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One of our readers, Jimy Soprano, sent us the links to this incredibly inspiring short documentary of classical Japanese metal artist Ford Hallam recreating a lost masterpiece by the 19th century Mito tsuba artist Hagia Katsuhira. Years ago, I went off on a Samurai sword/Iaid? kick and obsessed over every detail of Japanese sword construction, maintenance, and the “moving Zen” of the Iaid? form. This video touched that obsession again.

The “tsuba” is the decorative sword guard, and like every other piece of a samurai sword, it’s work of art in and of itself. This video documents Ford Hallam being commissioned to create a tsuba for a Katana (long) sword to match an existing tsuba created by Hagia Katsuhira for a wakazashi (short sword). The painstaking, precise nature of the work is rather dizzying. [Thanks, Jimy!]

More about Ford Hallam can be found on his blog Postcards from the Path

The Monochron clock kit from the Maker Shed is a completely hackable, open source, clock kit that has a funky retro feel. It can be programmed to display several different clock “faces” or you can program you own. The kit comes complete with all electronics (soldering required), laser cut case, and power plug.

Hint, Hint – Follow the Maker Shed on Twitter, or Subscribe to our Deal of The Day RSS feed to keep up to date on the latest deal!

Build a Monochron Clock Kit

The Monochron clock kit from the Maker Shed is a completely hackable, open source, clock kit that has a funky retro feel. It can be programmed to display several different clock “faces” or you can program you own. The kit comes complete with all electronics (soldering required), laser cut case, and power plug.

Hint, Hint – Follow the Maker Shed on Twitter, or Subscribe to our Deal of The Day RSS feed to keep up to date on the latest deal!

Build a Monochron Clock Kit

If you've seen our Hong Kong feature from awhile back, then you would've already heard about my favorite gadget hangout Sham Shui Po. By chance, my post-flight stroll in said district yesterday coincided with Apliu Street's Chinese New Year flea market, which featured many vintage items like jade figurines, paintings, jewelry, video tapes, vinyl records, etc. Naturally, what really caught my attention were the old gadgets that were literally piled up along the street, and from just HK$30 (US$3.85), you could easily pick up an old classic such as a Sony Clié, an HP iPaq, a WonderSwan Color, an original GameBoy, a MiniDisc player, or even a proper old school laptop or camera. Hell, some guy even had a couple of Nintendo Micro VS Systems (Donkey Kong Hockey and Boxing)!

The catch? Well, there was obviously no warranty for these old timers, plus the broken screens or the lack of compatible batteries for some meant that most were more suitable as collectibles. Regardless, we took a $6 gamble with a Sony Clié PEG-NR70 Palm PDA with docking station and boom! It works! Well, except for the battery that only lasts for an hour, but I'll figure something out.

Hong Kong gadget flea market: a blast from the past originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last summer, the city of Boston's North Street municipal print shop was closed down. Now, the contents of the shop, which served the city for 78 years, are going up on the auction block. Andrew Ryan, writing for Boston.com, says:

[T]he linotype machines and letter presses will go on the auction block in late February along with artifacts from generations of producing permits and birth certificates.

Row after row of creaky oak drawers hold thousands of letters, both metal type and wooden blocks, from fine print to 72-point Tudor. A cigar box brims with square block stamps of the city seal. And there are metal etchings of a few of the city's forefathers, presumably used years ago to print their faces on official documents.

The auction, coming up on February 24th, is open to the public. [Thanks, Alan Dove!]

More:

• Lego Letterpress
• How offset printing ink is made
• Letterpress prints using dice as "type"
• Lost Knowledge: "Artistic printing"
• Printing press gets Tron-ified
• Letterpress process in pictures
• Block printing by hand

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