Way back in the mists of time, circa the late 1960s and early 1970s, I used to really enjoy doing woodwork and metalwork classes at school.

Later, as part of my university degree, I spent two 6-month periods in industry. The first was at a Rolls Royce aerospace facility where we enjoyed a compressed version of their 4-year apprenticeship program. As part of this, we were trained on machining (mills, drills, lathes, grinders…), welding (oxyacetylene, electric arc, argon arc…), hydraulics, and all sorts of other cool things.

Since that time, I’ve managed to occasionally dabble on the woodworking side of things, like the Welsh Dresser and Plant Stands I created for my wife (Gina the Gorgeous). These projects were aided by my being able to use my carpenter friend’s workshop. Sadly, I don’t have any local friends with machine shops, so any machining skills I may have had have faded over time (sad face).

Happily, the internet allows me to live vicariously through the work of others, like the cunning creations of Chris at Clickspring.

And, of course, there’s always YouTube. For example, I just ran across this video showing the creation of a crazy part by hand (no CNC machining here).

This led me to this video showing the creation of a giant bolt with threads in opposite directions, thereby allowing you to use both clockwise and counterclockwise-threaded nuts.

“That’s nuts!” I hear you cry. Well, if you think this, then I don’t know what you are going to say about this video showing another giant bolt with amazing maze threads.

In addition to the awesome handcrafted creations shown above, I also ran across this video of a CNC machine creating a representation of a skull using a 5-axis rotary table.

O-M-G. Watching these videos has really stimulated my creative juices. Also, I’m having olfactory flashbacks to the strangely satisfying scents found in machine shops. What can I say? I love the smell of hot oil in the morning. How about you? Do you have any thoughts you’d care to share with the rest of us?