Today I had to return to IKEA to buy some sheepskins to outfit the stick chairs I’m building, and I was stopped cold by one of the company’s displays.
It was a bunch of 36” plastic flexible tapes, offered for free like the ubiquitous IKEA pencils. These tapes were plastic, marked in both inches and centimeters and were dispensed like you remove a page from a desk calendar.
I grabbed two (by accident). They are exactly what you need for measuring along unusual curves in the workshop. When I make chairs, I’m constantly trying to determine the length of a curve without resorting to math. Bending a metal tape measure around a curve is a crap idea. And so I usually steal a flexible cloth tape from Lucy’s sewing kit to do the job.
Now I don’t have to.
These silly free tapes are an absolute boon if you work in curves. And the price (free) is beyond fantastic. To thank IKEA, be sure to buy one of its $1 cinnamon rolls (and feed it to the birds outside) or sample the free cookies (they are made from the same material as the furniture, I suspect).
— Christopher Schwarz