Sheet Metal Fabrication, Tools & Techniques

I've really enjoyed working with sheet metal in recent years. It's really satisfying to start with just a sheet of say, 18guage steel and some mallets and hammers, and shape something useful or beautiful from it. If you've got a hankering to try your hand at metal fabrication, take a look at some of the resources available from Amazon and Amazon Supply here.

I have some Martin body hammers and dollies, very nice tools... high quality stuff.

Ron Covell is a great teacher in this arena. He has various books and videos out there, and he holds seminar classes around the country, too.

            

Thames & Kosmos Science Project Kits

Thames & Kosmos Fuel Cell X7 Car Kit

We made a trip to our local Barnes & Noble bookstore today, hadn't been in there for a month or so, and saw something new they are doing: There was this substantial floorspace setup with aisles and open displays of all sorts of educational toys, science project kits, Lego kits, and high-tech model kits. It was very cool, lots of great, creative play stuff their for kids... well, plenty of stuff there that grownups would enjoy, too.

For example, they had a good stock of these amazing science project kits from a company called Thames & Kosmos. What really amazed me is the breadth of subjects covered: electronics, earth sciences, energy, chemistry.. there's even a kit for creating perfumes!
They've got kits in categories tailored to kids from the age of five and up. The first one on the shelf that really caught my eye was the fuel cell powered car kit you see pictured here. I would have died for educational science and technology stuff that was this good when I was a kid... check it out.