Welcome to The Splinter Report, where I gather the assorted interesting and amusing things I’ve seen in the woodworking world. This week we’re looking at a heartfelt story, upgrading your woodworking machines, and overy-fancy furniture.

New Tape Measures From Milwaukee: Milwaukee has three new tape measures coming out in October. They will be available in 12, 16, and 25-foot lengths. Notably, and honestly a bit refreshing, there’s nothing super special about these tapes, just new models. They’re not even double-sided.

Taking commissioned work means you sometimes don’t know what you’re getting into. While sometimes that’s a bad thing, other times it creates the opportunity to touch someone’s life. In this case, u/cooliezez’ experience is touching the lives of many. Check out the post below:

His email short circuited me a bit, not gonna lie. He said he took the reference photo over 20 years ago, when he still had a little bit of vision. He can’t see anything now, and he wanted the carving as a relief, so he could run his hands over it and feel his dog again.
by
u/cooliezez in
woodworking

Is it possible that being paid for something also counts as a random act of kindness? He was inspired by the love the man had for his dog, and true care and attention was put into this piece. And now people on the internet are being inspired by the entire situation. Either way, it’s real dusty in my house right now.

I was going to put a local oddity here, but when I was doing some background research I stumbled upon an era of design I hadn’t seen since my art history classes in college: Rococo. Part of the end of the Baroque era, Rococo is noted for its extreme ornamentation and incredible level of detail. I mean, just look at this altar:

Now, depending on your point of view, that altar is either incredibly beautiful or sickeningly overdone. I fall more in the former camp. There’s a level of craftsmanship there that is undeniable. It also has scale going for it — there’s the overall form, the smaller sculptures within, and then the fine detail on those sculptural elements. When you take Rococo down to furniture scale though, it suddenly starts to lose me.

There’s marquetry, there’s sculpture, there’s a very figured marble top; it’s a piece that could have and should have stopped at several points along the build process, but it just kept going. Putting that much detail into a small piece just overwhelms it. You think that’s bad though, check out this one:

That’s too much, man!

The openings for the cherubs are pretty cool though. I like that detail.

“(this is starting to sound like the description of my first girlfriend)”

How many of you are willing to drill holes into the cast iron top of your table saw? If your answer was “no”, you might reconsider after watching this video. YouTuber Mike Farrington demonstrates how adding mounting rails to your machines can create opportunities for some really great upgrades.

Anything interesting I missed this week, or that you want me to highlight in a future Splinter Report? Let me know on social media or drop me an email at [email protected].