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Reader Submitted: Guess what Style of Structure Inspired this Furniture Collection. Hint: They're Generally Made of Logs

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Cabin is the latest release by DesignByThem founders Sarah Gibson and Nicholas Karlovasitis—otherwise known as GibsonKarlo. The new collection of armchairs, lounges, ottomans and booth style structures utilize a series of upholstered log modules, exploring geometric forms to create playful and personable pieces for the office or home.

Cabin Lounges by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Lounges by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Lounges by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Lounges by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Lounge by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Lounge
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Booth by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Booth & Ribs Bench (Stefan Lie)
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Booth by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Booth 5 Log High & Ribs Bench (Stefan Lie)
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Booth by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Booth 3 Log High
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Lounge by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Lounge
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Lounge by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Lounge with dividing armrests, no lumbar.
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Lounge by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Leather Lounge
Credit: Pete Daly
Cabin Armchair and Ottoman by GibsonKarlo for DesignByThem
Cabin Armchair & Ottoman with Alfred Magazine Rack (Seaton Mckeon)
Credit: Pete Daly
View the full project here

Furniture Knockoffs are Now a $1.4 Trillion Industry

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Quartz has got a great article up called "There's a trillion-dollar global black market for fake 'designer' chairs." Anyone interested in the problem of design piracy, and how to combat it, should give it a full read. 

(Kartell, Herman Miller, Fritz Hansen, Knoll, Carl Hansen & Søn / Graphic by Quartz)

Here are some of the salient points:

- Leading the charge against design piracy is BeOriginal Americas, a nonprofit consortium of design firms and furniture manufacturers.

- BOA states that global furniture knockoffs are a $1.7 trillion industry.

- The Eames Bentwood LCW chair is "among the most copied pieces of furniture," and the Eameses began battling pirates of it in the early 1960s.

- The U.S. Customs & Border Patrol is now apparently receiving training on spotting design knock-offs; last year, according to the CBP themselves,

[We] seized 42 shipments of unauthorized replica furniture determined to be counterfeit iconic mid-century modern design home and office furniture. These seizures, involving goods that would have had an estimated combined MSRP of $4.2 million if genuine, stemmed from an e-allegation concerning persistent and widespread infringement. CBP's furniture enforcement efforts have helped to protect over 8,000 American jobs.
Graphic by Quartz

- Your average consumer doesn't understand the difference between design and style. Quartz cites Emeco CEO Gregg Buchbinder, whose chairs have been knocked off by everyone from Ikea to Restoration Hardware:

Buchbinder blames knock-off culture on a popular misconception of what "design" really means. "The design of the chair really starts with scientists, chemists and engineers working on the materials and the processes," he explains. "There's so much more to design other than the shape. I don't think the average consumer understands that, they think they're paying for the shape."

The full article is a long read but well worth it, particularly the part about how knockoff companies "can skip the years-long product development phase and often have an easier time selling their versions because consumers are already familiar with the look." Educate yourself here.



Hacking a Miter Saw Stand

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Brian Way is a cabinet and millwork installer in Connecticut who specializes in commercial projects. The work is frequently spread out over large areas—as it was on the hospital project that inspired him to hack his miter saw stand.

The crew was installing trim in long corridors and faced the prospect of walking great distances to the cut station or breaking the station down and moving it multiple times per day. Neither was ideal so Way devised a wheeled plywood base for the stand they were using.

The base has five rubber casters, two at the ends and one in the middle. Way stiffened the back edge with a vertical rip of plywood and put the center wheel near the front—so the flex in the plywood allows it to ride over humps in the floor. The 2-inch casters offer enough resistance that there's no need to lock them while using the saw.

Way designed the base to fit a FastCap BestFence stand but it could be sized to fit any commercially made stand. 

In addition to carrying the stand the base supports a dust extractor, small ultra-quiet air compressor, and the safety cones required when working in hospitals.

A cradle prevents the dust extractor from rolling around and the trash can swings out on a pivot, for better access. Note the "cups" that the feet of  stand fit into; they're screwed to the base and prevent the stand from sliding around. With all this stuff on the base there's still room to stow tool bags, nail guns, and other small items. 

When it's time to move the work station the crew unplugs from the electrical receptacle and rolls all of its gear to the next work area.

Way has built multiple versions of the cart, modifying it to fit the job at hand. It can be built in 30 minutes using five casters and a half sheet of plywood—so it's no great investment.

Porsche's Production Process: Assembling the 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series

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This is some fantastically up-close footage of a Porsche 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series being assembled. The quarter-of-a-million-dollar car is assembled largely by hand with machine assistance, and it's fun watching the various parts come together, and seeing anal touches like the testing guy checking the hood tolerance with a feeler gauge:

Porsche is only making 500 of these, so you'd better ring your local dealership today.

Maybe it's the designer in me, but I found the assembly video more interesting than the actual promo vid:


Design Job: Will You Have Good Chemistry with this Position? The American Chemical Society is Seeking an Art Director for C&EN 

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C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) produces authoritative, award-winning journalism from around the world of chemistry, including recent advances in research, education, industry, funding, and regulatory policy. It is published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society dedicated to a single discipline, and is widely considered one

View the full design job here

The Humanscale Reference Series is Being Re-released--at an Affordable Price!

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In our popular post "Reference: Common Dimensions, Angles and Heights for Seating Designers," I lamented that one of the human factors bibles of the 20th Century is no longer available. Niels Diffrient's set of Humanscale books, which contain some 60,000 human factors data points, went out of print in 1981. People are now selling used copies on eBay for $200 for one out of the three books, and someone's selling the whole set on Amazon for $1,118.

Thankfully, design consultancy IA Collaborative has arranged to reproduce the entire Humanscale series and is releasing it at an affordable price!


Humanscale was published as three separate sets––Humanscale 1/2/3, Humanscale 4/5/6, and Humanscale 7/8/9. Each set includes one booklet and three two-sided selectors.
Each of the two-sided selectors contains a circular disc that the designer rotates to dial in user data across attributes like age, height, strength, and ability level.
As the designer rotates the disc, distinct measurements corresponding to the chosen data parameter emerge throughout the selector. For instance, an IKEA designer working on children's desks might rotate the disc on Selector 2b to "Age 5" and then "Age 12" to find the appropriate range of "Leg Room" measurements for the product.
The process is illustrated here:

You can scoop up the entire set for $199--the price of what a single Humanscale booklet is going for on eBay--and that's 20% off of what it will retail for. Get in on it here.


The Baseball as Folk Art

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Umpire George Sosnak was good at his chosen profession but he was better as a folk artist, chronicling the history of the sport by inking highly detailed drawings and text onto baseballs. 

Baseball people knew and valued his art during his lifetime and it has become highly sought by collectors since his death in 1992.

Sosnak first used a baseball as a canvas for art in 1956, when a fan who knew he was an amateur painter asked him to paint her favorite player on a baseball. He gave her that ball and went on to produce 800 more such works in the next 36 years, selling some and giving others away as gifts. 

His style drew heavily from the baseball cards of the day, which in the pre-internet world of the 1950s and 1960s is where stats for individual players were most easily found. 

His works were a mixture of drawings and text, and frequently included baseball statistics and descriptions of players and games. In some cases he started with a ball that had been autographed by a player and then drew and lettered around it.

Sosnak covered the entirety of baseball, creating drawings of famous players and legendary games as well as more whimsical moments in the sport. He spawned many imitators but none have equalled his body of work.

The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia is currently exhibiting 45 Sosnak works in "Having a Ball: George Sosnak's Striking Portraits from American's Pastime". The exhibition runs through August 27, 2017.


Reader Submitted: This Marble Lamp Uses Recycled Marble Dust as an Interactive Dimmer Switch

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Even though marble is commonly associated with luxury goods, its waste is affordable and plentiful. This lamp finds a possible function for this waste and uses marble's proprieties to create an organic light shade.

By leaving the dust free to move, the user is encouraged to interact with this product. By doing so, they also interact with the surrounding space and the way light affects it.

The placement of the lightbulb in an off-centered position means that the lamp will show a different amount of light depending on which face it is resting on.

Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
Credit: selce studio 2017
View the full project here

Designing a More Interactive Interface for NASA's Earth Science Database

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NASA collects an incredible amount of data every year from over 50 satellites and other sensors focused on our planet from space. All the data collected is free for the public to use, and most importantly for scientists around the world who are working to advance all aspects of Earth science.

View the full content here

Four New Objects We Didn't Expect to See From Ikea

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Ikea's getting ready to release their 2018 catalog. While it won't be available until August, we got a look at a pre-release version, and went through it to see if anything jumped out at us. We found the new furniture offerings to be standard fare, but there are four new objects that we didn't quite expect to see:

SNOFSA Clock $12.99

Made from glass and powder-coated steel done up with a brass finish, this visually arresting, Art-Deco-ish clock speaks of the designers being given some leeway.

ÖSTERNÄS Leather handles $9.99/2pk and $12.99/2pk

Made from "Through dyed grain leather from cattle, with a treated and pigmented surface and stainless steel," these leather handle pulls take a cue from luxury furniture, and will go a long way towards dressing up an otherwise plain storage unit.

TILLSYN Hourglass $7.99

It's not Marc Newson's $12,000 Hodinkee model, though it borrows the colors of the beads. I've also recently spotted hourglasses for sale at CB2; in this age of digital timers, are throwback hourglasses becoming a thing?

FADO Table lamp $19.99

Buyers can choose between a yellow or grey tint for the glass globe, which is roughly 9" in diameters. The Edison-looking bulb within is actually an LED bulb. It's obviously a mood light and not a task light, but it's a damn sight better looking than the cheapie paper-clad models Ikea is known for.

The 2018 Ikea Catalog will be available to the public in early August.

Tools & Craft #57: "Cheap - The High Cost of Discount Culture"

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I am too darned depressed to write a cheerful blog today. My wife got a copy of Ellen Ruppel Shell's book "Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture" from the library for me to read and well so far it's a real downer. We all know about the drive for the cheapest possible price on any product and the consequent long slide in industrial and craft wages during the past 40 years. Actually it's been going on for centuries. Charles Hayward once remarked that early in his career, on top quality work, scribe lines on dovetails were not left visible. But during his lifetime custom changed and furniture with visible scribes was no longer considered of lesser quality.

In any event my son is getting bigger and needs a larger desk. Our original thought was just to go to the local Big Box Store. I hate the place but you can't beat the price. The furniture won't last but that's not relevant for a growing boy. In any case I don't have the time to make a proper desk for the lad. I know - I'm part of the problem.

After reading half way through this book, I decided that there is no way I can justify buying a desk at the Big Box. The problem is that there is very little middle to the market. You either shop at the Big Box, or someplace else with Big-Box-level quality or you essentially get custom made furniture.

In the modern "furniture making as a hobby" world there is no low end either. The projects for any desk-like thing in any of the woodworking magazines and books that are around today are pretty fancy and certainly not something you knock off in a few days with a only small outlay in materials and tools. It's a commitment. Maybe that's why more people don't make their own stuff anymore.

In last century's "Work Magazine" a lot of their designs were middle ground. These projects were designed to get the job done with a minimum of tools and effort. They were nailed together, sometimes out of scrap. I know Adam Cherubini has written on nailed furniture but not enough.

So here is what I am going to do. I am planning to figure out some simple desk that I can easily build, will look reasonable, will get the job done, and if the boy dumps paint on it, I won't jump out of my skin.

___________________

This "Tools & Craft" section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.


Steven M. Johnson's Bizarre Invention #341: Men's Sani-Glasses for Camping

Design Job: Passionate About User Centered Design? IXDX is Seeking an Interaction Designer in München, Germany

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IXDS is a design studio based in Berlin and Munich. We work across the physical and digital to prototype meaningful products, services and experiences that have an enduring impact on organizations and people. Every day we are getting our heads around how people will live their lives in the future: in smart homes, managing their health intelligently, getting around in a seamless way, collaborating and living together in totally new formats.

View the full design job here

Facebook Messenger and Other Apps are Listening to You Through Your Phone. Here's How to Turn the Microphone Off

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A Core77 staffer recently recounted how she had been talking about a particular product with a friend. Not Googling it, just discussing it verbally. In subsequent days she noticed ads popping up on her feed for that particular product. Coincidence?

As it turns out, if you have the Facebook Messenger app on your phone, the mic on your phone is set to "On" by default. Even creepier is this admission by Facebook given to The Independent:

Facebook says that its app does listen to what's happening around it, but only as a way of seeing what people are listening to or watching and suggesting that they post about it.

Kelli Burns, a University of South Florida Mass Communication professor, wasn't buying it:

Professor Burns…says that to test the feature, she discussed certain topics around the phone and then found that the site appeared to show relevant ads.

…The claim chimes with anecdotal reports online that the site appears to show ads for things that people have mentioned in passing.

Admittedly, what we have here are a bunch of anecdotes, and Facebook denies that they're listening in in order to serve relevant ads. But why take the chance that your phone is listening in? I can't think of a single reason why I want any app listening to me.

Here's how you shut the mics off:

iPhone:

Settings --> Privacy --> Microphone

Toggle off the mic for each app on the list.

Android:

Settings --> Privacy

Turn off the relevant Facebook permissions.

I found four apps on my phone were listening in without my knowledge. My friend who was with me at the time checked hers and found no less than 11 apps that all had the mic on by default. Can't hurt to give your own phone a look.

Source: Awareness Act


Reader Submitted: A Water Filtration System that Merges Science with Pleasing Aesthetics

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Drop by drop is a water filtration system for home that uses plants to filter out contaminants. Recommended plants to be used in the filtration system are herbs as they can be easily grown indoors for consumption and the water procured has a scent that is pleasant to taste. The air that goes out of this system is primarily oxygen which enhances the room atmosphere.

This is more than just a filtration system. It is a new lifestyle where the appliance is a living breathing entity which sits in the living room right next to your favourite couch. I believe that such a product can bring about a mass movement in the way we look at appliances and value systems. The concept can be scaled up using bigger plants and trees that need more water and can be grown in contained environments. Several other scales can be explored and implemented, thereby paving the way for research and design to delve into more sustainable solutions and solve some of the most burning problems of our times.


View the full project here

Three Fantastic Designs for Transforming Tables

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Our most successful video of all time, with some 17-million-plus views, is of the transforming furniture at Resource Furniture's Manhattan showroom. Being seven years old the resolution is terrible, which we realize, but we at least showed the furniture doing its thing with minimal fluff and fuss.

Here are three other cool designs for transforming furniture--that have absolutely horrible videos.

Whomever shot and scored Ozzio's 4x4 Table video ought to be sent back to film school:


The video for ATIM's Party Mensola table is mercifully free of awful music, but adds a black border around the picture, making it smaller for no reason:


And this otherwise fantastic design for HWB's Hidden Dining Table features the world's worst music, and takes way too long to get to the point:


Let this serve as a reminder to you designers: People want to see your work, as largely, clearly, dynamically and quickly as possible. No one wants to hear your taste in music.


Incredible Time Lapse of a Gargantuan Cruise Ship Being Built from Scratch

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With a staggering 18 passenger decks, an onboard artificial beach, a "lazy river" ride and the world's longest cruise ship waterslide, the 3,300-passenger AIDAprima is the flagship of AIDA Cruises (a subsidiary of Carnival).

The AIDAprima was constructed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at their Koyagi shipyards in Nagasaki, and they left a bunch of 4K cameras rolling from start to finish, capturing "the world's first cinematic quality time lapse film of a full cruise ship build." Check it out:

It didn't all go off without a hitch, however. Edited out of the video is the part where the ship caught fire during the construction.

What was your favorite part of the build? Mine was watching that decorative paint job go on. I reckon when the graphics are that large, there's no need to mask and they can just freehand it.

In the event that this video doesn't do it for you, maybe you'll enjoy seeing How They Saw a 50,000-Ton Cargo Ship Into Slices while it's still underwater.


Hand Tool School #40: Do You Need a Shoulder Plane?

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I have some shoulder planes made by modern makers. I have a vintage Stanley model too. I bought them early on in my conversion to hand tools because it seemed that all the pundits of the time were telling me I needed to have one. 

They got used--but rarely for actually planing tenon shoulders. Then they went in the tool cabinet and spent a lot more time there. Occasionally one would come out to address a problem after 3 or 4 other things were tried. Sometimes it fit the bill, other times it was returned to the cabinet and another plane was pulled out to address the task. 

It wasn't until I pulled my medium shoulder plane out of the cabinet (because it was in the way of another tool I needed) that I saw the thick layer of dust gathered on the plane. That was a red flag that my "essential" shoulder planes are maybe not that essential after all. Don't get me wrong, we had some good times but over time something has soured in our relationship and I'm wondering why.

The Difference Between a Shoulder Plane and Traditional Rabbet Plane

The predecessor to the shoulder plane was the rabbet plane, a wooden bodied plane that could have either a skewed or straight iron with a side escapement. Today's shoulder plane is a different beast from a rabbet plane. The modern shoulder plane has its iron bedded at a low angle and bevel up, and while it may look like a side escapement plane it is really just a hole in the body that allows the iron to extend all the way to the edge of the sole. The shaving is not coaxed out of the sides, but rather rolls up and stays inside the body. This is because the shoulder plane is not meant to take a long shaving over the length of a case rabbet or run of moulding. The shoulder plane is meant to work on end grain of a tenon shoulder, hence the low angle bedding and no need for efficient shaving removal. The rabbet plane on the other hand is pretty much the opposite of all of the above, with a bevel down iron bedded at a standard or higher angle and a definite bias on the escapement that will eject the shaving off to the side and thus prevent clogging while cutting long rabbets on moulding or whatever.

I therefore think it is fitting that the nomenclature has changed and the term "shoulder plane" came to be and important because I think it must be differentiated from the other planes where the blade extends right up to the corner of the sole. It is exactly the highly specific nature of the shoulder plane that has caused it to fall out of use in my shop. In some cases it has been replaced by another tool, in other cases my skill has improved to the point of not needing the assistance offered by the shoulder plane. Let's look at how the shoulder plane can be used and why I no longer find it necessary. I really hope some of you will speak up in the comments about how you use the shoulder plane so I can see if I am missing something.

Trimming Tenon Shoulders

This is the task that the shoulder plane was designed for. The blade aspect is well suited for slicing end grain and creating shoulders that are all in the same plane and square to the tenon. I however found this process to be cumbersome because there was always the potential for horrific blowout on the corner of the board that forced me to work from both sides into the middle. Now I'm taking two separate passes and decreasing my chances of getting the shoulders into a single plane. Moreover the short end shoulder of the tenon don't provide enough of a running surface for the plane to register against and either blowout or a tippy plane produced less than ideal results. For this task it is rare that you will want anything larger than the small shoulder plane as the added mass and wider sole will make the plane tippy on the narrow shoulder. So I found myself reaching for a chisel to pare the narrow shoulders inline with the long shoulders done with the shoulder plane. Then I started asking myself why not just use the chisel for the whole job and slightly undercut the shoulder to ensure a tight fit. So I replaced the shoulder plane for the chisel. Then I pretty much stopped using even the chisel as my sawing skills improved and the tenons fit right from the saw. So for this task I both replaced and "outgrew" it's use.

Trimming Tenon/Half Lap Cheeks

As an indication how little I use shoulder planes now this is the best image in my library of one. Cleaning glue from an inside corner is a good use.

Now we move onto face grain but still a cross grain aspect and the shoulder plane's ability to cut right up into a corner is used to reduce the thickness of a tenon (or whatever) cheek. This is where I find the variety of sizes in shoulder planes came into play. The idea here is to pick a size that allows a single pass to cover the entire face to be trimmed. This is where I used my large (1 1/4?) shoulder plane. If I have to take multiple passes to cover the entire tenon cheek then my chances of getting things into a single plane are less. Again here the blow out was a common issue though not as serious since the tenon would be hidden inside the mortise. For half laps it was more serious as spelching would be visible on the joint line. I also found the long and narrow nature of the shoulder plane to be tippy on the typical joint width and it required a lot more concentration to keep from tapering the cheek. This pushed me to set aside the shoulder plane and adopt a rabbet block plane for this work. With a lower center of gravity and a wider sole I could cover the entire face with one pass and do it one handed while holding the work against a bench hook with the other hand. To defeat spelching I would do a lot of paring using a wide chisel and that practice has even sidelined my rabbet block plane. Yet again, the saw trumps all and as my skill improved there was less reason for trimming and the joints fit right from the saw.

End Grain Rabbets or Filisters

Think of a raised panel or perhaps the tenon of a breadboard end for this example. The width of sole issue is the same here as above so lets skip that for now. With a wider surface now the longer sole of a shoulder plane was much more useful and the added mass of a heavy plane was a great benefit. However the added resistance of a straight iron offsets that benefits of additional mass. The spelching issue is still present here too and usually additional measures needed to be taken to prevent minor spelching from becoming massive blowout. Usually a well placed saw cut or some paring with a chisel, or the attack from both ends approach mentioned above. Depending on how long this rabbet is the lack of escapement could be an annoyance that would cause clogging or the need to clear the shaving in mid pass, but this was rare. Working cross grain like this would also require that a shoulder be sawn in order to prevent horrible tearing on the surface thus marring your shoulder. In the end, that additional preventative measures required to do this work with a shoulder plane pushed me to a plane with a skewed blade. Even better a skew blade and a nicker iron so I could avoid the entire process of sawing in a shoulder. I have landed these days on vintage wooden skewed rabbet planes or a moving filister for tasks like this. I can quickly and cleanly remove wood without any of the preparation work required when using the shoulder plane. In really big work like the breadboard tenons on my Joinery bench, I wasted the bulk of the wood with a saw and chisel then refine the joint with a skewed wooden rabbet plane. These wooden planes have easily become some of my most used planes in the cabinet.

Long Rabbets

I could be wrong but I don't think many people try to use a shoulder plane for this purpose. Imagine the back rabbet in a case into which you would fit a back panel. Just try this and you will quickly become annoyed with how quickly the shaving clogs the throat and how the lower bedding of the blade can lift and tear the wood easily. Usually a fenced plane is useful here that can be set and used to quickly run off the rabbets on all your case parts. Again the wooden rabbet plane is a good tool here because the taller profile can actually make cutting a square rabbet easier. You will find the fence isn't as necessary as a good marking gauge line is all that is needed to start the plane and once the sidewall is established the plane goes on autopilot.

There are probably more uses for a shoulder plane that I'm not thinking of here and I hope that some of you will speak up if there is something I haven't considered. I have already decided to sell my medium shoulder plane and I'm on the fence about the large model. In many ways, I feel like I have outgrown this tool as the overwhelming reason it stays on the shelf is I have found the steps leading up to needing it have gotten more accurate thus eliminating the need to refine a cut. It has me examining other tools and wondering how useful they really are and why that usefulness may have changed. Of course one of the exciting (and maddening) things about woodworking are the seemingly endless number of variables from project to project. Perhaps I just haven't found the project yet that demands I pull out that shoulder plane because nothing else will work just right.

Do you use a shoulder plane? How and why? Have you "outgrown" a tool by improving your skill elsewhere?

_____________

This "Hand Tool School" series is provided courtesy of Shannon Rogers, a/k/a The Renaissance Woodworker. Rogers is founder of The Hand Tool School, which provides members with an online apprenticeship that teaches them how to use hand tools and to build furniture with traditional methods.


Convenient Desk Accessories That Will Make Your Life Easier

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A Reusable Notebook That Lets You Store Notes on the Cloud

If you are an avid note taker who often litters their desk with ephemeral Post It notes and sheets of paper, this notebook could be for you. A smart notebook that you can easily scan onto your computer and automatically categorize using its connected app, the other perk to this product its resusability—just pop it in the microwave for a few minutes, and you can erase all the contents and start anew. (Two notes to remember: one, the notebook must be microwaved every 2 months otherwise it leaves faint pen marks, and two, you also must use it with Pilot Frixion pens in order for it to erase.)

Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook, $26

Pilot Frixion Pens, $5

A Robotic Whiteboard

The Joto Robot, funded on Indiegogo earlier this year, seems funny at first glance but when you start to think about the functionality, the opportunities are endless— preview sketches to your design team on one, send handwritten messages to other Jotos across the world, or simply have a nice piece of artwork on your wall that refreshes every day!

Joto Whiteboard, $260(available for pre-order)

A Self-Watering Planter with a Clever Feature

A piece of greenery always brightens up a workspace, but it's easy when you're hard at work to forget to water your desk friend. This clever planter by Studio Lorier not only waters your plant automatically for about a month, it also has an innovative manual feature that tells you when it's time to refill the pot. 

Natural Balance Planter, $57 (available for pre-order)

A Good Pair of Noise Cancelling Headphones

If you'd prefer to zone into your work by listening to your tunes as opposed to your coworker's conversations, get yourself a pair of headphones that really keep the noise out. The less you can hear, the less of a chance one of your team members has a chance of interrupting your workflow. This pair is also great because they're wireless!

Hiearcool L1 Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones, $65

A Great Stylus

We're really big fans of the Apple pencil for its pressure sensitivity and its uncanny simulation of pencil strokes when it's on the pencil setting—however, we're also well aware the flexibility is limited as it's only for the iPad pro (anyone with recommendations of their absolute favorite stylus should contribute their thoughts in the comments below!)

Apple Pencil for iPad Pro, $99

Desk Tools You'll Actually Use

MUJI has a number of office accessories that are minimal, portable and at times more sustainably friendly than their conventional counterparts (like their stapleless stapler)

MUJI Stapleless Stapler, $7.95, or view the whole MUJI office collection here

A Nifty Food Dispenser for Daytime Snacks

In my dream world, this is sitting close to my desk and it's always filled with gummy bears... I mean, granola. 

OXO Good Grips Dry Food Dispenser, $39.95

A Good "White Noise" Solution

Noisli is hands down my favorite site to use when I need to focus on a task that's going to take a lot of brainpower and require very little distraction

Noisli, free, or on mobile for $1.99

Fidget Your Way to Productivity

With all these different buttons and doodads to keep you from getting distracted, you'll be able to zero in on all the crucial details during that exhaustive team meeting.

Official Fidget Cube, $19.99

If you buy any of these products through our links, Core77 may receive a small percentage of the sale. But trust us—anything we don't truly love ain't allowed on this list.

Design Job: Teach + Play as a Toy Model Making Technician at FIT in New York, New York

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This position is responsible for the care, management, and safety of the modelmaking shop/lab and of the students at all times. This position is responsible for assisting toy design majors in developing 3D hard toy prototype models using initial sketch input, as well as revising models to meet final approved standards.

View the full design job here
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