Show us your tools

Round in circles

Building a paper kiln

Repair to AKG headphones ‘precision engineered in Austria’. Headphone adjustment mechanism had chewed up the original ingeniously but optimistically hidden wires. Repaired with wire re-routed to outside to avoid same problem and for ease of any future repair. 15 different tools used for repair including nail clippers for wire stripping and tweezers for wire removal, mobile phone for youtube tutorials and speaker testing. Materials used: electrical wire, 2-core audio cable, solder, flux. Materials and tools used in unsuccesful repair avenues: attempted cannibalisation of old rubbish headphones for cable; lighter for removing insulation; re-use of original convoluted route for headphone wire. Money spent in process: £7.99 for new screwdriver set, £12.99 for (extremely expensive) flux; £0.99 for wire; £0.99 for electrical tape. Cost of original headphones: around £50. Time spent: 4 hours including trip to shop.

Prosthetic hands with tools/attachments from WW1 and WW2 from exhibition in London Science Museum. WW1 was first instance where mass disability became a feature of UK life. Lower photo shows special aeroplane steering column grip for a WW2 airman who lost his arm trying to retrieve bombs from a burning plane. He was back flying 3 months later.

First burning of home-made Top-Lit-Updraught-Gasifying (TLUD) stove made from stainless steel kitchen storage jar with home-made bent -and welded steel inner chamber

Rocket stove heating home-made tar pan

SSW part 2 (Fergus)

SSW tools residency photos 1 (Fergus)

What we were thinking about before we went to SSW 08/08/2017

Maker porn

A rope maker and seed fiddle I saw in a museum on Skye. 

His life is the subject of songs, a play and several books.  

Just been playing around with my footage.  Sound quality is not the best but could easily be solved next time round with more time spend recording the audio.  I’m really interested in doing something slow and observational with very minimal dialogue, that explores the sounds and textures of materials and the hypnotic mental state that develops while crafting tools by hand. 

Tools and empowerment, question of scale

River and soil sampling tools assembled with wire, cable ties and string.