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Hands Up!
to hold your books

Cash in on personalized book ends. Cast in a flexible mold from a master pattern of a human hand and finished in bronze, they bring a handsome spare-time profit

By Thomas A. Dickinson

LIKE THE BRONZING of baby shoes, here’s an idea that can be turned into a profitable spare-time business — casting book ends from human hands. But whether it’s done for profit or just for fun, it costs little and your friends are sure to be intrigued by a life-size reproduction of their own hands, supporting their favorite books.

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PHOTO STAMP PRINTER

By Kenneth Murray

PRINTING up to 100 stamp-size photographs on a single sheet of 8×10 in. paper is easy with the MI Printer. After processing, each sheet can be gummed on the back, and cut so that individual stamps are available for attaching to personal stationery, books and other possessions.

Printing can be done from any negative; the mask opening is 7/8 x 7/8 in. This leaves a narrow white border on each stamp. Without changing the guides, you can substitute a mask with an opening twice as large and print 50 exposures on each sheet.

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Novel Blueprint Lamp Shade For Den or Workshop
An old blueprint, perhaps of your own house, makes an attractive lamp-shade covering for a man’s den or workshop. Use the type of shade that has the top and bottom loops fastened together with corner wires. Strip off the old shade, use it for a pattern and cut the new cover from the blueprint. It can be fastened to the frame with glue or cellulose tape.
L. C. Auer, La Porte, Tex.

Novel Jig-Saw Puzzle MADE IN FORM OF CUBE

By George S. Greene

THIS new and unusual type of jigsaw puzzle forms a cube when assembled and has a different picture on each of its six sides. When the parts are spread out and well shuffled on the table, they resemble those of an ordinary picture puzzle, except that some of the pieces have no indication of pictures on them at all to aid in the assembly.

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Junk Yard Yields Parts for Odd Organ

Discarded bottles, an old vacuum-cleaner motor, sections of inner tubing, and other objects salvaged from the scrap heap comprise the parts of a unique junk-yard organ recently exhibited at Atlantic City, N.J. Individual notes are sounded by air from the cleaner motor blowing across small holes in the caps of bottles tuned by partly filling them with water. Supplementary noise makers are attached to the organ’s console.

Alphabet Macaroni Used for Ship-Model Names
Small alphabet macaroni sold for use in soups will sometimes serve effectively for the name of a ship model. Select the necessary letters, taking care to have them all regular in shape and size. Paint them first the same color as the surface to which they are to be applied. When thoroughly dry, paint the face of each letter to contrast with the hull. Then cement them carefully on the stern.— M. H. Osterberg.

What, no whip?

Dashing Barrel-Body Chariot Thrills the Backyard Warrior
Here’s a chariot you can make for the children that will provide lots of fun for them and their friends. All you need is a barrel and a pair of wheels from a coaster wagon or even an old baby carriage. Cut the barrel as indicated and put reinforcing strips of flat iron inside the barrel opposite each hoop, screwing both the hoops and the strips to each stave. The axle of the wheels is mounted on the barrel bottom with iron brackets, after which the tongue is attached as indicated. It’s a good idea to sandpaper all of the edges carefully to avoid any possibility of splinters and then give the chariot a couple of coats of bright-colored paint.

Have Fun With This Chariot-Type Tricycle Trailer

Rolling along on semipneumatic wheels, this little trailer will double the enjoyment the youngsters get from their tricycles. The frame, rail and tongue are all bent from thin-wall conduit, either by using a standard pipe bender or by filling the conduit with sand, plugging the ends and then bending by hand. The trailer-hitch bolt engages a hole drilled in a piece of flat iron which is bolted to the tricycle-seat frame. The wheels are fastened with cotter pins or the axle is drilled and tapped for attaching them with roundheaded screws

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Handicraft Contest SPURRED by Red Cross

ENTRIES pouring in for the Popular Science Servicemen’s Handicraft Contest from all over the world now indicate that the judges are going to have a hard job to pick the prize winners. The excellence of the craftwork is partly the result of the encouragement and instruction that servicemen have received from the Red Cross, which is now conducting its 1946 National Fund Campaign.

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Life Belt From Old Inner Tubes

SWIMMING students, long distance swimmers and water sports enthusiasts can do nothing better than to provide themselves with this inexpensive life belt, which is made simply from segments of two old inner tubes and attached to a belt as illustrated in the accompanying photo. A band connects the two tubes in the back, holding them together and
preventing chafing.

Umbrella Rack From Sewer Pipe

HERE’S a hint for plumbers, or, for that matter, for anyone who is handy with a paint brush. Old sewer pipes that are not too badly battered can be painted up with decorative designs to make highly ornamental umbrella racks as shown in the accompanying photo. You can go in for this stunt on a wholesale basis and turn out a number of such racks and sell them to the people in your neighborhood. Three or four umbrellas can be deposited in one pipe.

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The Art of Making Lifelike Marionette Bodies

Materials and tools . . . Various types of joints . . . Costuming . . . How to string puppets . . . Hints on their manipulation

By Florence Fetherston Drake

Lifelike MARIONETTE bodies may be made in several ways for use with heads of the type described last month (P. S. M., Jan. ‘36, p. 57):

1. Sewed and stuffed with kapok or cotton, and weighted.
2. Papier-mache shell bodies, filled and weighted.
3. Of wood (scrap pieces and dowel sticks) whittled to shape.
4. Best of all, carved from softwood, but this takes more knowledge and artistry than the others and therefore should follow experiments with one of the simpler methods.

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