools. A makerspace likely gives you access to thousands of dollars worth of tools for the fraction of the price. It also likely has lots of people with more experience that are willing to help you learn.

I recommend you visit a forum called diychatroom.com for more relevant discussion

Pretty cool that it's just free and there's really no pretext just a compilation of cool projects. Almost makes me feel like I'm missing something.

You are missing time. Time will make the links break, and time will make the component parts harder to find, etc. Also, managing this catalog over time isn't glamorous enough for a headline or even a pretty picture. Economies change over time, and doesn't that go without saying?

It's interesting to consider the complaining about the PDF in this context. Using a paginated format and calling it book does quite a lot to state that it was created at a moment in time.

A resource, but also a particular end product, a piece of art.

It looks really cool, but is this more than a curated list of projects from various 3D model and DIY sites, with some sort of line art instead of the usual photos/STL renderings? I sometimes go explore nice models on those sites too for inspiration, but I don't really see the advantage of this presentation format.

Can you buy this as a printed book? The design/inspirational quality is exceptional.

Without clickable links to actual content it is not very useful to have it printed.

Wait, so adding clickable links would make it more useful after being printed??

In all seriousness, I, too, immediately wanted to buy it for the coffee table and to thumb through for inspiration in an analog way.

You took parents sentence too literally. After having it printed it is without clickable links and hence not very useful.

You took parents sentence too mundanely. Why not add some basic capacitive or resistive touch layer to each page, so touching what was a link would be detectable, and then have a microcontroller blast the corresponding URL over whatever bullshit Bluetooth Low Energy iBeacon-like marketing spam protocol currently works best?

Or... Make-it-Yourself, in this style: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/steam-stories

QR code per item would be helpful with the printed version probably

As cool as this is, it seems a bit bare? Titles/descriptions are hidden away at the bottom of each page and all the renders are plain black and white (which makes me ask why pdf anyway?) without detailing purpose or use (where not obvious)

Could be cool as a print / bound book with QR codes linking to each project.

I was just thinking that I pour most of my "Make It Yourself" energy into making food (which doesn't make an appearance here, logically enough).

Thank you so much for sharing! I needed an inspirational smack in the face and this did the trick.

I'm curious about printable hinges. Has anyone tried them? How sturdy and reliable are they?

love the illustrations! all custom made?

what are the other options?

Stock illustration sites. Renders of stock 3d models. Stolen without credit. AI generated.

None of those are options for this thing. They are all real DIY projects that some people have made. Some of these especially 3d printed ones have 3d models made by authors of each project. Still takes time to make clean and consistent illustrations out of them, probably less bad once you do it hundred times in a row and have a good workwflow. But for others especially ones made of cloth there is no choice other than drawing them by hand. I guess you could speedup the process by tracing over a photo. As for stolen without credit aspect, at the bottom of each page there is a projects name, author and website where it was posted, it also functions as link. One thing that could be better is making links accessible in printed version either as text or QR code of them, currently you can only access them only in digital version.

looking at them again, they're definitely all 3d renders with a consistent toon/outline material

beautiful.

WARNING:

Do try this at home.

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