Making Do: 2015

The Bricoleur: Making Do

Claude Levi-Strauss used the term "Bricoleur", referring to a maker, of sorts, who makes do with the tools and materials at hand. Terry Frohm, principle technician at the CRRF Chuuk marine laboratory in Chuuk in the early 90s, used the term "Making Do" in reference to appurtenances and contrivances, innovations he cobbled together in creating a functioning laboratory, with a minimum of expensive and specialized equipment or hardware.

I recognized, in Levi-Strauss's descriptions of the Bricoleur, the Micronesian fishermen's use---of necessity---of available materials to solve their own technical problems: Marshallese fishermen used a piece of broken glass or a sharp piece of Aluminum beer can to clean a catch of fish on the beach; spears were fashioned of discarded heavy iron wire from water-tank bands, straightened and sharpened; their slings made from old airplane inner tubes. Goggles were carved from wood---using possibly a kitchen knife sharpened on a piece of pumice that had drifted onto the beach, their glass from a

relict World War II airplane. Gillette's study of Tuna fishing in Tokelau features a demonstration by a Tokelauan elder: trapping an air bubble in the hand cupped over one's eye to provide an air-water interface through which to see fish clearly.

This Blog cannot adequately honor the resourcefulness of those men, but I have borrowed the words of Terry Frohm, to describe the purpose of this proposed collection of solutions and innovations of various kinds. These solutions are embarassingly rich in their reliance on modern materials. The intention is to develop a repository of cheap and easy solutions to problems that are important to me. I I hope it can serve as more than a collection. Rather, by example, a reminder that solutions are often at arm's reach, and not in catalogs.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Getting the ball rolling: A Short List of Practical Solutions I Have Known.

Many or most of these ideas have never been actualized.

Cordova, Alaska Skiff Bailer
My Macro attachment for a cheap canon Power Shot camera, and a diy flash diffuser
Using a selfie stick to hold a cell phone (camera) down low near the mud for a transect across a mud flat, to record small critters in minute burrow entrances
A pressure lantern understage trans-illuminator for a stereomicroscope
A fortuitous method of tapping a modified 12 volt power line into a portable HP Printer.
Various untapped ideas for 3D printing macro attachments
Using a 6W fluorescent lamp for household illumination
Using a fragment of a broken bottle on the beach to clean a fish

First Post

For years I have kept a virtual file of solutions for various practical problems, in the spirit of Terry Frohm, who referred to the constructs he created for a field Marine Laboratory, using available tools and materials. I want to collect such solutions in an accessible manner, on this blog. Terry spoke of "Making Do" when describing the circulating seawater system, or the freshwater supply, or to any of his inspired creations, solutions to practical problems. At least that is what it meant to me. I hope that Terry will forgive me for borrowing his term as the title of this blog.