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The Setting Bench

Notes from the setting bench: what a tool is asked to do, and where it stops

Contact this bench

How to reach The Setting Bench, what to send with a correction, and what this desk cannot answer.

The bench reads its mail at [email protected]. Write in English and put the entry number in the subject line if your message is about an existing entry.

A correction

Send the address of the entry, the sentence you believe is wrong, and the source that settles it. A named standard, a page from a manufacturer's instruction sheet or a trade manual is enough. A forum post, a product listing or a video is not, because none of them can be checked against a fixed text.

An entry that is corrected is republished with a new checked-on date. The correction is not hidden: the sentence is rewritten and the date moves.

A question

The bench answers questions about how a tool or a gesture is supposed to behave, and it points to the standard or the instruction that says so.

What the bench cannot do

This desk cannot tell you what the tool in your hand is made of, and it cannot tell you whether a stone will survive a setting that has already been started. Those questions are answered by looking at the piece, and they belong to a trained bench.