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So, what are your unusual hobbies? Do you collect something weird? Play an instrument few have heard of? Are you one of 20 people world wide practicing some strange sport? Do you know a type of knitting that fell out of fashion in 1803? Share your weird hobbies here, maybe we can inspire goons to take up a weird hobby? As for myself, I am a lace maker. Mostly bobbin lace, but also embroidered and crotchet lace, so not really weird at all.
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Jan 15, 2024 14:52
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I forge knives that I usually injure myself with on power tools, OP. I wonder how hard it would be to forge a needle I injure myself with.
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Jan 15, 2024 15:07
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I homebrew exclusively using weird fruits people likely havent combined before A current favorite is jackfruit and cape gooseberry, it tastes like a sour berry heavy fruit punch
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Jan 15, 2024 17:31
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SeaGoatSupreme posted:I homebrew exclusively using weird fruits people likely havent combined before Are you making specifically beer or some kind fermented fruit drink? Wormskull posted:I forge knives that I usually injure myself with on power tools, OP. I wonder how hard it would be to forge a needle I injure myself with. Daddy was proud and everything had to be homemade, including the noose he used to hang himself
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Jan 15, 2024 19:13
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*clears throat* That’s a bummer dude.
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Jan 15, 2024 22:26
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I have a Theremin. I do not know how to play it.
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Jan 16, 2024 02:26
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Animal-Mother posted:I have a Theremin. I do not know how to play it. So it's not picking up good vibrations?
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Jan 16, 2024 04:08
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caspergers posted:Are you making specifically beer or some kind fermented fruit drink? Cider, because while I appreciate beer, I am also much too lazy to cook something for an hour within like 5 degrees of optimal, then chill it as fast as possible, then ferment it. I'd rather just wash/crush/deseed things and throw em in a jug with water, sugar, and yeast.
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Jan 16, 2024 04:40
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Read the title as "Weird and Unusual Body" and thought this was just a selfie thread
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Jan 19, 2024 11:37
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FreudianSlippers posted:Read the title as "Weird and Unusual Body" and thought this was just a selfie thread I guess highly unusual selfies could be a hobby?
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Jan 19, 2024 15:33
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FreudianSlippers posted:Read the title as "Weird and Unusual Body" and thought this was just a selfie thread I usally just turn my monitor off
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Jan 20, 2024 22:31
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Jacking off
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Feb 2, 2024 01:56
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I beat myself until I'm raw Come and come till there's no more My hand is my favorite whore Stick my finger up my rear end, beat it some more
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Feb 2, 2024 02:01
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I think the local forest is my hobby? I spend a lot of time there taking photos of birds and interesting lichen, drawing maps of species distributions, trying to puzzle out why different plants grow where they do, doing really amateurish ecological field surveys... It's a good forest. Except for the mosquitoes
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Feb 2, 2024 08:24
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Tree Bucket posted:I think the local forest is my hobby? I spend a lot of time there taking photos of birds and interesting lichen, drawing maps of species distributions, trying to puzzle out why different plants grow where they do, doing really amateurish ecological field surveys... May I request bird pics? And if possible, squirrels? I love meeting birds and squirrels.
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Feb 2, 2024 15:54
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BattyKiara posted:May I request bird pics? And if possible, squirrels? I love meeting birds and squirrels. Well, wrong continent for squirrels, sorry. We have these guys though, and a whole lot of wallabies that are way too fast for me to photograph   And a ridiculous number of birbs. I've counted 90 species in the area so far, but will leave it a couple of photos!     
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Feb 2, 2024 23:19
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I spin. This is Roxy-Mae, my first spinning wheel. She's an antique, technically, but only about a hundred years old, and is a bit finicky, being double-drive and single-treadle. I've made some really lovely yarn on her though    This Christmas I got an Ashford Kiwi, which doesn't have a name yet   This thing is incredibly easy to use, and the integrated lazy Kate (a thing to hold full bobbins so you can twist them together to make plied yarn) is incredibly useful. I've only finished one yarn on it, but it might be the nicest yarn I've ever made.  
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Feb 3, 2024 13:56
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thunderdome winner
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Animal-Mother posted:I have a Theremin. I do not know how to play it. I have a 16 string lyre harp which I also do not know how to play, but I swear I'm gonna start learning any day now. No really, any day now 
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Feb 3, 2024 14:14
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Chernobyl Princess posted:I spin. That's really neat
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Feb 3, 2024 16:10
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Chernobyl Princess posted:I spin. Your yarn is amazing! Do you dye as well?
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Feb 3, 2024 18:23
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BattyKiara posted:Your yarn is amazing! Do you dye as well? Thanks! I don't yet... mostly I buy pre-dyed roving. I'm just now experimenting with carding my own unprepared alpaca fiber and spinning that, which has been a lot of fun! I do have some undyed flax and cotton, which I'll probably try dying with some of the turmeric root I get from the farmer's market once I spin it up. Do you have pics of your lace? I crochet but bobbin lace looks very intimidating
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Feb 3, 2024 19:56
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I have too many hobbies, but probably the weirdest ones are learning interesting languages. I'm okay with Spanish and French, but my time with Welsh, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Latin, Swahili, and Old Norse raise eyebrows. I am terrible at all of them and no, I could not have anything resembling a real conversation. I just think they're neat and I'm satisfied with being a dilettante. My main goal is to go to the Isle of Lewis and order a beer in Scots Gaelic. Chernobyl Princess posted:I spin. My wife and I have discussed picking this up. Any advice for people thinking about getting started?
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Feb 3, 2024 20:06
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Rieux posted:My wife and I have discussed picking this up. Any advice for people thinking about getting started? Start with a drop spindle!  This will teach you the technique for drafting-- pulling the dense fiber into thinner strands to be spun-- better than starting on a wheel. Because it's dramatically simpler, the rotation is provided by your own fingers and the pull is just gravity, you'll develop a much more Intuitive grasp of what's happening with your fiber than if you start with a wheel. ...also a really nice Ashford 16-inch spindle + 4 Oz of Jacob fiber starter kits go for like 60 to 80 bucks depending on the website, as opposed to a spinning wheel which will be 600 bucks minimum new. Working antiques *can* be cheaper, but there are a lot of fake wheels that were made as home decor cluttering up the market, so unless you know a lot about wheels or can see it and make it work, I wouldn't risk buying an antique off the internet.
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Feb 3, 2024 20:48
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Chernobyl Princess posted:Thanks! I don't yet... mostly I buy pre-dyed roving. I'm just now experimenting with carding my own unprepared alpaca fiber and spinning that, which has been a lot of fun! I do have some undyed flax and cotton, which I'll probably try dying with some of the turmeric root I get from the farmer's market once I spin it up. My mother used to card & spin wool when I was a kid and she had a giant drum carder which looked like the gnarliest torture device ever devised 
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Feb 4, 2024 05:38
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Telephony. It's a terrible hobby for terrible people. I dabble in the digital and IP switching. Electro-mechanical stuff is for greybeards. I've got old phones.  Weird phones.  Phones for testing.  Most of my phone systems are tucked away in storage but I pulled this one out because it makes use of "game cartridges" for add in cards for some reason.  The backend that is tying all of the active stuff together.  Getting phones hooked up and ringing each other up can be interesting but sometimes it's good to just be silly. https://i.imgur.com/40YlXMa.mp4
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Feb 6, 2024 04:00
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I service and restore mechanical pocket and wristwatches. Ironically after considering the money I’ve put into tools and equipment I could have bought a couple of very nice watches that actually work, but then I wouldn’t get to crawl around on the floor with a magnetic wand trying to find a 3mm screw or spring.
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Feb 8, 2024 02:58
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You don't have one of these?
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Feb 8, 2024 17:13
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I repair brass instruments. There are lots of people doing it for a living, but for a computer toucher like me, it's a satisfying hobby. It started with acquiring a vintage instrument that needed some work, and seeing that sending it to a pro would be cost-prohibitive. I've since bought more old horns and practiced on them until I feel like I have a grip on the basics. I've gotten to where I've done a few repairs on friends' instruments that turned out cosmetically quite nice! I'll see if I can find some nice before/after pictures later, Imgur seems to have crapped out right now.
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Feb 8, 2024 23:34
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I repair brass instruments. There are lots of people doing it for a living, but for a computer toucher like me, it's a satisfying hobby. It started with acquiring a vintage instrument that needed some work, and seeing that sending it to a pro would be cost-prohibitive. I've since bought more old horns and practiced on them until I feel like I have a grip on the basics. That's pretty neat, I'd like to see pics. None of the instruments I play are brass, I have no idea what goes on with them or how you work on them.
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Feb 9, 2024 00:04
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I repair brass instruments. There are lots of people doing it for a living, but for a computer toucher like me, it's a satisfying hobby. It started with acquiring a vintage instrument that needed some work, and seeing that sending it to a pro would be cost-prohibitive. I've since bought more old horns and practiced on them until I feel like I have a grip on the basics. By odd semi-coincidence, I play brass instruments but I sorta fell into the weird hobby of repairing/restoring old Victorian reed organs. It started with finding a mostly-functional but rather distressed one priced at £25 in a charity shop when I was at university, and then realising that there were other similar instruments going for similar prices. It was very satisfying to return a wheezing, breathless, screechy, sticky-keyed collection of scruffy wood and mouse-nibbled leather into a singing, expressive, dynamic instrument. I gradually progressed from just cleaning reeds, replacing felt strip seals and repairing bent linkages to working with old-fashioned jars of hot glue and strips of leather and chamois cloth to replace frayed bellows and stiff exhauster valves. And learning how to apply wood stain and layers of beeswax to wooden cases. It was a true hobby - taking on one instrument at a time, working on it when the fancy took me and then moving it on (usually for little to no financial gain) when I was done. I think I've done nine in total at a rate of about one a year. But I haven't actually worked on one for over a decade now since I moved to a place without the spare space to work on a reed organ in its dismantled form. I do still have one - a rather tired (but functional) Mason & Hamlin which has the makings of a really high-quality instrument. I'm just waiting for the time when we move to somewhere with more space. Unfortunately I don't have ready access to any of the 'work in progress' pics (I'll have to dig through my old hard drives) but here's the M&H in my front room: 
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Feb 9, 2024 00:30
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I repair brass instruments. There are lots of people doing it for a living, but for a computer toucher like me, it's a satisfying hobby. It started with acquiring a vintage instrument that needed some work, and seeing that sending it to a pro would be cost-prohibitive. I've since bought more old horns and practiced on them until I feel like I have a grip on the basics. Do you ever work with saxophones? I know it’s a lot more buttons and keys than brass. I have a 1928 Conn 10M that I got for $800 in 1988. I played it for years, but it fell apart about 10 years ago, after surviving a car accident in a soft gig bag. I was quoted over $3000 to get it fixed. I love that horn 
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Feb 9, 2024 01:48
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I repair brass instruments. There are lots of people doing it for a living, but for a computer toucher like me, it's a satisfying hobby. It started with acquiring a vintage instrument that needed some work, and seeing that sending it to a pro would be cost-prohibitive. I've since bought more old horns and practiced on them until I feel like I have a grip on the basics. I hope you live in south eastern Australia, because the intercontinental postage costs for a euphonium are probably Not Nice
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Feb 9, 2024 03:13
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dinahmoe posted:Do you ever work with saxophones? I know it’s a lot more buttons and keys than brass. I have a 1928 Conn 10M that I got for $800 in 1988. I played it for years, but it fell apart about 10 years ago, after surviving a car accident in a soft gig bag. I was quoted over $3000 to get it fixed. I love that horn I’ve stayed away from woodwinds since I don’t play them, and just felt that brasswinds are enough for now… There is some overlap of skills between the two (repairing them, that is, but mechanics and pad adjustment on saxophones look like they would take a lot of time and effort to learn. Requires a while new set of tools, too. The reason they charge a lot for sax work is that complexity. The shop has to stock spare parts for dozens of common model saxes, and every pad and lever has to be replaced and carefully adjusted to seal properly. I don’t know how it could end up at $3000, that seems like a lot. Fallen apart as in parts missing and dented, perhaps? It could be worth looking at sending it out to a different shop, they can charge pretty different hourly rates depending on region. My biggest problem is I live in an inner city apartment and don’t have room for big equipment. If I wanted to do this professionally I would require at least a good metal lathe. As it is, I can order work from the pro shops, but it’s too expensive to be viable plus the lead times can be long. So I have to say no to a lot of work. Which works out, since I don’t have to take on more than I want. I was given an antique tuba which I’m planning to work on, at least to get it playable. Have to get some new tubing drawn before I take it all apart and start in earnest. I’m kind of dreading it because I know it’s going to take at least 100 to 200 hours of labor to get the dents out and patch it up so it’s airtight again.
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Feb 9, 2024 13:55
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Tree Bucket posted:I hope you live in south eastern Australia, because the intercontinental postage costs for a euphonium are probably Not Nice Yeah mailing euphoniums internationally is an expensive proposition. Unfortunately I’m in Sweden. I’m sure they have good brass techs in your area, because they tend to crop up everywhere. 
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Feb 9, 2024 14:06
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Modal Auxiliary posted:You don't have one of these? You typically want to avoid magnetizing the parts since that can make the hairspring run weird and mess up the regulation and timekeeping ability of the watch. The wand is pretty much a last ditch effort to find what is basically a needle in a haystack. Parts usually only ping off across the room if you’re holding them wrong with your tweezers or you don’t properly stabilize a spring during installation.
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Feb 10, 2024 00:48
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BalloonFish posted:I think I've done nine in total at a rate of about one a year. But I haven't actually worked on one for over a decade now since I moved to a place without the spare space to work on a reed organ in its dismantled form. That’s awesome! It’s a great feeling, isn’t it, knowing that something was sitting unused for 50 years until you made it playable again and now it might stay playable for another 50. I dabbled for a while in piano repair, when I was poor and could only get a free-but-barely-playable one. Of course I didn’t recoup the cost of the tools but I had a lot of fun tuning pianos I randomly encountered in my life. Like, the grand piano that was for some reason put in the staff lunch room at my summer job. Spent a couple of lunch breaks tuning it and after that some other staff started playing it! Ended up selling the tools (apart from the tuning levers) to a local piano tech for a discount on a professionally-restored piano.
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Feb 10, 2024 13:49
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Tree Bucket posted:Well, wrong continent for squirrels, sorry. We have these guys though, and a whole lot of wallabies that are way too fast for me to photograph
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Feb 11, 2024 16:29
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Yeah mailing euphoniums internationally is an expensive proposition. Unfortunately I’m in Sweden. I’m sure they have good brass techs in your area, because they tend to crop up everywhere. Here's a repair I did on a friend's euph recently. It had a broken case and fell out, bell first onto the floor from about shoulder height. The damage was actually less than I would have expected. Those B&H Imperial horns were built really solid. Before:   After:   This repair was dead simple, really, just needed a steel roller and plenty of lubricant. Lots of elbow grease, too, and patience. The after pictures might have turned out nicer if I had cleaned the horn and polished it before taking them -- my friend wanted to do that himself though.
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Feb 12, 2024 13:59
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The Wurst Poster posted:I've got old phones. These were great for hitting a guy right in his loving head.
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Feb 13, 2024 01:05
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I make dirt into rock to solve problems I made up the weirdest pieces I make are probably the face jugs. they evolved out three different previous traditions and took root in the American southeast and now they're a fairly common folk art form. I try to make sure mine will work as functional pieces even though they don't get used that way   
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Feb 13, 2024 15:06
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