I’ll start. I have recently gotten into 3D printing, and, while incredibly frustrating sometimes, there’s nothing more rewarding than getting a perfect print.
I like buying LEGO minifigures and then designing/building biomes for them to inhabit. I use BrickLink Studio to design the builds and then upload my parts list to BrickLink to get used bricks to build them. I also post them on Rebrickable for free, but I’ve fallen behind and need to post more on there.
Here are a few that I’ve built.
Hey that’s pretty sweet man. Has some diorama feel to it.
Blacksmithing. Something so primal and simple about it. And you get to play with fire. But what I find most satisfying is the ability, once you have a few simple tools, to make any other tools you need. It’s like the og 3d printing.
Surprised it hasn’t been mentioned already but Mechanical Keyboards. I’ll spend hours scrolling for different builds. There’s also something therapeutic about spending hours lubing and soldering switches.
The ability to identify practically any bird or reptile in North America. I get friends asking me what things are all the time… then trying to extend my knowledge to fungi and plants (which I’m getting better with, but not at the same level). It doesn’t feel too niche until I interact with my friends outside of biology.
I got into 3d printing ages ago by way of wanting to build whacky r/c aircraft (and I had read a thing about it in a magazine. This was late 90’s though and it was completely different then.)
3d printing got me into horology- and designing printed versions of different mechanical clock mechanisms.
I especially like pendulum clocks.
That’s awesome…
There’s a mod (build?) that I saw that combines a pendulum clock with a Sentro brand auto-knitting machine to knit as the clock ticks.
this was the first clock I printed. The instructions are easy, even it does take more hardware. It also has remarkable accuracy as far as time keeping is concerned
Gunpla. It’s literally assembling Gundam (Japanese transformers) models. Modern gunpla kits are very cool with what they can do. This can be a pricey hobby if you get really into it (painting, air spraying, even 3d printing) but it can also be a $20 a month hobby. It all depends on how far you want to take it and what aspects you enjoy.
I got into this recently. Seeing that there were Evangelion kits helped too. Blows my mind how intricate it is. It’s so relaxing.
Lockpicking is nice. You won’t believe how many friends ask for help after they know your hobby. Most of the time it’s just “my keys are still inside, so it’s not locked”. It’s the easiest, but you don’t need to pick the lock to open those.
I shop Goodwill like it’s a job.
DVDs are always welcome. We have like 900 discs right now. $1.50-$3 a piece over several years.
Then it’s all kitchen gadgets. All kinds of single purpose appliances for <$10. If they work out, keep them or upgrade them to a higher quality brand. If they don’t, donate them back.
It’s a lot of fun, and a real shopping experience that forces you to consider different options because if limitations where Amazon might funnel you into a single solution.
Is it only Goodwill specifically or any thrift store? Are Goodwills generally better than others?
We only really shop Goodwill and are familiar with the layout and trends. It has gotten worse lately, but we did get a working, clean minifridge for $50 ($250 new), and we got our stand mixer from the auction site mentioned by someone else. $90 for the mixer and a ton of attachments. Just needed a $10 gear replaced.
Home brewing. It is fun for me to talk about the process of making beer and why my beer is cloudy and has sediment at the bottom
I realized a while ago that my true hobby is learning. I love learning new things such as:
- Ukulele
- Tin whistle
- Juggling
- Kendama
- Unicycling
- Ham radio (and morse code and electronics)
- Esperanto
- Fencing
- Sailing
- Krav Maga
- Swing and Ballroom Dancing
I’ve learned bit of all of these, master of none though…
Mi ankaŭ lernas esperanton!
I’ve been at it for a bit over a year, casually chipping away at it on Duolingo. I have a feeling I’m probably in pretty much the same boat as you, there’s no particular reason I’m learning it, just kind of seemed like something different to do.
And I dabble in a bit of ham radio, but I don’t do much with it, and I’m curious if this has been your experience as well. I think the biggest problem with ham radio is other hams, because for a lot of them their biggest hobbies is ham radio so all they want to talk about is ham radio. Don’t get me wrong, I think antennas are cool too, but surely they must have something else going on in their life worth chatting about.
Yes, other hams are the number one problem with ham radio. I was really into it for a long time and met some really good people in the community but when I moved across country it really feel to the wayside.
Role-playing games. It might hit close to mainstream now - those tv series and movies where they appear directly or indirectly, certainly made the hobby more famous - but as an actual hobby, it’s still a niche thing.
I think they should be part of educational program, globally.
Like DnD? Or what role-playing games?
Tabletop role-playing games in general. D&D and Pathfinder are now the most widely recognized and played ones, but there’s whole library of alternatives. Thousands of games out there, catering to different needs, offering different experience, set in different worlds and offering different choices.
For example, there’s BLUE PLANET in production - a SF/cyberpunk/environmentalist game in production, taking place on a distant planet covered mostly by water. In terms of the setting, it’s antithesis to DUNE, or very old, but stil amazing DARKSUN but the undertones are similar - people fighting against greed that ruins their world.
Whatever idea you have, zombie apocalypse, kids saving the world, people investigating Lovecraftian horror, spaceships, weird west world, clash of fantasy kingdoms - there’s a game for that.
Recently got a fountain pen and have been practicing my handwriting with it. Oddly meditative and relaxing
I badly want a Montblanc Agatha Christie fountain pen, but they are a bit pricey.
Lol I hope I never get to the point I buy a pen that expensive o.o
I play mandolin, which I think is niche? This summer I’ve been learning ableton live with the goal of combining edm influences and small, odd instruments.
Me too!
When my wife offered it to me for my birthday, I hadn’t seen a real one in my life. I already had been playing the guitar and the ukulele (on top of other non-string instruments) for a while, and I said: “I hope it’s not yet another tuning to learn chords from scratch on, a friend tried to teach me the cello’s tuning once and I found it so needlessly confusing”.
Oops… 😂
But it’s all good, I got over it. 🙂
Mosaic crocheting. You can create blankets that basically look like quilts, or photographs (although I don’t like the look of the latter).
I am a geologist that also has a lifelong interest in anomalous natural phenomena and paranormal claims. So I do a website called Spooky Geology. I think I can count the number of people who can do this on one hand. Like me and one other person I know of. So, that seems very niche. I also have a community here for weird news. !strangetimes@lemmy.world
