Original Intent Makes For Good New Projects

I was thinking (yes, again) and the thought came to me that perhaps those junk creators who are new to the discipline (ok, so I’m stretching the meaning here, but work with me) may not know one of the coolest truths about making a new thing out of an old material.

To illustrate my point, let me digress into a flashback/story. Several years ago, I was apprenticed to an actual blacksmith. (Cool, huh?) Equally as cool was the fact that this blacksmith used an old craft and old materials. The first knife I made was shaped from part of an old coil spring (from a car, not a clicky pen). The reason we used an old coil spring was because it was “spring steel.” Spring steel holds an edge very well and, well, springs. These are both admirable and desirable in a knife blade. (Some time, I hope to give instructions on making a machete out of a saw blade…)

The same is true with anything. The gloves I made a few posts back are a good example–they were made out of leather that wasn’t treated or designed for the use I put it to. For instance, gloves, especially my work gloves, don’t always need to look pretty, but couches all do. So, some people might say that I wasted particularly nice leather on my nasty work gloves.

Other things that may be particularly good to think about what the material was originally intended for (and then use it likewise) are plastic, paper, and cloth (for instance the microfiber flash drive case I already posted).

If you can think of any other materials that would fall particularly well into this category, let us all know–and I’ll get back to you on the saw-blade machete.