Awesome Diy

DIY Perks has finally done it. After stashing a gaming PC into a desk and a monitor into a matching shelf, he’s come up with a solution that elegantly hides the entire computer setup: a liquid-cooled PC, a 45″ OLED display, a mouse, and a keyboard, with lots of room to spare. Just to flex even more, the entire thing sits on motorized standing desk legs.

While we’re seeing handheld gaming PCs becoming a thing, console modder Didsomebodysayretro went the opposite way. He made the WoodBoy, an arcade machine powered by the original Game Boy hardware. Yep, it plays games from cartridges. It’s probably the kindest reminder that those of us from the Pokémon generation are now adults with aging eyes.

Backyard fire pits are great but can blow smoke in your face. After building a smokeless fire pit a few years back, HAXMAN wanted to make a new version for his patio out of concrete. He bent sheets of XPS insulating foam to create two forms, then filled them with concrete. After building the structure, he drilled holes into a metal fire pit ring for ventilation.

There are kits you can buy that add colorful ambient lighting behind or around your TV. We’ve played with a few, but none of them have the pinpoint color matching of Chris Maher’s DIY setup. In this video, he shows how he built his edge-lit system using addressable LED light strips, a WLED light controller, and the insanely powerful SignalRGB control software.

NightHawkInLight made the rare DIY video that’s so straightforward even kids can follow it. Even better, it’s about something that is actually useful in daily life. He figured out that a mixture of paraffin and mineral oil is a great waterproof coating for fabric. The hardest part is ironing the mixture into the fabric, but even that step is practically idiotproof.

Inspired by the car launching mechanism on Hot Wheels tracks, Stuff Made Here made a precision-guided disc launcher. He thought it would be a simple matter of making more and bigger launchers, but fate and physics had other plans. Watch him suffer but soldier on in one of the most entertaining DIY videos we’ve ever watched.

Swagkeys reminds us just how far custom keyboards – and their prices – have come. The company’s upcoming Transition Lite TKL will take you back to the ’90s with its transparent polycarbonate case. It’s a kit, so you’ll have to get stabilizers, switches, and keycaps separately and then put it all together yourself. But for only $50, this is an awesome deal.

This unique clock by Bulduper displays the time on a hexagonal grid filled with 127 RGB LED hex-shaped pixels. It can also display colorful animations. Want one for your own wall? He posted a detailed build guide on Instructables, including the 3D models for its parts. The code repository is up on GitHub.

If you love showy smoke-infused cocktails but hate craft bar prices, do it yourself with a Cocktail Smoker Kit from Bark & Barware. The handsome wood gift box contains six wood chip flavors (like cherry, hickory, and maple), a torch (sans butane), four whiskey stones, a metal brush, and tongs.

A few years back, maker Peter Brown attempted to build an axe with a handle made from gummy bears and resin. Unfortunately, it turned into a sticky mess after sanding. Now he’s back to try it again, but this time he molded his own faux gummies from resin so they’d hold up better to the process.

Zenlet’s Memo X is unique gadget that turns any paper you want into removable sticky notes. It combines cutting and adhesive application into a single step. Slide a sheet of paper into its slot, press down, and in a second you’ll have a custom sticky note in one of three sizes. A $4 roll of tape makes about 250 notes.

Most fire pits are made from metal or stone. HomeMadeModern wanted to see if building a fire pit entirely from glass bricks was possible. The hollow glass blocks you can buy at the hardware store look dated and might crack from heat, so he experimented with some solid glass bricks. The larger fire pit he built looks amazing as its flames dance behind the blocks.

Hot tubs are great, but the view you get while soaking remains static. If you want to see more of the world while you warm up, you need a hot tub boat. While you could spend thousands on one of Yacht Tubs’ professionally-built boats, David Rule shows us how it’s possible to build your own with stuff you can buy at the hardware store.

Here’s a fun family project if you live somewhere the temperature stays below freezing for days on end. The ABC Allred Family shows us how easy it is to build your own backyard igloo from blocks of ice and a dash of food coloring for extra flair. You can make the ice bricks in aluminum foil trays and then cement them together with a mixture of snow and cold water.

You can buy very small Bluetooth speakers already, but we’ve never seen one embedded inside a walnut. Penguin DIY nibbled on the nutmeat inside before outfitting the shell with a tiny amplifier and Bluetooth circuits, a minuscule speaker, and a rechargeable battery. We worried he would crack it while drilling holes, but the shell remained intact.

Cris from Get Hands Dirty is always looking for ways to make her small living space more efficient. In this project, she created a set of wooden stools that can break into parts and be stored in a custom carrying case. It served as a great opportunity to test out her Mekanika Evo-S CNC milling machine.

Dissatisfied with the bass response of his off-the-shelf subwoofer, maker BigWR got to work retrofitting its speaker and amplifier into a new cabinet. He extended its acoustic chamber using angled sections of PVC drain pipe and assembled them inside of an acrylic cube. We’re not sure it sounds better because of the distortion, but it sure looks amazing.

Carpenter John Heisz of I Build It typically makes things out of wood. However, with the high price of lumber these days, he decided to use cardboard boxes to build this parts organizer. We appreciate the attention to detail he put into crafting this multi-drawer parts storage unit.

After seeing a video of an artist making string art portraits, engineer Paul Morris Hill wanted to see if he could achieve a similar effect with a machine. This video chronicles some of the trial and error he worked through developing the machine and its software, eventually arriving at a system using a grid of nails. Paul posted a full build log on Medium.

Lighting a bunch of matchsticks at the same time isn’t something any of us need to do, but it does make for a cool video. This compilation of DIY project hacks from Ideias Incríveis and 5 Minute Crafts includes a few other ideas that aren’t that useful. Still, there’s no question that they’re all satisfying to watch.

People who keep fish as pets can go overboard with their aquariums. Not one to ever be subtle, The Q got to work building a custom aquarium that looks like an actual house. The two-story home has art on the walls, glass tanks with a connecting tube, and a garage with a tiny BMW in case any fish learn how to drive.

Since The Home Depot sells lumber, you’d think it would be relatively easy to piece together a guitar from stuff they sell. But, as BeBeau Builds shows us, the wood could be better, and you can’t find things like strings and tuning pegs there. Still, he and his buddy gave it the old college try and built a fully functional acoustic guitar with nails for frets.

Sometimes, the best place to hide valuables isn’t under lock and key, but someplace thieves would never think to look. Crafty Panda shows off a neat idea for a pull-out safe that hides beneath a floor tile. It requires cutting a big hole in your floor, but once it’s installed, you’d never know it was there.