Known for kamaboko fish cakes and traditional woodcraft, the town of Odawara, located in the western Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan, is a woodworkers paradise with expansive wooded areas and a history rooted in centuries-old woodworking traditions. Deep in that forest—in a repurposes shrine—sits the Japanese wood houseware manufacturer brand Hikiyose. Known for their unique aesthetic that’s the result of milling timber into square rods using a rotating pattern, the housewares are still made today using only the most simple design processes from their locally sourced material. In this recently released video, we get a behind the scenes look at the idyllic forest setting that these traditional Japanese woodworkers call home:…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist knocks you in the pop sockets with head-boppin’ groove tuneage to help propel you through the work week in style. Whether you find yourself inking markers until they’re dry, grinding material through a bandsaw or working that 3D geometry all day, consider these tracks as a tool for your process. This week we’ll start things off with “Mind Mischief – Ducktails Remix” from Tame Impala and work our way through tracks from Cortex, Talk Talk, Fern Kinney, Sonny & The Sunsets and others before wrapping up with “My Baby” from Kid Francescoli. Have suggestions? As always, let us know what you listen to, what…
From sketch to assembly, the life of a bolt may not seem all that exciting compared to a cutting-edge smartphone design, but throw in some decent storytelling and somehow you’ll find yourself emotionally attached to that bolt. At least, a humble front suspension bolt by the name of RB12-FS-00663-02. Recently, the Red Bull Racing (Formula One) Team documented the process of creating a bolt from scratch. Considering that the team designs, produces and inspects over one million Formula One car parts per year, seeing the amount of detail and man hours put into a single bolt is astounding. “We followed a humble front suspension bolt on every step of its…
Mondays might not be your favorite day of the week, but the good news is that we’re all in this together ladies and gentlemen. As purveyors of prime Grade A web content, the SolidSmack crew has done some of the heavy-lifting to make sure you get your Mondays started on the right track. Welcome to The Monday List. Each Monday, we’ll link you up with some of the most insightful, informative, and socially-relevant stories to keep tabbed, bookmarked, reading listed, pocketed, or what have you. Be sure to check in each Monday morning for a new crop of freshly sprouted words curated straight from the source of your favorite homegrown…
Unless you sketch every day or have a brilliant sense of hand–eye coordination, chances are that sketching in proper perspective doesn’t necessarily come naturally. That’s okay. Join the club. For the rest of us, using methods such as Scott Robinson’s “Draw Through” help keep things looking the way they should, be it a sketch of a simple primitive object or a more complex organic form. But what if you find yourself on a deadline and don’t have the time or patience to make everything just right? This simple 3–point line trick with a paper clip and a rubber band just might be the solution. As simple as the trick is,…
To call the Raspberry Pi a runaway success is a wild understatement, but that doesn’t make the process of getting started with the credit card-sized single-board computer any less daunting for new users starting from scratch. While some of the most basic beginner Raspberry Pi projects are surprisingly powerful – including making your own portable music player or a private cloud storage server – the possibilities are nearly endless with some basic foundational programming skills. The good news is that these skills are much easier to tackle than most would think. To help new users take the plunge into the wild and wonderful world of Raspberry Pi, The Complete Raspberry…