the aj blog

Salt Dough Landforms

Who Needs CAD?

Who does need CAD for simple projects? Who can afford those things? Answer is not many beginning hobbyists. Especially when you’ve got the power of one of the best tangible prototyping interfaces on your hands available today! It is…salt dough!

What’s Salt Dough?

Salt dough is an edible but nasty-tasting dough usable for all sorts of applications. For example, in the case seen above, you can prototype imaginary land forms. It dries in a matter of hours for small pieces, and a matter of a couple days for thicker things. It’s simple, and can be made with off-the-shelf kitchen supplies easily. Just form it into whatever you wish to make it look like, be it anything from a project enclosure to a prototype of a new type of jewelry. Let it dry on a cookie sheet. When it’s done, you could vacuum form it into something usable, carefully hollow it out and make something, or just let it be as is. Choosing the last step, you can proceed to painting. Most general purpose paints should work, probably not oil paints or whatever. Let it dry. Finally, if you really feel it needs a protective coat, dunk it into a little puddle of Elmer’s glue and put it onto a piece of paper or something. After about 10 minute, take a brush and even out the coat, making sure it doesn’t collect into low parts. The best quick, cheap, “slow prototyping” method!

Recipe

Quite simple, here it is:

- 1 cup of salt
- 2 cups of flour
- 3/4 to 1 cup of lukewarm water, depending on humidity. Trial and error.

Add the salt to the flour in a bowl and mix with your hands. Just try not to get it into cuts, as it stings from the salt. Add water until the whole mixture is mixed up. Knead on something easy to clean. Can be stored for about a month in a sealed container. Then it starts to rot and get stinky. Not wanted. Throw away upon rotting, please.

My journal is a Moleskine with squared paper.

Why is a Journal Important?

A journal can be important for many reasons. Unlike the stereotypical idea of a diary, you need not write about your life in a journal. For the most part, I actually don’t. I do tend to carry it around everywhere, often along with a key chain, wallet with no money, a cellphone, and a mechanical pencil. Most, if not all, famous thinkers kept a journal of some kind. Even if you don’t plan to be the next “famous thinker” you can still write ideas and things you want to do down.

What Do You Write?

I’ve already published one scan of my Steadicam plans. That was from my journal. As a matter of fact, I have two journals; one that fits in my pocket and one that’s a lot bigger. I mostly write in the pocket one, as I rarely carry around the big one.

Any Recommendations?

I have found, and I think many will agree, Moleskines to be just about the greatest notebooks on Earth. One of the reasons I’m attracted to Moleskines is because I love nice paper. It tends to be cheap, and feels so good to write on. Moleskines come in many different varieties, and can be used accordingly for what kind of writing you do. Write stories? Use lined paper. Technical sketches? Squared. Doodles or drawing? Blank. Music? Staff.

Where Does One Buy a Moleskine?

I believe you can purchase online, but I have found it often more convenient to buy from my local Borders who has begun carrying them. Another important thing is to carry a pencil or pen, because borrowing one from a stranger, for example, doesn’t always work.

My creation for my stabilizer project, permitting easy adjustable side to side balance.

The Balance Bolt

My own creation. My very own. I think it even cost under 10 dollars to make two. What I needed was a way to adjust balance left to right and side to side. If you looked carefully, you would see I mentioned this type of device in my original sketch.

Creating It

The design is rather simple.  For one you need two L-brackets, one 1/4 inch coarse bolt, and a bunch of 1/4 inch nuts. The picture had 11. Depending on the size of the holes in the l-bracket, it may be necessary to drill them out to 1/4. Take one, and thread the bolt through the hole. Put a nut on and use a wrench to tighten it. Put some more nuts on, like 8, and put the second L-bracket on. Tighten the nut nearest the second bracket to almost secure it, and put a nut on the end to lock it in place. Tighten with wrench. Yay! You’re done! Actually, you should’ve mounted the brackets before putting them on the bolt.

Using It

Nothing could be simpler. By adjusting the nuts to either side, you can change the balance. You could put washers on if you need more weight, and sandwich them between the nuts. Run with it. Make it work for you!

Steadicam Sketch

The Steadicam

Ah, the Steadicam. A miracle for the video industry. A horror for the no-budget hobbyist. Sure, this has probably been done before, but I have found (almost) nothing as beautiful as the original versions, such as those made by Tiffen. Who says that making it pretty has to be expensive?

Why?

The stability of professional stabilizers is unmatched in either software or camera internal stabilizers. Who wouldn’t want something that works that good? Oh, and professional models do all kinds of crazy things with little motors, but balancing the weight is the best easy method of stabilization. So I decided to try and recreate one of the lower-end basic no-trick steadicam models.

How?

One day when I was bored, I sketched out a DIY version in my journal. You can click on the thumbnail for a bigger picture. I estimated the cost to be around $40. Around 20 in random assorted hardware (think washers, nuts, and bolts) and like 20 in essential structural components (think aluminum tubing and plate). There’s also a lot of other random junk on the scan, so take it with a grain of salt.

The Disclaimer

I have plans to perform this and produce a video or something on it. Since I have documented and published these rough plans, I retain the copyright until further notice. Please, if you do anything involving this article or its assets, provide attribution and a link. There will be more updates as I progress further. Thanks for cooperating!

My First Dorodango

Mud Balls - Awesome!

After seeing a dorodango featured on Mythbusters (End With a Bang, November 12, 2008), I became quite intrigued by the concept. It fascinated me that using nothing more than average dirt, one could produce something of such beauty and shininess. Shortly later, I came across this site which gave me some hints and eventually led me to this site.

The Quest

I went out and dug up a bag of dirt (it’s winter, the ground is hard.) After letting it dry out for a while, I began with my core, which took me about an hour. I put it in a bag to cure overnight.

The Next Day

I slept in late. Waking up around 10, I began the final capsule and polishing process. Around an hour and a bunch of rubbing later, I took the photo featured above. Success!

Reflections

There were many things I would do differently next time. I’ll describe them so that hopefully, if anybody takes up this wonderful and calming hobby, they will know. The first and probably biggest issue with what I did was the quality of dirt. You should let it dry out, sift it, and get out all the rocks. otherwise, you get something like mine, with little bits of hard stones sticking out. Second of all, don’t get your dirt on anything white. Couches, towels, rugs, shirts; they’ll never be the same. Third, make a bigger ball. Although the photo has little scale, the ball is actually about the size of a golf ball. It was quicker, but smaller. Oh, and don’t use contaminated soil, it made mine smell nasty.

So, take a couple hours with a pile of dirt, make a dorodango, and have a happy soon-to-be new year!

Photo, and other works in this post , are under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.