This watchmaker's lathe workstation build: th-cam.com/video/kI2XADN-hJU/w-d-xo.html Hayear digital c-mount microscope: amzn.to/3GIT8C1 Disclosure: Tested may earn a comission from items purchased here.
You have the perfect amount of space on the bottom of either door to put some size conversion cheat sheets and charts. Or maybe one for a size chart and the other for the owners manual. Starrett makes a great little quick reference chart for hole sizes that I have found so helpful when doing jobs on the lathe over the years. It’s double sided so if you mount it you would want to have 2 so you can see both sides.
I am a sign maker with over 3 decades of experience I have long awaited Tested to tour a small talented local sign shop. The overlaps in knowledge with a shop that does CNC, hand lettering, design and so on would likely blow Adams mind. So many parts of the maker community owe 'tips and tricks' to skills developed by the sign industry.
I was making models in '78 into the '80s. Earned my Commercial Graphics in 1980 and worked as an illustrator/draftsman until '84 I'm still enamored with fonts, but try and make a big boss understand readability ... LOL My layoff notice was rolled up and stuck in my bike ...
Hi Adam, love your content 👍 This typical German machine colour is called "Resedagrün" = "Reseda Green". It is a colour of the RAL colour standard with the code RAL 6011. This is a really old German industial standard (called "painting of machines": DIN 1844) that dates back to 1927. Kind regards from Germany 🤗
While comparing online photos is not an accurate way measuring color, I feel the Proxxon green is somewhat warmer than the 6011. I'm sure he could have brought one of their tools to a paint shop and had them mix up a batch after finding the correct Pantone equivalent.
My father was a sign maker (among many other things) and I was always amazed at his ability to hand paint the letters and make them readable and look good. He was also a printer, on old hand typeset printing press we had in our basement, a carpenter, an electrician, and other things. He grew up during the depression and served in New Guinea and the Philippines in WWII.
My great grandfather on my paternal grandmothers side was a sign maker too! I don’t really know very much about him other than that. But I do know we still have his supplies that he’d use for painting the signs. Wicked cool
seeing Adam deal with his adhd ticks in real time has always been one of the reasons i love his content as someone with Autism and ADHD alot of times it gets covered up or edited out of other channels of people who have it whereas in adams videos it shows him working through and around his ADHD in ways that really helped me alot personally when i was growing into my own. Thanks as always for the amazing content Adam and just being you without a filter truly a gift to stem and education for me and many others who enjoyed the craftsmanship and ingenuity and labor put into these beautiful projects over the years as well as a peak into the mind of someone dealing with something i am as well.
I haven't even finished watching this video yet at the time I'm writing this comment but I had to stop to say this: Adam, you are one of the few people I've seen who let their genuine interest and passion show through. I have never thought much about lathes and woodworking and such. I've always seen them as beautiful but never was really interested in learning more about it myself. You've done that. Your eye for little details and the care you exhibit in your work is awesome to see. It's that passion that is infectious and draws people in and is so fun and interesting to see. Learning from someone who is truly interested and invested in a given subject is an entirely different experience, and I hope you continue to do so. Thank you for what you do!
My old job was filled with work stations full of mismanaged tools, unthought through work spaces, and missing many key tools that you would think a multi million dollar fabrication company would have. This year i started my own fabrication company to metaphorically start putting a price tag a little closer to my work. Being able to see someone that has put so much thought and care into his equipment is not just enriching his life but the many lives that will go on to discover tested videos. I have definitely been enriched and inspired, or at least have a little bit clearer of a vision of what that messy workspace in my mind should look like. Thank you.
13:28 I love when the editors on a keep-it-simple channel like this allow themselves a brief moment of creative liberty. I can just see them smirking to themselves quietly lol.
Having been in East Germany (Berlin) many times back in the day, I know the hopeless green of which you speak. Your cabinet is exceptional. I’m pleased just looking at it.
An idea came to my mind when at 11:10 Adam opened the box. instead of opening each panel individually, after unlocking the front door, a mechanism set up to the top lid (since you have to always push open it to back) will pull the door panels to the side and lock it. they will now swing or sway unless you pull back the top lid to close.
I have the same appreciation for graffiti and the style behind the stylized letters and how you can stretch and warp letters and still read it. I took a class from a german graffiti artist named SMOE, the class was called going wild with letters, really opened up my eyes to style.
Excellent video, Adam! I really enjoyed the teams' editing decision to overlay the description of the spray paints you used while the timelapse played in the background! Also, the build itself... *chef's kiss!* 👏🏻💪🏻👍 Thank you, Adam and Team!
My grandpa used to have loads of tools and toolboxes, probably some from east Germany, that had that exact green that Adam was talking about and I mean, it’s not exactly the right one but it has the right ambiance lol! My grandparents’ home is full of that green! Though it didn’t feel like a color of hopelessness 30 years ago when I was a kid, today it feels just like it. Like you have an urge to say “blaaagh…” and drop your shoulders when you see it.
Adam, Your philosophy on fonts and their readability is so on point. I am a freelance graphics designer, and I can tell you, the feeling you get when you see a proper font in its proper placement is zen. I use the word feeling because it matters. Your eye and how it interprets what you are reading, has feeling, emotion, expression...all things humanizing in its form. Thank you for your thought process. It is always so much appreciated that you take the time to discuss these topics.
Love the discussion of fonts here - not only is it super interesting, but it's such an apt illustration of how all the various "AI"-based creative tools and/or plagiarism machines proliferating today just can't reproduce what human artists and craftspeople do. Sure, they can get close in some ways, but in others not at all. It's so crucial that we maintain these skills and crafts, and we lose so much if we fail to do so.
I love watching your channel. You have the ability to bring to light things we don’t normally think about. Such as fonts. I have found that reading some text I will find myself reading the same thing numerous times where as some books just make sense the first time around.
As a huge MythBusters fan, I have admired Adam since 20 years ago. I like watching him hit the beat like a young boy whenever he gets a genius idea. What is recorded in the videos is not only the results, but more importantly, they shares with us the process of thinking, designing, producing, and optimizing each work, which is extremely precious.
I think there is something to be said about taking time and paying attention to the details that matter to you personally. That’s what I’ve learned from you Adam. For a long time I’ve thought/or been taught that efficiency in time is the only thing that matters, often times ignoring or not taking time to give the proper attention to the details that matter to me in order to save time.
Never thought about fonts that way before. Consider me enlightened. Now you got me looking through my books from when I was a kid. Always liked educational stuff. Looking at all the fonts to see what was best. ‘Questions kids ask’ was my favorite series.
Adam, I love the fact that you wear your Omega Planet Ocean, and a while back, your Yacht Master Rolex in the shop every day, not scared to get them scratched. I used to love looking for your watches when i would watch Mythbusters!
On the subject of fonts, here in the UK specific fonts we're developed for road signs and are still known as "transport" and "motorway". The intention was to create a style that would be as easy to read as possible so that drivers minimised the time looking at the signs and maximisimed the time spent looking at the road. So it was at least in part about saving lives through use of a font.
i just finished a tattoo 6 hours ago on my stomach spelling ''harlequin'' in dutch (Harlekijn), in an old English stylized font, we spent a good 2,5 hours researching fonts to make it suit my other tattoos and also make it readable, i've never cared much about it but after researching fonts for this tattoo i got really into it and the art of of fonts. i always loved calligraphy and decided last week i want to do something with it! this video really made me incredibly happy!
Excellent content! Wonderful editing! I love the sights and sounds of a shop and creative process. A little drumming for entertainment as well❤ I’m definitely hooked on your channel and your content. It’s inspiring.
I liked the use of Picture-In-Picture editing to allow some detail discussion on top of a timelapse of the process. I would be happy to see more of that sort of thing in the future!
The words “typeface” and “font” are typically thought of as synonymous, but they actually refer to different things. While a typeface describes a particular style of lettering, a font refers to variations of a typeface, like its size and weight. The simplest way to understand this difference is that a typeface is a set of fonts with common aesthetic qualities.
Not just common qualities, more than that: the typeface is the “font family”: Helvetica is the typeface, Helvetica bold italic is a font. In metal typesetting, the term font also referred to the size, since you actually needed different physical sets for different sizes.
Scrolled to find this thread. Yes, “font” describes the specific weight, style, and size within a type family as well as the code that contains those specifics. Two meanings for the same word, but neither of which should be used when describing handwritten type. And I know, it’s extremely obnoxious, but it drives us graphic designers nuts.
Came to the comments looking for someone else to point this out. Perhaps a nitpick, but if one wishes to self-identify as a "[typography] nerd," then the distinction between font and typeface is VERY salient
Long before computers took over I was taught a font was a drawer that contained the complete set of type. Font did not have to be specific to any typeface, whatever type you put in your drawer was now part of that font. For example you could have been printing a job and your font drawer(s) would include all the customized type that was needed and was accepted as part of that font including custom glyphs, spacers and things that didn't even print. A typeface itself was the art, if you discussed the design you are talking about the typeface and if you were talking about some mechanical property of using the type you had in your shop you are taking about the font. If you were to discuss the art then you called it the typeface. I also worked with Heidelberg/Linotype from 1995 to 2005 and carried the complete sets of Linotype fonts on CD to my jobs. I installed fonts on Barco Systems, SGI, VMS, Scitex, Harlequin, etc. and none of this was an issue until Apple tried to shoehorn a graphics program on a 512 × 342 pixel screen. It hurt my ears to hear Adam newspeak so many times.
Beautiful workstation! My Father-in-law was a cabinetmaker. It was never allowed to show the edge laminations of plywood. Even the end-grain of natural wood. And, of course, no fasteners. He spent more time mitering than assembling. But his product was artful, but he would stain rather than paint. I still make work tables his way: plywood with milled stock around the edges (like a flush picture frame). I’m just starting to gear up to work on my own watches. Cleaning and lubrication rather than repair. Nekkid Watchmaker mesmerizes me. Inspired me to install a new capacitor in my Seiko Solar 100M.
We had just the same East German green and Proxxon conversation today! It turns out Proxxon is made in Luxembourg. However, enjoyed your video very much and I like to see that your are still using the little 10.8V makita drill. I bought them years ago when you showed them in a video and they are still going strong. Thanks Adam for your work!!
Proxxon is still a German company. Most is still produced in Germany ('Industrial' series e.g.). Except of the 'Micromot' that is produced in Luxembourg.
I made a lot of WWII model airplanes as a kid and that green reminds me of the paint on the inside of the bomb bays and landing gear doors. I think it was called "zinc chromate" or something like that. Nice work sir! (As always.)
You can definitely tell the lighting changes that were made. Feels less of a work shop and more of a production shoot layout. Very professional, but there was something special with the rugged look
It is fantastic hearing Adams passion for typography, it is far too often overlooked. I am a graphic designer and I can say type is almost always the most difficult yet most rewarding part of what I do.
i came to learn and understand great fonts through programming. fonts can have such a drastic effect on your view of your code editor and make coding more eye straining or beautiful. there are even some paid fonts that are amazing (spend the money on the tools that improve your craft). it helps you really to personalize your work space. in school i took an intro class on designing fonts and through the lens of programming i learned to appreciate it way more. so i totally get your love of fonts and totally agree with you.
I absolutely love proper labels. Best way I've found to label pretty much anything is a rectangle of black (or other colours) PVC tape, and write on it using white ink with a dip pen. You can stick the tape down to a cutting mat and do the calligraphy part there, then cut a neat section out of the tape and stick it on whatever it is you're labelling.
wont lie, ive rectangular bordered all my labels in my shop. Such a thing has brought me so much joy when i start looking for stuff. I can imagine the next step is fontnerdary
I find it super interesting that you find fonts interesting and tie it to your watchmakers lathe, as I find that watch design to be a similarly incredible expression of abstract ideas with practicality and beauty. Watchmaking is someone in their cave trying to represent something as abstract as time by creating repetition to measure- and trying to make it look good. Very funny parallel to your take on fonts
The very first online college course I took was a technical writing course. Our first assignment was to find a font that we felt best represented ourselves or our communication style. Then, craft a discussion posting about our selves and why we picked the font and the post had to use the font. It was suprisingly accurate as to the pretentousness of an individual or those that wanted to be obtuse and difficult to understand.
I judge all fonts by seeing if I can tell the difference between O and 0 and 1 and l, if that is useless, I don't bother examining anything else about that font :-).
I have an antique bench and its most useful feature is a thin cloth bottomed drawer that fits against your torso and catches tiny dropped parts safely.
I was not getting that green when you first started. When you ended, it was an amazing combination! Envious of your ability to see it before it exists.
Talking about fonts and design. I taught surface design cad for a semester. One exercise I found and recommended to my students to train thinking in 3d is to try and draw a 3/4 view of the shape two intersecting letters would make. Like imagine if you had a block of wood, drew an S on one side, a Z on the next, then cut them out on the bandsaw visualise and try to draw that shape. Really takes a bit of thinking to get your noodle around.
I love your font! Totally love the leading serif. My grandfather managed a print layout/typesetting shop, and passed on his knowledge and enthusiasm of typefaces to my dad, who was in advertising, and who in turn passed it down to me! (I manage corporate websites.) For those who don't know, Arion Press/M&H in San Francisco still sells physical fonts, as do a few other foundries in the US. This case is amazing too. I was totally satisfied with storing my watchmaker's lathe under a towel, but I think I'm going to have to upgrade. 😄 Also - "Green with a little hopelessness in it" is brilliant. 😂
When computer screens got bigger to render more details in fonts is the first time I really started to struggle with my dyslexia. I really learned about the importance of fonts and how hugely they influence readability to me. This goes for contrast, dark mode, size, spacing, rendering methodology, aliasing algorithms, serifs, etc. I'm not a font nerd by any means. I have had to dive in to the topic out of necessity to learn what keeps me productive in a high-resolution universe. Fonts are a huge factor in accessibility even for all of us who with sometimes less obvious disabilities or restrictions to deal with.
The font plays a role in making the type legible but there are a whole bunch of typesetting rules that have been lost becasue of the advent of computers and the loss of compositors who were responsible for the layout of the text. I wrote a comment on this too long to repeat but I was an apprentice to a compositor reading modern publications is painful to me I see all the mistakes they make and as Adam said it is more difficult to read. They do not teach layout skills any more the computer screws it up without the help of any proper rules.
May dad was a commercial artist / graphic design guy back in the day. He could do hand lettering like that with nothing but a blank page and a paint brush. Your lettering is very good.
As a young teenager, some 50 years ago, my most favourite, favourite book was a Letraset catalogue. Page after page after page of glorious fonts. I studied, copied and altered so many different fonts until I really understood what the key elements of a good font design were. My career in graphic design never happened but my love of fonts remains. Photoshop makes it all too easy these days. You can create amazing things but it's only by drawing letters by hand that you can truly understand how they work. I used to create my own logos for all sorts of things. I'm still kind of sad that I never pursued it professionally.
As a cartographer fonts are super important to the readability of a map. Very much time was spent on marching the font to the intent, or message, of the map. I can relate to your font nerdary!
When I was 17 I was taught typography. We were not allowed to use the print room (metal type) until we could hand draw the fonts you wanted to use at the size we wanted and layer out as a visual. Just business card took me a week. I can still draw that font with my eyes closed.
Oh, golly. Watching you zip up those bits on the table saw gets me thirsting for that little SawStop contractors saw that I’ve been lusting for! 🎉 And, Yes! Fonts are Fabulous! 💥💥💥❤️ P.P.S. Rockwell Kent. OMG. 😻
The problem is you need to be skilled at it, nowadays you can replicate even the brush strokes using high resolution UV curing printers that will not only give the look but the feel as well.
I fully agree with you about fonts and layout. The positioning of "WatchMaker's" on your case is driving me crazy. I would put the center of the doors either between the "H" and "M", or perfectly split the "M" at the tip of the dip.
Adam, As a traditional and CElectronic Graphic artist/Illustrator from the late 70s but nolonger do it proffessionaly I agree 100%!!!!!! The trick to S's or any round letter is they are a bit taller than the other letters extending up and down just slightly. An S should be to sized so that the top is slightly less than the bottom in size and don't forget to assend and dessend it slightly more that your normal letters.
as a dyslectic fonts are super important to me it makes a huge difference its why i switch to on e reader so i can chose one that makes reading easier for me
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The editing of this video is heads above the rest, keep it up.
As a artist (stone sculptor) looking at your drawings in mirror or just shine thru them on a window help you have a fresh look and spot things. And yes fonts are the silent heroes of the art world. As a work i hand chisel several tomb stones. Create and copied font not mentioning 10+ years of sandblasting and chiseling epitaphs.
Speaking of fonts - In 1972, a bored college dropout named Steve Jobs wandered into a calligraphy class and absolutely fell in love with the art of lettering. In 1984, he released a groundbreaking computer called the Macintosh. Up until this point, letters on a computer were just static bitmaps all the same size. But in this new graphical interface you could choose from a selection of beautiful “fonts” that were rendered in any size you wished, both on the screen as you typed, and on the printer exactly as it appeared on the screen.
Oddly enough Jobs gave the world both a blessing and a curse with his fonts, now you can make anything totally illegible after spending hours searching for the font you think looks cool. I love all the fonts don't get me wrong but I have seen corporations using comic sans as their font. Font choice is too complex to leave to some guy moonlighting as a graphic artist.
I like the b-roll footage showing the back and how it doesn't open further than 90 degrees now for all of us worried about your new lathe station unbalancing and falling on the floor xD
I've no idea what you're planning to do with this but the idea of realigning the headstock every time you want to use the lathe seems like a lot of work.
The font that radicalized me is Atkinson Hyperlegible by the Braille Institute. It looks so good and is also incredibly functional. I use it everywhere I can, lol. But it has also led me to find a few others I also like.
Omg finally you’ve covered a topic that I can give a “experienced review” on! Let me first start by saying the sort of “etched” look is amazing but the first thing (and only thing mind you) that smacked me in the face is the kerfing on the letter T in “lathe”. I personally would squidge (this is a very technical typographer term) the T and the h and bit closer together. Overall though I love that font!
Heya, Mr. Self, I see that drumming music choice. Soon as I heard that transition, I thought that was the kind of fun edit choice Josh would make. Editor sees fellow editor's taste in edit choices.
Always like your tool storage solutions, and old style cabinets containing everything for a specialty tool really gets to me. I like old style paint especially German tool colors, Find a RAL K7 paint chip book,all the colors are named in German. Font and Type nerd here too!
As a font nerd who's made and sold fonts, I feel Adam starting with font work, then talking about font design, only to cover it up later with paint is a bold choice. XD
Regarding the type of lines for specific letters, I remember it this way: V and W - broad first stroke, N and M - thin first stroke. As if youve rotated it 180 degrees. Im sure theres a better mnemonic, but it works :)
I recently got a CNC for woodworking and have been messing around with text/fonts and experimenting with different angle V bits to see how they impact particular fonts and how they read, how it changes the dynamic, etc.
Yes to fonts 😊 I took lithography/printing in jr/Sr high school, as well as a semester of commercial design in high school. Oh man! The font computer we had in our high school print shop back in the early 80's was huge! As for Moby Dick, the version I was last reading, was a free Kindle edition. I made it to about chapter ~25. Challenging read.
I like to think of lineweight as shading, I just pick a side (top left or top right, usually top right) for a light-source, so the heavier lines are always the left-bottom ones. suddenly, your font will Pop, without _actually_ having a drop shadow! 🧑🎨
Adam, you have my unending adoration as both a human and a maker - I bought 2 copies of Every Tool Is A Hammer, one for myself and one for my mother. I consumed it like a thanksgiving feast. So it pains me to tell you your A’s and M are backwards. If it helps, the easiest was to remember is to imagine your hand drawing the letter forms from left to right on the page: / Upstrokes are thin \ Downstrokes are thick
for me that font i feel is one where i could glance around the room and instead of reading it and identifying what it says, it just bypasses that and registers in my mind what it says, no middle-thought-man.
Regarding thick and thin strokes: thanks to you righties (visualize holding a chisel-point pen in your right hand), we give bias to vertical strokes over horizontal strokes, and definitely diagonal strokes going from upper left to lower right. Adam nailed it on the W, but not on the As, which are backwards; the 'tails' of the K and R can be thicker too.
13:43 I know that laugh well. For what will probably be the only time I'll ever do it in my life, last week I opened an adjustable crescent wrench to the exact right size to fit on the nut on my first attempt. It was an incredible feeling
This watchmaker's lathe workstation build: th-cam.com/video/kI2XADN-hJU/w-d-xo.html
Hayear digital c-mount microscope: amzn.to/3GIT8C1
Disclosure: Tested may earn a comission from items purchased here.
Re fonts , thoughts on art nouveau? 😊
Adam how do you like your m18 sander?
you're not sad enough to get that eastern green 🤪amazing how it went from candy green to this 👍
You have the perfect amount of space on the bottom of either door to put some size conversion cheat sheets and charts. Or maybe one for a size chart and the other for the owners manual. Starrett makes a great little quick reference chart for hole sizes that I have found so helpful when doing jobs on the lathe over the years. It’s double sided so if you mount it you would want to have 2 so you can see both sides.
I have to think that green reminds me greatly of Matthias Wandel's self-made tools. I know you're a fan, Adam. Did that provide any inspiration?
Some days I wake up and think, “damnit I really just need to see Adam Savage work on a box today” and today all is right with the world.
I watch Adam videos in the mornings so I wake up with a friendly enthusiastic voice.
@@toriwilson6961 That's so lovely. We'll pass your comment on to Adam (although he may see it himself -- he reads comments.)
As a watch modder, Font Nerd, and CNC Mill tech, I applaud you Adam. Thank you for all you do my friend.
Do you watch any of the “clickspring” TH-cam videos?
I am a sign maker with over 3 decades of experience I have long awaited Tested to tour a small talented local sign shop. The overlaps in knowledge with a shop that does CNC, hand lettering, design and so on would likely blow Adams mind. So many parts of the maker community owe 'tips and tricks' to skills developed by the sign industry.
I was making models in '78 into the '80s. Earned my Commercial Graphics in 1980 and worked as an illustrator/draftsman until '84 I'm still enamored with fonts, but try and make a big boss understand readability ... LOL My layoff notice was rolled up and stuck in my bike ...
Agreed, a lot of little Nuance in shop to shop, it's amazing I love looking at others factory
Hi Adam,
love your content 👍
This typical German machine colour is called "Resedagrün" = "Reseda Green".
It is a colour of the RAL colour standard with the code RAL 6011.
This is a really old German industial standard (called "painting of machines": DIN 1844) that dates back to 1927.
Kind regards from Germany 🤗
While comparing online photos is not an accurate way measuring color, I feel the Proxxon green is somewhat warmer than the 6011. I'm sure he could have brought one of their tools to a paint shop and had them mix up a batch after finding the correct Pantone equivalent.
Than you for explaining that! I was browsing the comments hoping to find the origin of the "East German Green" :)
@@TheInfidel_SlavaUA Are you saying green does not contain yellow? 0.o
You mean red, right?
@@TheInfidel_SlavaUA "A green that contains no traces of yellow"...its a contraddiction.
Thanks for naming it! Resedagrün looks much softer and more welcoming -- very similar to what we'd call "pistachio green" in the US.
My father was a sign maker (among many other things) and I was always amazed at his ability to hand paint the letters and make them readable and look good. He was also a printer, on old hand typeset printing press we had in our basement, a carpenter, an electrician, and other things. He grew up during the depression and served in New Guinea and the Philippines in WWII.
That last sentence applies to my grandpa!
My great grandfather on my paternal grandmothers side was a sign maker too! I don’t really know very much about him other than that. But I do know we still have his supplies that he’d use for painting the signs. Wicked cool
seeing Adam deal with his adhd ticks in real time has always been one of the reasons i love his content as someone with Autism and ADHD alot of times it gets covered up or edited out of other channels of people who have it whereas in adams videos it shows him working through and around his ADHD in ways that really helped me alot personally when i was growing into my own. Thanks as always for the amazing content Adam and just being you without a filter truly a gift to stem and education for me and many others who enjoyed the craftsmanship and ingenuity and labor put into these beautiful projects over the years as well as a peak into the mind of someone dealing with something i am as well.
I haven't even finished watching this video yet at the time I'm writing this comment but I had to stop to say this: Adam, you are one of the few people I've seen who let their genuine interest and passion show through.
I have never thought much about lathes and woodworking and such. I've always seen them as beautiful but never was really interested in learning more about it myself. You've done that. Your eye for little details and the care you exhibit in your work is awesome to see. It's that passion that is infectious and draws people in and is so fun and interesting to see. Learning from someone who is truly interested and invested in a given subject is an entirely different experience, and I hope you continue to do so.
Thank you for what you do!
Thanks so much for taking the time to let us know. We will make sure Adam sees your comment.
My old job was filled with work stations full of mismanaged tools, unthought through work spaces, and missing many key tools that you would think a multi million dollar fabrication company would have. This year i started my own fabrication company to metaphorically start putting a price tag a little closer to my work. Being able to see someone that has put so much thought and care into his equipment is not just enriching his life but the many lives that will go on to discover tested videos. I have definitely been enriched and inspired, or at least have a little bit clearer of a vision of what that messy workspace in my mind should look like. Thank you.
13:28 I love when the editors on a keep-it-simple channel like this allow themselves a brief moment of creative liberty. I can just see them smirking to themselves quietly lol.
"that East German hopelessness." ... Brilliant.
As a German... what is east German green?😂
Next time I have to go get some paint, I’m going to ask if they have anything with a bit more hopelessness. I’m interested to hear their reaction.
@@rened.5998 Reseda Green i belive.
@@TheInfidel_SlavaUA Reseda Green, Germany had their own standard DIN 1844, until 1974.
Having been in East Germany (Berlin) many times back in the day, I know the hopeless green of which you speak. Your cabinet is exceptional. I’m pleased just looking at it.
Do you mean Resedagrün (RAL 6011)?
An idea came to my mind when at 11:10 Adam opened the box. instead of opening each panel individually, after unlocking the front door, a mechanism set up to the top lid (since you have to always push open it to back) will pull the door panels to the side and lock it. they will now swing or sway unless you pull back the top lid to close.
I am so thankful you found that fabric paint. That original green color made me sad and the final hopeless color makes me happy!
I have the same appreciation for graffiti and the style behind the stylized letters and how you can stretch and warp letters and still read it. I took a class from a german graffiti artist named SMOE, the class was called going wild with letters, really opened up my eyes to style.
Excellent video, Adam! I really enjoyed the teams' editing decision to overlay the description of the spray paints you used while the timelapse played in the background! Also, the build itself... *chef's kiss!* 👏🏻💪🏻👍 Thank you, Adam and Team!
My grandpa used to have loads of tools and toolboxes, probably some from east Germany, that had that exact green that Adam was talking about and I mean, it’s not exactly the right one but it has the right ambiance lol! My grandparents’ home is full of that green! Though it didn’t feel like a color of hopelessness 30 years ago when I was a kid, today it feels just like it. Like you have an urge to say “blaaagh…” and drop your shoulders when you see it.
Adam, Your philosophy on fonts and their readability is so on point. I am a freelance graphics designer, and I can tell you, the feeling you get when you see a proper font in its proper placement is zen. I use the word feeling because it matters. Your eye and how it interprets what you are reading, has feeling, emotion, expression...all things humanizing in its form. Thank you for your thought process. It is always so much appreciated that you take the time to discuss these topics.
Appreciate the kind comment; we'll pass it along to Adam.
Love the discussion of fonts here - not only is it super interesting, but it's such an apt illustration of how all the various "AI"-based creative tools and/or plagiarism machines proliferating today just can't reproduce what human artists and craftspeople do. Sure, they can get close in some ways, but in others not at all. It's so crucial that we maintain these skills and crafts, and we lose so much if we fail to do so.
I love watching your channel. You have the ability to bring to light things we don’t normally think about. Such as fonts. I have found that reading some text I will find myself reading the same thing numerous times where as some books just make sense the first time around.
I loved how I tuned in because I had no idea what a Watch Lathe was and I’ve stumbled into a Fonte seminar…. Love it
As a huge MythBusters fan, I have admired Adam since 20 years ago. I like watching him hit the beat like a young boy whenever he gets a genius idea. What is recorded in the videos is not only the results, but more importantly, they shares with us the process of thinking, designing, producing, and optimizing each work, which is extremely precious.
I wish they would do longer videos- I would happily watch a 2 hour unedited recording of adam building this thing
Complete with all shop sounds only... no music. 😊
I think there is something to be said about taking time and paying attention to the details that matter to you personally. That’s what I’ve learned from you Adam. For a long time I’ve thought/or been taught that efficiency in time is the only thing that matters, often times ignoring or not taking time to give the proper attention to the details that matter to me in order to save time.
omg i completely forgot about Puddles Pity Party, thank you for reminding me of this youtube jewel. Gonna have to go binge his jams now.
Never thought about fonts that way before. Consider me enlightened. Now you got me looking through my books from when I was a kid. Always liked educational stuff. Looking at all the fonts to see what was best. ‘Questions kids ask’ was my favorite series.
Adam, I love the fact that you wear your Omega Planet Ocean, and a while back, your Yacht Master Rolex in the shop every day, not scared to get them scratched. I used to love looking for your watches when i would watch Mythbusters!
On the subject of fonts, here in the UK specific fonts we're developed for road signs and are still known as "transport" and "motorway". The intention was to create a style that would be as easy to read as possible so that drivers minimised the time looking at the signs and maximisimed the time spent looking at the road. So it was at least in part about saving lives through use of a font.
i just finished a tattoo 6 hours ago on my stomach spelling ''harlequin'' in dutch (Harlekijn), in an old English stylized font, we spent a good 2,5 hours researching fonts to make it suit my other tattoos and also make it readable, i've never cared much about it but after researching fonts for this tattoo i got really into it and the art of of fonts. i always loved calligraphy and decided last week i want to do something with it! this video really made me incredibly happy!
Excellent content! Wonderful editing!
I love the sights and sounds of a shop and creative process. A little drumming for entertainment as well❤
I’m definitely hooked on your channel and your content. It’s inspiring.
Thanks so much for taking the time to let us know!
Gosh, any new Adam Build video gets my creative juices flowing. Just an absolute well of creative drive, and passion that's infectious.
I liked the use of Picture-In-Picture editing to allow some detail discussion on top of a timelapse of the process. I would be happy to see more of that sort of thing in the future!
I love having kits for equipment so I've got everything I need near for the task. Love this cabinet build
The words “typeface” and “font” are typically thought of as synonymous, but they actually refer to different things. While a typeface describes a particular style of lettering, a font refers to variations of a typeface, like its size and weight. The simplest way to understand this difference is that a typeface is a set of fonts with common aesthetic qualities.
Linus Boman has a video that specifically discusses this.
Not just common qualities, more than that: the typeface is the “font family”: Helvetica is the typeface, Helvetica bold italic is a font. In metal typesetting, the term font also referred to the size, since you actually needed different physical sets for different sizes.
Scrolled to find this thread. Yes, “font” describes the specific weight, style, and size within a type family as well as the code that contains those specifics. Two meanings for the same word, but neither of which should be used when describing handwritten type. And I know, it’s extremely obnoxious, but it drives us graphic designers nuts.
Came to the comments looking for someone else to point this out. Perhaps a nitpick, but if one wishes to self-identify as a "[typography] nerd," then the distinction between font and typeface is VERY salient
Long before computers took over I was taught a font was a drawer that contained the complete set of type. Font did not have to be specific to any typeface, whatever type you put in your drawer was now part of that font. For example you could have been printing a job and your font drawer(s) would include all the customized type that was needed and was accepted as part of that font including custom glyphs, spacers and things that didn't even print. A typeface itself was the art, if you discussed the design you are talking about the typeface and if you were talking about some mechanical property of using the type you had in your shop you are taking about the font. If you were to discuss the art then you called it the typeface.
I also worked with Heidelberg/Linotype from 1995 to 2005 and carried the complete sets of Linotype fonts on CD to my jobs. I installed fonts on Barco Systems, SGI, VMS, Scitex, Harlequin, etc. and none of this was an issue until Apple tried to shoehorn a graphics program on a 512 × 342 pixel screen.
It hurt my ears to hear Adam newspeak so many times.
Amazing setup!
You truly have inspiring resolve, Adam 👏
Beautiful workstation! My Father-in-law was a cabinetmaker. It was never allowed to show the edge laminations of plywood. Even the end-grain of natural wood. And, of course, no fasteners. He spent more time mitering than assembling. But his product was artful, but he would stain rather than paint. I still make work tables his way: plywood with milled stock around the edges (like a flush picture frame). I’m just starting to gear up to work on my own watches. Cleaning and lubrication rather than repair. Nekkid Watchmaker mesmerizes me. Inspired me to install a new capacitor in my Seiko Solar 100M.
Is there anything Adam cant make or build?? Absolute Genius.
We had just the same East German green and Proxxon conversation today! It turns out Proxxon is made in Luxembourg. However, enjoyed your video very much and I like to see that your are still using the little 10.8V makita drill. I bought them years ago when you showed them in a video and they are still going strong. Thanks Adam for your work!!
Proxxon is still a German company. Most is still produced in Germany ('Industrial' series e.g.). Except of the 'Micromot' that is produced in Luxembourg.
@@Melonecolonie i didn’t know that, thanks for your reply!
I made a lot of WWII model airplanes as a kid and that green reminds me of the paint on the inside of the bomb bays and landing gear doors. I think it was called
"zinc chromate" or something like that. Nice work sir! (As always.)
You can definitely tell the lighting changes that were made. Feels less of a work shop and more of a production shoot layout. Very professional, but there was something special with the rugged look
Even from the other side of a computer screen, your shop looks so very relaxing to work in.
As a recent novice watchmaker this was awesome to watch, more!!
The documentary *Helvetica* is a great resource to inspire potential and current font lovers alike, in my opinion ❤
It is fantastic hearing Adams passion for typography, it is far too often overlooked. I am a graphic designer and I can say type is almost always the most difficult yet most rewarding part of what I do.
i came to learn and understand great fonts through programming. fonts can have such a drastic effect on your view of your code editor and make coding more eye straining or beautiful. there are even some paid fonts that are amazing (spend the money on the tools that improve your craft). it helps you really to personalize your work space. in school i took an intro class on designing fonts and through the lens of programming i learned to appreciate it way more. so i totally get your love of fonts and totally agree with you.
Adam, your channel is the best. That lathe is awesome!!!
I want everyone in my life to be as happy as Adam is 13:42 such a great feeling
The Fonts are responsible for so many of my Happy Days. I love all letters but especially the A’s.
I absolutely love proper labels. Best way I've found to label pretty much anything is a rectangle of black (or other colours) PVC tape, and write on it using white ink with a dip pen. You can stick the tape down to a cutting mat and do the calligraphy part there, then cut a neat section out of the tape and stick it on whatever it is you're labelling.
wont lie, ive rectangular bordered all my labels in my shop. Such a thing has brought me so much joy when i start looking for stuff. I can imagine the next step is fontnerdary
I find it super interesting that you find fonts interesting and tie it to your watchmakers lathe, as I find that watch design to be a similarly incredible expression of abstract ideas with practicality and beauty. Watchmaking is someone in their cave trying to represent something as abstract as time by creating repetition to measure- and trying to make it look good. Very funny parallel to your take on fonts
Ohh this is great, I have my Grandpas watchmaker's lathe in a bin I was planning on making a (working) display setup like this for it.
The very first online college course I took was a technical writing course. Our first assignment was to find a font that we felt best represented ourselves or our communication style. Then, craft a discussion posting about our selves and why we picked the font and the post had to use the font. It was suprisingly accurate as to the pretentousness of an individual or those that wanted to be obtuse and difficult to understand.
seeing a Maker video in which they actually pain the wood gives me life
I judge all fonts by seeing if I can tell the difference between O and 0 and 1 and l, if that is useless, I don't bother examining anything else about that font :-).
I can’t reccomend Atkinson Hyperlegible highly enough. It’s the font that got me interested in fonts
Yes!
I have an antique bench and its most useful feature is a thin cloth bottomed drawer that fits against your torso and catches tiny dropped parts safely.
I was not getting that green when you first started. When you ended, it was an amazing combination! Envious of your ability to see it before it exists.
Talking about fonts and design. I taught surface design cad for a semester. One exercise I found and recommended to my students to train thinking in 3d is to try and draw a 3/4 view of the shape two intersecting letters would make. Like imagine if you had a block of wood, drew an S on one side, a Z on the next, then cut them out on the bandsaw visualise and try to draw that shape. Really takes a bit of thinking to get your noodle around.
I love your font! Totally love the leading serif. My grandfather managed a print layout/typesetting shop, and passed on his knowledge and enthusiasm of typefaces to my dad, who was in advertising, and who in turn passed it down to me! (I manage corporate websites.) For those who don't know, Arion Press/M&H in San Francisco still sells physical fonts, as do a few other foundries in the US.
This case is amazing too. I was totally satisfied with storing my watchmaker's lathe under a towel, but I think I'm going to have to upgrade. 😄 Also - "Green with a little hopelessness in it" is brilliant. 😂
Thats a gorgeous case. Everything within seated reach. Looking forward to seeing something small made tiny.
It's always good to see you work, Mister Savage.
When computer screens got bigger to render more details in fonts is the first time I really started to struggle with my dyslexia. I really learned about the importance of fonts and how hugely they influence readability to me. This goes for contrast, dark mode, size, spacing, rendering methodology, aliasing algorithms, serifs, etc. I'm not a font nerd by any means. I have had to dive in to the topic out of necessity to learn what keeps me productive in a high-resolution universe. Fonts are a huge factor in accessibility even for all of us who with sometimes less obvious disabilities or restrictions to deal with.
Fonts are important, because they DO matter. A lot more than you think. Shows the importance of fine details, that most people can grasp
I used to have Fontographer. Almost 30 years ago.
The font plays a role in making the type legible but there are a whole bunch of typesetting rules that have been lost becasue of the advent of computers and the loss of compositors who were responsible for the layout of the text. I wrote a comment on this too long to repeat but I was an apprentice to a compositor reading modern publications is painful to me I see all the mistakes they make and as Adam said it is more difficult to read. They do not teach layout skills any more the computer screws it up without the help of any proper rules.
May dad was a commercial artist / graphic design guy back in the day. He could do hand lettering like that with nothing but a blank page and a paint brush. Your lettering is very good.
My favorite part pulling the tape great job
As a young teenager, some 50 years ago, my most favourite, favourite book was a Letraset catalogue. Page after page after page of glorious fonts. I studied, copied and altered so many different fonts until I really understood what the key elements of a good font design were. My career in graphic design never happened but my love of fonts remains. Photoshop makes it all too easy these days. You can create amazing things but it's only by drawing letters by hand that you can truly understand how they work. I used to create my own logos for all sorts of things. I'm still kind of sad that I never pursued it professionally.
Still got mine on bookshelve
As a cartographer fonts are super important to the readability of a map. Very much time was spent on marching the font to the intent, or message, of the map. I can relate to your font nerdary!
love the typo
I like the picture in picture and description while you keep working.
Awesome. Cheers.
When I was 17 I was taught typography. We were not allowed to use the print room (metal type) until we could hand draw the fonts you wanted to use at the size we wanted and layer out as a visual. Just business card took me a week. I can still draw that font with my eyes closed.
Oh, golly. Watching you zip up those bits on the table saw gets me thirsting for that little SawStop contractors saw that I’ve been lusting for! 🎉 And, Yes! Fonts are Fabulous! 💥💥💥❤️ P.P.S. Rockwell Kent. OMG. 😻
Nothing beats hand painted lettering.
The problem is you need to be skilled at it, nowadays you can replicate even the brush strokes using high resolution UV curing printers that will not only give the look but the feel as well.
I have to say that green is just a great color. I have used this color on toolboxes and the inside of my MGs glovebox.
love the new into format
“Fomenting a little font nerdery”. Love, love, love.
I fully agree with you about fonts and layout. The positioning of "WatchMaker's" on your case is driving me crazy. I would put the center of the doors either between the "H" and "M", or perfectly split the "M" at the tip of the dip.
Adam, As a traditional and CElectronic Graphic artist/Illustrator from the late 70s but nolonger do it proffessionaly I agree 100%!!!!!! The trick to S's or any round letter is they are a bit taller than the other letters extending up and down just slightly. An S should be to sized so that the top is slightly less than the bottom in size and don't forget to assend and dessend it slightly more that your normal letters.
as a dyslectic fonts are super important to me it makes a huge difference its why i switch to on e reader so i can chose one that makes reading easier for me
The editing of this video is heads above the rest, keep it up.
Paula Scher made me love typography as art ❤
As a artist (stone sculptor) looking at your drawings in mirror or just shine thru them on a window help you have a fresh look and spot things. And yes fonts are the silent heroes of the art world. As a work i hand chisel several tomb stones. Create and copied font not mentioning 10+ years of sandblasting and chiseling epitaphs.
Speaking of fonts -
In 1972, a bored college dropout named Steve Jobs wandered into a calligraphy class and absolutely fell in love with the art of lettering.
In 1984, he released a groundbreaking computer called the Macintosh. Up until this point, letters on a computer were just static bitmaps all the same size. But in this new graphical interface you could choose from a selection of beautiful “fonts” that were rendered in any size you wished, both on the screen as you typed, and on the printer exactly as it appeared on the screen.
Oddly enough Jobs gave the world both a blessing and a curse with his fonts, now you can make anything totally illegible after spending hours searching for the font you think looks cool.
I love all the fonts don't get me wrong but I have seen corporations using comic sans as their font. Font choice is too complex to leave to some guy moonlighting as a graphic artist.
I like the b-roll footage showing the back and how it doesn't open further than 90 degrees now for all of us worried about your new lathe station unbalancing and falling on the floor xD
I've no idea what you're planning to do with this but the idea of realigning the headstock every time you want to use the lathe seems like a lot of work.
The font that radicalized me is Atkinson Hyperlegible by the Braille Institute. It looks so good and is also incredibly functional. I use it everywhere I can, lol. But it has also led me to find a few others I also like.
It's got the capital I cross arms while being san serif which is awesome! I think I'm going to switch everything to that now.
Omg finally you’ve covered a topic that I can give a “experienced review” on! Let me first start by saying the sort of “etched” look is amazing but the first thing (and only thing mind you) that smacked me in the face is the kerfing on the letter T in “lathe”. I personally would squidge (this is a very technical typographer term) the T and the h and bit closer together. Overall though I love that font!
Heya, Mr. Self, I see that drumming music choice. Soon as I heard that transition, I thought that was the kind of fun edit choice Josh would make. Editor sees fellow editor's taste in edit choices.
Aw, thanks for saying so!
Always like your tool storage solutions, and old style cabinets containing everything for a specialty tool really gets to me. I like old style paint especially German tool colors, Find a RAL K7 paint chip book,all the colors are named in German. Font and Type nerd here too!
As a font nerd who's made and sold fonts, I feel Adam starting with font work, then talking about font design, only to cover it up later with paint is a bold choice. XD
Regarding the type of lines for specific letters, I remember it this way: V and W - broad first stroke, N and M - thin first stroke. As if youve rotated it 180 degrees. Im sure theres a better mnemonic, but it works :)
I recently got a CNC for woodworking and have been messing around with text/fonts and experimenting with different angle V bits to see how they impact particular fonts and how they read, how it changes the dynamic, etc.
Yes to fonts 😊 I took lithography/printing in jr/Sr high school, as well as a semester of commercial design in high school. Oh man! The font computer we had in our high school print shop back in the early 80's was huge!
As for Moby Dick, the version I was last reading, was a free Kindle edition. I made it to about chapter ~25. Challenging read.
Only because you mentioned East European, you might find the @The Post Apocalyptic Inventor TH-cam channel interesting.
Im an Ex Animator and my wife is an Ex Graphic Designer, I could sit and listen to Adam talk fonts all day long :)
The colour is a big thumbs up from me 👍
I like to think of lineweight as shading,
I just pick a side (top left or top right, usually top right) for a light-source, so the heavier lines are always the left-bottom ones.
suddenly, your font will Pop, without _actually_ having a drop shadow! 🧑🎨
Adam, you have my unending adoration as both a human and a maker - I bought 2 copies of Every Tool Is A Hammer, one for myself and one for my mother. I consumed it like a thanksgiving feast. So it pains me to tell you your A’s and M are backwards. If it helps, the easiest was to remember is to imagine your hand drawing the letter forms from left to right on the page:
/ Upstrokes are thin
\ Downstrokes are thick
for me that font i feel is one where i could glance around the room and instead of reading it and identifying what it says, it just bypasses that and registers in my mind what it says, no middle-thought-man.
Regarding thick and thin strokes: thanks to you righties (visualize holding a chisel-point pen in your right hand), we give bias to vertical strokes over horizontal strokes, and definitely diagonal strokes going from upper left to lower right. Adam nailed it on the W, but not on the As, which are backwards; the 'tails' of the K and R can be thicker too.
That green looks great!
Fonts are the reason i love ereaders.
13:43 I know that laugh well. For what will probably be the only time I'll ever do it in my life, last week I opened an adjustable crescent wrench to the exact right size to fit on the nut on my first attempt. It was an incredible feeling