Best Of MetaFilter

An Impractical Key Cabinet video on Vimeo

I recently finished my year at a woodwork, blacksmithing, and handcraft school in northern Sweden. For my final project I decided to make an automaton, and it has honestly been one of the hardest challenges I've ever had...

Twirlypen made a thing, and it's awesome: Metatalk, Projects.

Cabinet constructed in 1716 contained a secret letter from its craftsman

Great post from bonobothegreat about a letter concealed three centuries ago in the secret compartment of an elaborately carved and constructed writing cabinet. (Mefites have also left hidden artifacts for future historians to analyze and puzzle over.)

Over the weekend, the blog Regretsy took a break from making cracks about ugly stuff on Etsy in order to do a bit of detective work and produce a little expose on what appears to be someone importing pre-made items from Asia and claiming to design and build them in the US. There is some pretty compelling evidence but no complete smoking gun proving this to be the case.

To that end, MeFi member Kid Charlamagne is a bit of a wood working expert and breaks down the details of many pieces sold by the Etsy shop, pointing out that looking at technique and construction alone, the pieces appear to be using vastly different technologies and likely come from half a dozen different factories abroad.