Top DIY Hacks That Could Poke Your Eye Out

Most of the DIY projects we feature around here are simple and uncontroversial. However, in honour of the Anarchist Cookbook‘s 40-year anniversary, we’ve decided to share some of our top DIY projects that you may not want to try at home.

Photo by Daniel Lobo.

The Anarchist Cookbook was the ultimate dangerous DIY instruction manual, laying out how to build explosives in your home, sabotage communication systems, and otherwise cause a lot of damage. In fact, it did cause a lot of damage when real-life terrorists began to use the book as influence for their own nefarious schemes. It’s irrelevant today, what with the internet and the ability to Google any type of homemade bomb you want, but its effect on society is nonetheless undeniable.

We’re not making any bombs here, but we’ve sure shared some projects that could be problematic without a careful eye or DIY know-how (and have gotten some readers upset with us!). In that vein, here are some of our favourite hacks from over the years that you might want to think twice about.

Playing with Lasers

Lasers are bad, guys. We’ve all seen Moonraker. Sure, you could take out the laser from a DVD drive and turn it into a handheld laser burner, but you’re probably just going to hurt someone. Similarly, you could jack up the juice on a cheap laser pointer, but just be careful you don’t put someone’s eye out—this DIY laser pointer test will help keep you in the safe range.

Make Your Own Heated Clothing

Threading your underwear with teflon wire to turn them into heated pants may sound like a good idea in the frigid winter, but unless you’ve got some experience with electronics, soldering, and not setting things on fire, you’ll want to be careful with this one. Sure, if you’re careful, you probably won’t catch fire, but crank up the heat too much and you could still burn yourself. Maybe you’re better off just putting on some wool socks to keep yourself warm.[imgclear]

Drive a Car With Your iPhone

We’re all for upgrading your car, but there’s a limit—and we’re pretty sure the limit is driving your car with your phone. Texting while driving is bad enough, but the iPhone’s accelerometer probably wasn’t meant for operating heavy machinery. Related note: we don’t recommend surfing on top of a moving vehicle either.

Be Evil

We’ve had some fun teaching you evil hacks over the years, but don’t take it as an invitation to be evil. Whether we’re teaching you how to crack the passwords of PCs, Macs, and wireless networks, we do so to teach you how to protect yourself (or get yourself out of a sticky situation). Being evil will probably just get you in trouble with the law, or at least beat up a little bit. Don’t be evil, kids.

Cook Food in Your Dishwasher

We’re big fans of food hacks here at Lifehacker, but as cool as cooking food in your dishwasher may be, we scratch our heads as to why one would actually do it. If you have a dishwasher, you probably have an oven, stove, microwave and host of other appliances designed to cook food. Plus, they’re less likely to get leftover soap in your food or leave you with an undercooked chicken. It’s a very interesting learning exercise, but we don’t recommend making this your go-to cooking appliance.[imgclear]

Make Your Own DIY Weapons

There are many forms of weaponry in this world, and we’ve shown you how to DIY many of them using household objects. Whether you’re going medieval with an office supply crossbow or more modern with the potato air cannon, you’re going to put somebody’s eye out. These are projects best left in your imagination.

While there’s nothing wrong with a little dangerous DIY once in a while, we recommend it purely for educational purposes, and with lots of safety measures taken. Got your own favourite dangerous DIY hack that we didn’t feature? Share it with us in the comments.