TALKING SHOP: Adam Savage in the MythBusters machine shop at M5 Industries in San Francisco: “This is my favorite room in the building; I love the precision here.”

Transcendental

Problem-Solving

MythBuster Adam Savage talks

about making his way growing up.

Interview by Paul Spinrad

MAKE projects editor Paul Spinrad caught up with Adam Savage in San Francisco during production of MythBusters’ ninth season. Earlier that day, Savage had found a local source for industrial quantities of citric acid, which he and co-host Jamie Hyneman needed to determine whether Alka-Seltzer and water could produce enough pressure to break out of a jail cell.

Paul Spinrad: How did you get started making
things as a kid?
Adam Savage: As I said in my welcome to this
issue [see page 11], my father was a painter,
which gave me a real advantage. We’d see him
paint a background, and it would have all this
life to it, and he’d look at it and exhale sharply
in a kind of silent whistle. As kids, it was a great
thing for us to see him get excited about. When
I wanted a race car for my teddy bear, he actually
made one for me out of fiberglass. He made a
chicken-wire frame and laid fiberglass over it.

PS: Wow — in the 70s that was cutting edge! AS: Polyester, man, no epoxy back then. It smelled really bad. He sanded it, painted it, it was gorgeous. I loved that car, also knowing that he made it. My dad also helped me make a suit of armor out of tin when I was 13 for Halloween. We cut the pieces up with tinsnips and then fastened them together with rivets. Pop rivets — what a great technology! I wore the suit to high school and passed out from heat exhaustion.

When I wanted to make something, my dad said OK, here’s the scissors and the >>

Photograph by Cody Pickens

32 Make: Volume 20