Leather Camera Holster

This one's pretty incredible. Jimmy DiResta shows you how to make a leather camera case, custom molded to fit your camera's exact dimensions:

Wooden Domino Row Building Machine

This is hilarious: Matthias Wandel uses his engineering skills to create a machine that sets up dominoes in neat little rows!

Movable Firewood Shed

Matthias Wandel creates roofed sheds that he can load up with firewood, then move in their entirety with a front-end loader. On display are two signature Wandel qualities: Thrift (rusty nails and repurposed materials) and engineering (see how he figures out how to move the shed using a trio of handtrucks).

DIY Accurate Speed Square Saw Guide

Izzy Swan designs yet another useful DIY tool: An adjustable speed square than can be used to make accurate crosscuts, even at angles.

More Home Office Projects

Frank Howarth builds a French-cleat-mounted charging station and removeable toolboxes, then mounts a bookcase after turning some funky offset-foot legs:

Two Drawer Dovetail Box

Jay Bates somehow manages continue upping his skill level. Here he makes an impressively-crafted two-drawer box with fantastic joinery details:

Building a Kayak Rack

While not all of us have a need to store kayaks, you can adapt April Wilkerson's design if you need to build sturdy cantilevered shelving:

Japanese Cedar Gate

WOW. The Samurai Carpenter executes a beautiful feat of woodworking with this traditional Japanese gate:

How to Make a Stepstool Toolbox

Bob Clagett designs on the fly, seeking to make something useful out of scrap in three hours or less:

The Cork Hook

I love this project. If you've ever accidentally corked a wine bottle, you know it's impossible to fish the damn thing out. Well not anymore, thanks to La Fabrique DIY:

Record Storage Box

Vinyl lover Laura Kampf builds a record storage box:

How to Melt Metal into Wood Grain

Ben Uyeda experiments with filling voids in a wooden beam with molten metal:

How to Weld Hairpin-Style Steel Table Legs

Ben then welds up a set of legs to turn the beam into a table:

DIY Dining Table Made From Plywood

Chris Salomone creates a handsome, labor-intensive dining table made from layered plywood:

The Core77 team spends time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite finds from the World Wide Web:

Meticulously detailed infographics of every public transportation mode in 24 major cities. Background info on the project here, actual project here.

Archive of 50’s and 60’s sci-fi pulp magazine “Galaxy”.

The story of a 1928 Rolls Royce Phantom 1, owned by a single owner and driven for 77 years before being donated to the museum. 

How barbed wire changed America.

An interview with the anonymous graphic designer behind  Screen Saviors, the hilarious graphic design Instagram meme account.

Drill-powered flipbook animation.

Journeymen and journeywomen craftspersons still hitting the road in Europe.

33 pop culture touchstones from 1997.

What is your “opposite job?” (And apparently the opposite job of “industrial designer” is “model").

The 20 fastest-growing skills for freelancers.

Solid business/personality advice from Foursquare founder, Dennis Crowley.

New foods announced for the Iowa State Fair, which opened on August 10 and runs for 11 days.

More info on this incredible Hana-Barbara produced steel manufacturing doc can be found here.360-degree rainbows! Hot Tip: Discover more blazin' hot Internet finds on our Twitter and Instagram pages.

This credenza in Brazilian rosewood was manufactured by Hundevad & Co. in the 1960s. These pieces are commonly confused with the designer Poul Hundevad, who bears the same last name.

The majority of these credenzas were originally designed as the bottom portion of bookcases. Most of these pieces originally came with a plinth (flat) base with a removable bookcase hutch that rested on the top of the credenza.

With the increased demand for Danish Modern in the last five years, a lot of these have been repurposed as media consoles, and the hutch tops are long since gone, as it is with this one.

This particular credenza rests on top of its original spindle legs as it was ordered from the manufacturer. In a happy accident, years of sun exposure have given the rosewood a beautiful patinated glow.

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These "Mid Century Modern Find of the Week" posts are provided courtesy of Mid Century Møbler, which specializes in importing vintage Danish Modern and authentic Mid Century furniture from the 1950s and 1960s.

As designers, we're supposed to have sharper visual acuity than most of the population. I'm guessing most of you aced the previous two visual tests we posted about, Matthias Wandel's "Eyeballing Game" and the popular "Which color doesn't fit?" test.

Well, here's another one, branded an "OCD Test," and it's pretty fun. A sample question:

Take the test here, and report back on your results. (There's no time limit on it, so if you don't get a perfect score, you can get the hell out of my classroom.)

Summary

Does United States FDA regulatory approval mean a medical device is safe and effective in low resource settings? The short answer is no. In developing countries, 95% of western medical equipment is broken within 5 years. In fact, only 30% of this donated equipment is ever even turned on. To enable Firefly phototherapy to work well in remote hospitals, we had to develop a novel cooling solution and a more robust electrical system that exceed FDA requirements.

A More Sustainable Cooling Solution

In order to keep the electronics from overheating, most medical electrical equipment use fans that quickly break and vent holes that quickly clog with dust and bugs. These systems meet with FDA approval because they are assuming a U.S. context. Firefly uses a unique fully-sealed design with no moving parts to keep cool and use less energy in hot climates.

A More Robust Electrical System 

Many hospitals in low resource settings have power, but it varies up and down during the course of the day, blowing fuses on typical FDA-approved medical equipment. Firefly uses an external power supply so it can continue functioning during wide power fluctuations.

One of the common questions I am asked when I tell someone I am designing a medical device for the developing world, is whether we will be seeking FDA approval. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates medical devices ranging from complicated, high-risk medical devices, like artificial hearts, to simple, low-risk devices, like tongue depressors, as well as devices that fall somewhere in between, like sutures. FDA can regulate medical devices before and after they reach the marketplace.

Europe requires medical devices to achieve UL approval and CE Mark certification. These requirements mainly focus on quality manufacturing processes and design practices like choosing safe materials and minimizing radiation coming from a device. In contrast, gaining FDA approval allowing use in the United States is known to be the most expensive and time-intensive medical device regulatory process in the world because of the unique requirement to evaluate efficacy.

When people ask me whether we are pursuing FDA approval for Firefly, the subtext is whether we are building a safe device, and how we are balancing affordability, time until product launch, and safety for those we serve. My answer usually surprises them: Firefly has been received CE Mark approval, and DtM's partners are also considering FDA approval. However, CE Mark certification and FDA approval don't guarantee safe medical devices for low resource contexts.

Don't be fooled by the phototherapy lamps shining from above; the four nonworking incubators that sit along the walls are used only as hard to clean beds for the well-baby room at a national hospital in Vietnam.

For example, take the bank of broken, high-tech newborn incubators I saw while visiting National OBGYN Hospital, Vietnam. Our extended Firefly team was preparing to treat the first patient in the nine-room Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The Firefly room was also used to observed all newborns shortly after birth and to treat the newborns with minor health issues. I noticed many newborns in the room lying inside incubators, traditionally used to provide enclosed, warm environments for critical or intensive care and at odds with the low-intensity care needed for the room's newborns. I asked a nurse why some babies were in incubators and others in open beds. She said that they were broken incubators used simply to provide additional bed and storage space in this room. Some incubators had blown fuses due to power spikes, while others had undiagnosed failures that rendered them useless as anything but spare bedding. Many of these burnt-out devices passed FDA approval and so should therefore technically be considered effective, but there are so many ways a device can fail in a low resource setting. These incubators had become no more than fancy and cumbersome beds.

To design Firefly, we began our detailed engineering design process by pouring over the phototherapy standards used in the FDA approval and CE Mark certification processes. These standards are helpful in that they lay out how bright and uniform the light must be in order to provide clinically effective phototherapy. However, we knew early in the design process that just meeting the FDA and CE Mark standards would not yield a device appropriate for low resource settings. DtM's partnership with East Meets West Foundation and Vietnamese manufacturer MTTS was essential to go above and beyond.

Together, East Meets West Foundation (an affiliate of Thrive Networks) and MTTS have over a decade of experience designing and manufacturing successful newborn health technologies for the poor. In close partnership with hundreds of hospitals in Vietnam, they discovered early on that Western devices fail due to poor training as well as environmental factors including heat, dust, and irregular electrical power. Our manufacturing and implementation partners are continually learning from hospitals, designing and releasing equipment, visiting to learn from any failures, fixing the equipment, and then redesigning the next generation of equipment to even better meet the challenges. Every piece of equipment they build also goes through a basic functionality test before it leaves MTTS. These tests have been custom designed to predict whether equipment will endure in the low resource environment. MTTS and DtM collaborated to recreate this same process for Firefly.

Firefly manufacturer MTTS submits a series of new Firefly devices to the "burn-in test" at their offices in Vietnam. Photo courtesy Michael O'Brien of MTTS.

In order to design a device for success in low resource environments, we took two important steps. First, we poured over the phototherapy standards that FDA and CE Mark use to validate a medical device for use in high resource hospitals with climate control, filtered air, and smooth floors. After that, DtM used our human-centered design techniques to interview MTTS staff in-depth about their experiences in these environments. We invited MTTS to tell us stories of equipment failures and successes, encouraged them to dig up old photos to jog the memory, brought MTTS staff with us on hospital visits, and created a steady line of communication through a series of regular Skype calls to pass on new stories. Building on the best practices for phototherapy design in the first world, our learnings from conversations with MTTS staff, and direct observations at hospitals throughout Southeast Asia, DtM created a unique design that prevents bugs, dust, and liquids from entering and enables Firefly to keep operating during broad power fluctuations.

The vent for the Natus NeoBlue LED Overhead Phototherapy, one of the most popular phototherapy devices used in the United States. An internal fan helps move air through this vent to cool the electronics. 1. Keeping Cool while preventing bugs, dust, and liquids from entering. 

Typically, devices with electronics have holes. You may never have noticed, but if you look at your computer, most will have a series of perforations. Most devices with electronics also make a purring sound. For many electronic devices, both of these features are due to the need to keep the electronics cool. The purring sound is usually a fan, and the holes enable it to blow hot air out and bring cool air in. These features keep the device from becoming dangerously hot to touch, and also to ensure the electronic components can perform optimally.

Design that Matters used rubber o-rings to create a seal around the metal tubes where they enter the base of the device. This helps keep bugs and dust out of the device.

In a U.S. hospital, electro-mechanical medical devices share these same cooling solutions. However, when these devices are taken to low resource contexts, they run into trouble. The interior fills with dust and insects. The fans are often the first thing to break, causing the electronics to overheat and burnout in the warm environment. A DtM friend in India quipped, "You haven't really tested a piece of electronic technology for distribution in Asia until you've trained a cockroach to climb in and pee on every single little component on the inside."

Left: The inside of the Firefly top light, showing the metal housing that helps wick heat out the top. Right: The cooling fins are mounted on a slanted surface on the bottom of Firefly to pull heat down from the electronics and then air moves the heat off the rear.

Instead of fans, another way to keep electronics cool is by exposing a large surface area to the air. You may have noticed cooling fins on other home electronics like your refrigerator. Metal cooling fins increase the amount of area exposed to the air on the bottom of Firefly and increase conduction compared to a flat, plastic outer surface. In order to completely seal Firefly, DtM designed a novel passive cooling system for the top and the bottom. The top light was easier to design because heat rises: we manufacture the top light from an aluminum extrusion that has sufficient surface area on top to enable heat from the top lights to rise upward and away from the device. The bottom light was more difficult because any rising heat could directly contribute to overheating the newborn in the bassinet. For this issue, we designed a tilted bottom surface and installed cooling fins. Because hot air rises, air from the lowest part of the device rises up along the fins, cooling the base electronics and enabling the majority of the heat to rise off the rear.

The laptop-like power supply from our Firefly clinical evaluation model prevents Firefly from burning out during a power surge, and relocates the hot power supply outside of the device and away from the baby. 2. Riding power fluctuations.

  A Duke University study found that up to 95% of medical equipment sent to developing countries is broken within five years. There are many causes, but one of the major issues is fluctuating power sources. Electrical power in Myanmar is 220v at 50Hz. Brownouts, blackouts, and voltage fluctuations are common, especially in the dry season. The typical Nigerian building experiences power failure or voltage fluctuations about seven times per week, each lasting for about two hours and without the benefit of prior warning. To enable Firefly to ride the waves, we knew we needed a serious power supply. However, the power supply is one of the main components generating heat in a device. Could we point to any existing examples of technology that were already good at working through power fluctuations and could solve the heat problem?

The answer? Laptops! During field research in hospitals in eight countries throughout Southeast Asia, we were always able to use our laptops! Most laptop power cords include a "brick" - that is the power supply. Reading the numbers on the brick, most of these power supplies accommodate a range of voltages for input. In the end, we were able to find an existing off-the-shelf power supply integrated with a power cable that is CE Mark certified for medical use, can accommodate 100-240 Volts AC, and keeps the hot power supply outside of our sealed device and away from the baby, just like a laptop power cord!

The evidence was laid out in front of us; FDA approval and CE Mark certification focus on hospitals with big resources. To design Firefly to work well in low resource contexts, DtM leveraged field experience to go beyond known phototherapy standards in order to deliver a device that meets a higher standard of care. Firefly received CE Mark certification, and our partner MTTS is also considering FDA approval to enable the device to reach western markets, creating new revenue streams and beneficial product pricing structures that will enable us to reach many more in the developing world. We are proud to partner with East Meets West Foundation and manufacturer MTTS and their joint vision of designing devices that really work in hospitals with few resources. Our partners will continue to monitor Firefly in the field, ready in case anything needs to be fixed, constantly learning what improvements we might make for the next generation.

Other references include the general IEC/ISO medical device standards and specific infant phototherapy standard used to design and evaluate medical electrical equipment for CE Mark and FDA Approvals. Design that Matters designed with these standards in mind, and then found where we needed to go above and beyond.

_____________________________________

This "Design Experience that Matters" series is provided courtesy of Timothy Prestero and the team at Design that Matters (DtM). As a nonprofit, DtM collaborates with leading social entrepreneurs and hundreds of volunteers to design new medical technologies for the poor in developing countries. DtM's Firefly infant phototherapy device is treating thousands of newborns in 21 counties from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In 2012, DtM was named the winner of the National Design Award.

As a part of the revamp of the Microsoft Theater Lounge, Volvox Labs created four permanent art installations. The first piece titled Momentum is a Microsoft powered kinetic sculpture. Made of locally sourced ash wood. Inspired by the Microsoft logo, the sculpture is also made up of 80 Ultra motion linear actuators, 160 custom milled wooden tiles and 10 micro-controllers.

View the full content here

We’ve all heard the stories of manufacturers who purchase advanced technology only to have it sit in the factory-floor corner undeployed because nobody has the time or wherewithal to implement the tools and make sure they work. GE Digital recognized this issue and created a service – Acceleration Plans – to make sure manufacturers get the results they paid for.

GE developed the program to ensure the effectiveness of the deployment of advanced manufacturing tools. The idea was to make sure customers get the value from their digital investment as soon as possible while also making sure they achieve outcomes that are critical to their business. “We are seeing difficulty in adoption,” Katie Bianchi, chief revenue officer for global support at GE Digital, told Design News.

“When we look at IIoT, it’s a big opportunity for manufacturers to capture value in the trillions of dollars, but in order to capture that value, those manufacturers have to spend half a trillion dollars collectively. And with only 15% of software projects deemed very successful, manufacturers are facing significant challenges in deployment.”

Ensuring Manufacturers Benefit from Smart Tools

GE recognized that not all customers are as prepared as they need to make the process changes necessary to gain the full benefit of advanced technology. “As we spent time with customers and partners in this space, we learned a lot about the notion of outcomes readiness. If a customer is trying to drive a 20% reduction in maintenance, or more they want increased productivity, we have to look at how to deploy to in order to make that effective.”

While that developers at GE were confident in the effectiveness of their manufacturing technology, those in the field saw the need for support on the follow-up to make sure the customers are able to make full use of the technology’s benefits. “What we realized we didn’t have was the back end – outcomes realization,” said Bianchi. “Do we pack our bags and walk away once the software is installed, or do we work with customer through the deployment to ensure the outcomes are met? We decided to develop a program to ensure that customers know what a particular button dues and how it does it.”

Tiers to Match Scale and Complexity

The Acceleration Plans program offers three tiers of engagement depending on the customer’s needs. The tiers were developed to provide tools and guidance for software installation and adoption based on a company’s scale and complexity with the goal of maximizing return on investment. “We structure the tiers to support the customer no matter who they are and where they are on this journey. We have an enterprise tier for largescale customers whose production can never be down,” said Bianchi. “And we have two other tiers – the premier tier and the standard tier. The premier tier is for those running critical applications with critical assets, but maybe not as large as enterprise customers. The standard tier services are built into the cost of the software subscription.”

Change Management Support

Software deployment at the plant can get stymied when personnel are not supported in changing long-held processes. “Change management is included in two of the tiers. It’s part of the blueprint in the planning stage,” said Bianchi. “We assess the organizational willingness and capability for change. With Acceleration Plans, we create a change management plan early on, and that plan continues through the deployment to help customers drive adoption. It’s a form of continuous improvement.”

 

READ MORE ARTICLES ON AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGY:

• Managing Identities and Data Security Vital for Industrial IoT

• Former Apple Manufacturing Experts Bring AI to the Shop Floor

• Growth of Industrial Analytics

 

Bianchi noted that the deployment is never fully complete, since there are always opportunities to get more from the software. “We meet with these customers once a quarter to review and make sure the action plan continues to get executed,” said Bianchi. “You can’t underestimate what a shift this is for manufacturers. The most important thing for us is to get results to get the renewal.”

 

ESC Minneapolis is Back! 
The Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) is back in Minnesota and it’s bigger than ever. Over two days, Nov. 8-9, 2017, receive in-depth education geared to drive a year’s worth of work. Uncover software design innovation, hardware breakthroughs, fresh IoT trends, product demos, and more that will change how you spend time and money on your next project. Click here to register today!

 

Rob Spiegel has covered automation and control for 17 years, 15 of them for Design News. Other topics he has covered include supply chain technology, alternative energy, and cyber security. For 10 years, he was owner and publisher of the food magazine Chile Pepper.

Images courtesy of GE Digital

If researchers are successfully beginning to 3D print human skin, it seems quite natural that the clothes that cover it will also be fabricated this way in the very near future. To that end, clothing brand and global manufacturer Levi Strauss & Co. has become one of the first off-the-shelf clothing companies to explore the use of 3D printing to fabricate its products, though its explorations are in the very early stages.

The company unveiled in a blog post recently that it’s been experimenting with 3D printing to creating digital renderings of its classic denim Levi’s brand “Trucker” jacket that essentially create a shell of what the actual jacket will look like.

 

Over 50 years ago, the classic Levi’s “Trucker” jacket was introduced by Levi Strauss & Co. The company recently revealed it is experimenting with 3D printing to design this and potentially other denim products in the future. (Source: Levi Strauss & Co.)

 

Levi’s Head of Global Product Innovation Paul Dillinger joined with publication Fast Company at the Autodesk Pier 9 Workshop in San Francisco to create the renderings and demonstrate Levi’s experimentation with 3D digital manufacturing. The project captured everything about the jacket in a topography scan using 3D-printing software to show how the company can design products in new ways.

Dillinger is leading the project to advanced the brand’s early experimentation to “capture the real essence of a pair of Levi’s and convert it into digital collateral,” he said, according to the post. The company aims to use 3D printing to cut back on both material and manufacturing costs.

Levi Strauss declined to comment further to Design News about its current or future plans to incorporate 3D printing into its manufacturing process.

Levi Strauss isn’t the first clothing designer to use 3D printing to fabricate clothing, but so far most have been specialized designs from independent designers, or one-off clothing lines printed especially for fashion shows.

3D-printed clothing hit the Paris runway back in 2013 with Stratysy and Materialise printing clothing featured in Iris van Herpen's haute couture show "Voltage." Two years ago Israeli fashion student Danit Peleg also won notoriety for designing an entire line of 3D-printed clothing from her living room for a college project and then giving a TED talk on her work, which went viral.

Even more recently, fashion design trio threeASFOUR debuted a collection of 3D-printed clothes at New York City’s fashion week this past spring. Later, a published report in Wired revealed that the clothing was extremely fragile and noted in the article—aptly headlined “The Shattering Truth About 3D-Printed Clothing”--that it will likely be a long time before 3D-printed clothes are truly ready for mass production and distribution.

Indeed, so far no major designers have turned out 3D-printed clothing lines of any significance. And even with plans like those from Levi Strauss, it’s not likely this will happen in the near future, the denim company acquiesced.

“It’s important to emphasize that 3D printing won’t create an entirely functional bjacket--all of the fine details seen on the ‘printed’ denim are actually only impressions,” according to the blog post. “But, this semi-duplicate product still proves meaningful for Levi’s.”

Indeed, Dillinger told Fast Company that the experimentation doesn’t mean the company will soon be selling 3D-printed jackets, but only that it shows Levi’s brand designers are beginning to think more contemporary and cost-efficient ways to design the company’s clothing.

“It challenges us, and our design team, to think about design differently, and to think about design strategies to accommodate an uncertain future,” Dillinger said in the Fast Company article.

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer who has written about technology and culture for more than 15 years. She has lived and worked as a professional journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco and New York City. She currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal.

Imagine a future where the wearable revolution has happened and embedded technology is a reality. Objects have become bionic extensions of our body. Developments in nano materials have enabled us to create a seamless blend between body and object. Bionic Inc. Prototype #1 is an exploration into chairs for that future.

View the full project here

Reader tinycc6 recently posted an interesting challenge-slash-inquiry on the Core77 discussion boards, writing, 

"Is there any way to learn about logo design in one week?

This question reminded us of a helpful video we came across from a few years back via LinkedIn's Learning Solutions YouTube channel. The personality featured in the video is designer Aaron Draplin, founder of Draplin Design Co. In this video, Draplin takes you through a play-by-play scenario of designing a logo for a specific client: 

The video is detailed and informative, yet quick enough to get you started with sketching and experimenting by this afternoon.

Curious where to find some of the books he references in the video? Here are some full PDFs of Trade Marks & Symbols by Yasaburo Kawayama, Volume 1 & Volume 2. 

Now get to work!

Have any more resources or references that can help people learn more about logo design? Contribute your thoughts in the original discussion board or in the comment thread below!

I dislike wallpaper, but this 1963 film almost makes me like it. It's not the aesthetics that appeal to me but the artistry and craft that go into making the product. Except for reproductions of William Morris designs, I don't suppose much wallpaper is made this way anymore.

I particularly enjoyed seeing the woman using a router to cut patterns into the wooden printing blocks. The video is worth watching if for no other reason than that the Pathé films of this period were shot in technicolor and have awesome jazz scores.

Contrast the methods used for small batch hand-printed wallpaper with the mass-production methods shown in the video below (shot in a now-defunct factory in Upstate New York).

I came across this interesting series of videos in Ikea's archives. Called the "Square Meter Challenge," Ikea's designers were tasked with using Ikea products to create livable, functional, comfortable space in some seriously tiny footprints. They start off with on-screen drawings explaining the concept behind each space, then show you what it looks like, and how it would work, in real life.

Part 1: Tiny bedroom for twoPart 2: Living/dining room for a familyPart 3: Clutter-free, maxed mini kitchen Part 4: Shared (and personal) kids' room

Blundstone is an iconic and fast globalizing footwear brand with its origins and headquarters in Hobart, Tasmania. 147 years on it proudly remains a family business. Our brand essence is Never Stand Still. We innovate, design and evolve with our consumers’ needs and attitudes. We are committed to putting our end users and their brand experience at the centre of our business, and design and innovation are at the heart of delivering on this.

View the full design job here

I've been noticing a lot of people sketching watches, and I thought it was worth it to work up a quick demo. Watches are challenging because they are basically a system of ellipses in space. Have you noticed how almost every demo in the last 9 videos I've done involves ellipses in space? It is important to practice these. There are a lot of great videos on basic ellipse construction. Make sure you are practicing them so you can believably work them into sketches.

With a watch, you have ellipses in two perpendicular planes—the plane of the watch face and body and the plane of the wrist profile. I typically start with the face plane ellipses and build up a series of concentric ellipses that represent the case, crystal outer diameter, and the face. Next I sketch in the ellipse of the wrist profile. The crown which adjusts time on the case is also in the plane of the wrist profile. From here I can start to layer in all of my details.

In this sketch I also use the technique of overlaying the sketch. Sometimes a sketch gets a little messy as you explore the design—don't be afraid to put a clean sheet overtop and trace up a cleaner version of the sketch. Post your questions and comments below, and I'll be sure to respond!

Yo! C77 Sketch is a video series from Core77 forum moderator and prolific designer, Michael DiTullo. In these tutorials, DiTullo walks you through step by step rapid visualization and ideation techniques to improve your everyday skills. Tired of that guy in the studio who always gets his ideas picked because of his hot sketches? Learn how to beat him at his own game, because the only thing worse than a bad idea sketched well is a great idea sketched poorly.

My recent saw sharpening video where I demonstrated the Veritas Saw File Holder has generated a lot of emails with questions about saw tooth geometry. I take this as a good sign that lots of people are actually thinking about sharpening their own saws. Not only that but the introduction of filing guides like the Veritas and the Rakemaker II by Blackburn Toolworks (a great site to check our for more info on this subject) have people thinking in detail about what tooth geometry is best for their work. These little guides open up a level of filing accuracy only previously attempted by saw filing experts. Of course with this comes questions about how this saw tooth geometry actually works. What degree of rake and fleam are best for me?

Veritas Saw File Holder and Blackburn Tools Filing Guide

This is a tough question to answer. Like any sharpening related topic there are many, many opinions and solid justification for each of those opinions. Usually any sharpening discussion is to be entered at your own risk and histrionics should be expected with much wailing and beating of the breast. So here is my sidestepping disclaimer: the numbers I detail below are but one option within the mellifluous multiverse of saw tooth geometry. I give ranges of numbers knowing full well that there are too many variables at play to state one degree of rake and/or fleam is better than another. From body mechanics and stature, to type of wood and degree of seasoning. Don't forget the phase of the moon and astrological sign either! These are my humble opinions won through hours of sawing with a fair dose of standing on the backs of giants like Herman, Harrell, Wenzloff, and Smith.

Ok, deep breath…here we go!Elements of Saw Tooth Geometry

Pitch, Rake, Fleam, and Set are the elements we should consider. I think that really only rake, fleam, and set are the primary elements and pitch a secondary element.

This is a great PDF provided by Tools for Working Wood, go download it!

Pitch, the number of points per inch or PPI, plays a role in determining how deep your gullets are and therefore how efficiently the saw carries saw dust away from the kerf. This in turn relates to the speed and the cleanliness of the cut but not nearly as much as the rake and fleam can effect these outcomes. As such I think we can set pitch aside for this discussion since it will be rare that we are actually changing this pitch unless you are making a saw from scratch or restoring a really really beat up and well used saw.

Rake determines the aggressiveness of your cut. This is the angle of the cutting face of the tooth. At 0 degrees, the tooth is vertical and cut very aggressively. One can actually lean the tooth forward to create a positive rake and a very aggressive cut, but also one that is hard to push and start while leaving the undercut tooth a bit weaker. You will find a positive rake on some Japanese saws but the pulling motion and much harder steel adds in some variables that ameliorate the negative effects of positive rake. The more you relax the rake, or increase the angle the tooth slants away from the cut the easier the saw is to push. The teeth can now skate over the wood more easily. This makes starting the cut easier but also it slows down the cut as the teeth have a tendency to lift up and away from the cut. A low rake angle cuts fast but can feel grabbier and also make take more experience to handle. Changing this angle will help you adjust to harder and softer wood as well.

Fleam is the angle across the face of the tooth or perpendicular to the tooth line. By adding fleam you turn the teeth into little knives that slice the grain instead of chop it like a chisel. The more fleam the cleaner the cut you get but the weaker you make the teeth. As the fleam angle increases you get a smaller tooth front and the steel becomes brittle. As such high fleam saws should be used in softer woods that won't push back so much on the more fragile teeth. The converse to this is a saw tooth with little to no fleam will leave a rougher cut and require more effort to move through the wood. The slicing action that is inherent with fleam is what makes a well tuned crosscut saw do its job without splintering and tearing across the grain.

Set is the amount of offset the teeth have to either side of the tooth line. When we set the teeth we are bending them away from the saw plate to widen the kerf and allow the saw to run without binding. Like the other elements this is a good thing but too much goes wrong very fast. The wider the kerf the more wood you remove and therefore the more work required to push the saw. Likewise the wider the kerf the sloppier the action as the saw plate can now wiggle about in the wider kerf and throw off a precise cut. This is why joinery saws always have less set than rough work hand saws. Also why softer and/or wetter woods need more set because the spongy and sticky saw dust won't clear as readily from the kerf and more room is needed for the saw to run. If the kerf gets tight not only will the saw bind, but it can deflect in the kerf as it tries to find a way around the build up dust, thus making your saw not run true.

None of these elements should be considering singly. They all relate to one another and should be considered as a whole to create the best tooth geometry for the task at hand. This is very useful as you can compensate, augment, or offset the positive and negative effects of one element by tweaking another.

For example:

If I want my saw to cut fast I will reduce the rake. If I want it to start easily yet still cut fast I will increase the fleam a bit to make the teeth slice more (like skewing a hand plane). This also have the happy effect of making a smoother cut surface. I can also reduce the set to create a cleaner cut since a more uniform tooth line won't present as jagged an edge to the wood. This allows me to reduce the fleam to make a stronger tooth. The beauty is that by altering all 3 of these in concert can produce the perfect experience. Each one plays a role and tooth geometry should rely on all 3 to do the job.

So what does this mean to you? What degrees should I use for my saws? What follows are some general numbers to use as a guide. Now that you know what changing these numbers will do you can tweak them one way or another to create a saw that performs well in a specific situation or over a wider range of applications.

Set

This is not as cut and dried to the point where I can put a numerical range on it. The reality is that set is measured in thousandths of an inch and most of us don't have the capacity to even measure this. Professional saw filers have much more accurate setting techniques and a heck of a lot of muscle memory to aid them. For the average woodworker with a pistol grip saw set, it comes down to feel. Most set has a pitch guideline on them that you can adjust to match the saw. The finer the pitch, the smaller the set. My recommendation is to set this adjustment to a pitch that is finer than the actual pitch of the saw you are working on. Sometimes several times finer in fact. More set can be added and set can be removed but I find it easier to add more than take it away. Often times the setting process is helpful in adjusting a saw that isn't running true too so the best thing is to skew to the finer set and then make several test cuts altering the set to get the right feel. With each test cut make sure you saw enough to let friction heat up the saw plate causing it to expand. You may think you have it right only to find the saw plate expands in the middle of a cut and starts to bind.

I find that once I have a saw set, I don't need to reset it until I have sharpened the saw at least once more. In other words, every 3rd sharpening is a good rule of thumb. So while set is a little more touchy feely than rake and fleam, remember that it is also part of the geometry that effect how the saw cuts. Don neglect to alter the set in order to tune a saw. I have certainly been guilty of just relying on rake and fleam to solve all my problems. Though if I'm being honest usually the adjustments I make in set entail reducing the amount rather than increasing it.

Hopefully this treatise will help you wrap your head around these concepts. Don't over analyze it but rather relish in our ability to be able to finely tune our hand saws. For the average hobbyist, pitch a number in the middle of the above ranges and you will do just fine. If you are more adventurous and looking for that "perfect" saw, consider each and every task as an equation to be solved with a little creative tooth geometry. Is it any wonder why masters of the saw like Ron Herman have so many saws? Once you solve one of these geometry equations you will find yourself getting more saws and tuning them to specific tasks. Careful this is a slippery slope and soon you will be talking about witchcraft like sloping gullets and progressive rake and fleam.

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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.

If you buy a reliable car, it'll last you for more than 100,000 miles. But your first set of tires will only last for a fraction of that. Then they're off to the landfill, or an energy-intensive recycling process, while you buy a new set. Rinse and repeat. And if you've ever seen an entire field of spent tires being set on fire just to get rid of them—and I have seen this—you really think to yourself "What the hell are we doing here, as a species?"

Tire manufacturer Michelin is looking to a future where this cycle no longer occurs. Their Visionary Concept tire, which is non-pneumatic, would be 3D-printed from biodegradable materials. And intriguingly, the tread surface of the tire could be renewed—on-car, in their vision—with a new layer printed directly on top of it:

I like that the video shows everything from the UX point of view. With futuristic technologies, I think it's always better to relate to the consumer how, precisely, the new concept would fit into their lives.

Michelin hasn't announced any concrete plans to produce the tire; it's intended to showcase the type of thinking that guides their R&D. They're aiming to create...

...A circular economy capable of protecting the planet's resources by reducing, reusing, renewing or recycling the materials required to manufacture our products, and avoid leaving a negative impact on the environment. This approach has been dubbed the "4R Strategy" at Michelin, for Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Renew. We bear in mind that, for mobility to have a bright future, it will have to be ever safer, more efficient and more environmentally friendly.

The second collection of the young designer Cedric Canaud is dedicated to the seated collective or individual—the collection creates a social and relaxing gathering point for uses.

The collection, Le Stylobate, is composed of 5 interrelated elements that all promote relaxation in seated positions.

View the full project here