site banner
ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  1d ago (text post)   182 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for September 29th, 2026

This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.

Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.

If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Working with sublimation, toner transfer, vinyl transfer+acid etch for various knickknacks for some FIRST teams and a local festival. I don't do enough with this stuff to justify UV DTF, which is the 'right' answer for nine out of ten use cases, but holy shit every time I have to get a heat press working right do I reconsider either that, or just getting gang sheets.

What are you using for toner transfer? A clothes iron or a modded laminator?

Clamshell-style heat press for flat pieces. Trying a tumbler press for rounded pieces (mostly glass steins, since one of the shops that's asked for help at the local festival is a brewery), but it's an awkward fit and haven't been happy with the pressure yet. Might end up modifying it or kitbashing something else to work instead.

I've tried the clothes iron route back when I was just running PCBs, but it was not a good experience. Never tried the laminator version; heard good things, at least compared to a clothes iron, but by the time they were cheap I needed too many vias or too many small traces for self-manufacture to be a good option. Don't know how either hold up for arts-and-crafts style use.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats