Hey guys, Adam Savage here in my cave answering questions from Tested Patrons and today's question
comes from uh ChickenFist. I feel uncomfortable just saying that. ChickenFist wants to know,
"I know that you've already discussed shared shops but do you have any tips or entry-level
project ideas for someone with limited workspace? I don't have a garage or
dedicated workshop but I would love to start my journey in the maker community."
ChickenFist, this is a really this is a tough question to answer. I'm not sure I have a specific
project that will just like unlock making for you
but i make the suggestion that cardboard is where you should begin and i think a great project to
get your hands dirty is to make an architectural model of your house yeah why not try that
uh that is a easy project you can just walk around your house measuring it i think you could actually
even there's a there's an app on your iphone you can go out and figure out the all the dimensions
of your of your house um i personally like to do it physically with a tape measure i take a brown
paper bag and tear it until it's flat and i sit there and i draw kind of a diagram of my house
and then i write in circles for every dimension i need the length of this wall the height of this
window the dimensions of this window the depth of this door frame etc and then i go around
the house sort of stitching in all of those measurements and then i choose a scale that's
pretty easy to work with like 24th scale and to give you some uh some reference here uh like
that is a tested build i did a few years ago that's the house i grew up in
which was a big house and that's all four floors of it um sorry
i can't get that off anyway that's 24th scale here is another architectural construction of a house i
used to live in that is 12th scale is that 12 scale yeah that's dollhouse scale that's much
much bigger um 12 scale is kind of difficult to make work come on come on 12 scale 12 scale gets
big in a hurry um funny note doll houses would feel very cramped if we blew them up to full size
because actual actually a reasonable size room in 112 scale which is dollhouse scale is pretty large
yeah so try 24th scale in 24th scale every foot equals one half inch that is
yes each each length of a foot is one half inch in 12th scale uh and that is a manageable scale plus
i would wager in your house your walls are all the same height so let's say they're nine feet tall
all the walls in your house that means to build your house you need one big slab of cardboard for
the footprint and then a whole bunch of pieces of cardboard that are exactly four and a half
inches high which is nine feet in 24th scale and so what i do when i have made these architectural
models is i've come to the cave and i've ripped on the table saw a bunch of cardboard or foam core
down to the height of the walls of the house i'm replicating and then i just go through and
stitch in i draw in doors and windows and then cut them out with an exacto blade so
all you really need to do such a thing is a tape measure some fresh exacto blades and a cutting mat
and some i mean you could use crazy glue you could use duco you could use
anything you want to glue it together almost everything would work for cardboard um but i
mean you might also do a google search for things to build out of cardboard because you could make
a set of like amazing iron man gauntlet uh and the thing about cardboard is you can pack it up into a
small box so this is something i still do in this cave here is um here is well i mean i have lots
of containers like this this container is actually holding on to more containers more little sorters
um but like that's the other piece of advice that i have the very general piece of advice
i want to do more of a breakdown in in the future about how to util build design and utilize
small shops in small spaces because we have all had to do it and we all do it and it
there's some techniques i think that that can help but you ask specifically for projects and
my recommendation is cardboard that being said you might buy a model kit and build it wrong
that's another great thing to try uh is to buy like a nice military model kit from tamiya and
building something else with it that was a really key moment for me and seeing how
much i could take something and modify it and change it i hope that that was instructional
chicken fist i would hope also that if you did embark on a project in your house to get your
get your feet wet with making that you would send us pictures of what you've been making
um and that goes for every else everybody else who's watching too i love seeing pictures of
what people are working on thank you guys so much tested patrons keep submitting your questions here
and i will continue to answer them thank you guys stay safe wear a mask and i will see you next time