The easiest way to black out thermal paper (for example, to remove addresses or barcodes that would make it risky to re-use a box) is to heat it up: no marker necessary! Why use the Sharpie you already have when you could risk everything by instead applying fire?
Hot tip for blacking out thermal paper labels
Maker jargon and slang for 2021
This past year, in my weekly maker tips newsletter, Gareth's Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales, I started a semi-regular column of jargon, slang, and technical terms that I thought would be informative and/or entertaining to my readers. Here is the collected list for 2021. I've also incorporated the jargon and slang that I included in… READ THE REST
My favorite maker tips for 2021
I do a weekly tips newsletter for DIYers of all kinds. For the third year on Boing Boing, here is my year-end round up of my favorite newsletter entries. If you want to see more of this sort of content, please subscribe. It's free.Here are my tips round-ups for 2019 and 2020 (part 1, part… READ THE REST
Make a drill-powered spray paint mixer
I do a lot of paint spray can shaking. I have arthritic arms. I hate the shakin'. Here's an idea I might try: a drill-powered shaker made from 3" plastic plumbing pipe and a 3" pipe test plug. Image: YouTube READ THE REST
Teach yourself how to play guitar with the Jamstik trainer
We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. Has learning how to play the guitar been on your bucket list? Learning how to play guitar should be simple, fun, and accessible, but with the average guitar costing $600 — lessons not included, you might… READ THE REST
Make room for important and large files with Prism Drive cloud storage
We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. With most of our daily activities happening online, no one will ever complain about having too much storage space. On the contrary, it's frustrating when you run out of storage or have… READ THE REST
This 13-in-1 media hub brings your favorite content to the big screen
We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. We're sure our parents had a wild time back in the day without modern media, and to some degree, we wish we could be a little less plugged in. But then we… READ THE REST
