Hello workers of wood. I am new to woodworking and am going to school for carpentry/cabinetmaking. I want to get into woodworking and cabinetmaking more so. Now, I have certain ideas already in my head as to what kind of bookcase I would like to build in the future. I have drawn it on a piece of paper to envision it better. I took a drafting class and a commercial art class in high school years ago, but remember little. My question is, if you have an idea in your head of something you want to build, how do you properly lay it out on paper? I mean, do I wing it freehand? Are there books out there simply on layout? I would just like to know how to put my bookcase idea on paper, but make it neat and understandle also. You know, I guess I could ask my shop teacher these very same questions, he he. I know there are lots of plans out there, but I have had this idea in my mind for months now and want to build it exactly as my mind’s eye sees it.
Thanks and please reply if you have knowledge, info, or advice,
Hoobs
Replies
A first place to start would be get control of your pencil and keep practising. It gets better as you work on the basic skills. I know it as point and line. Points at essential places connected by lines.
Most furniture is a series of points connected by straight lines to create boxes, eg, kitchen cabinets or chests of drawers or, even, bookshelves. Even a wacky chair with lots of curves and the like conforms to certain points and lines.
A generic chair can be drawn quite simply. It consists of a flat plane where the arse rests. It has another plane where the back leans. It has another flat plane where the base meets the floor-- the feet.
All these points and lines conform to human scale, ie, anthropometrics.
Learn as best you can two point perspective and three point perspective and keep trying. Once you get the basic tools and skills in place the drawing gets easier and easier. Forget for now other essentials like shadow and tone, but don't forget it for long.
Get the basics in place and go from there. The basics are to be able to draw a straight line at any angle, and draw a circle. Everything depends on this primary ability.
You have to get whatever garbage is in your head out to show to other people what you plan to do. You have to get it out to even show what you want to do to yourself.
All the computerised programmes in the world do nothing unless you can do a quick sketch that reasonably represents your intentions. With computerised drawing programmes of course the old maxim of garbage in, garbage out runs true. If there's nothing worthwhile in your head a computer programme can't solve that, and a pigs ear is still a pigs ear however you get it out for someone else to look at.
The mind, the pencil (or pen) and the willingnes to express yourself and learn the essentials are all vitally important tools that a designer needs to get to grips with. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Edited 2/17/2006 4:07 pm by SgianDubh
Thank you very much for your reply. It is most appreciated. I think what helps most is what you said about making a drawing so that others can understand it and not just myself. A nonbiased drawing, indifferent, I guess. May I ask what Slainte means? And I noticed how you spelled programmes. I would have spelled it programs. Are you from the UK? Thanks again,
Hoobs
British, yes. And Slainte roughly translates to Cheers or Health from Gaelic and is short for slainte bheatha.
Keep working on the drawing. I'm not brilliant at it either, but I can usually get across what I'm trying to do. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Gaelic, huh? My family is not sure if my last name is Welsh or if it is a Swiss name that has been Anglicised. Not sure if I spelled that right, but you get the picture.Josh
If it is yer mind's eye, translate that vision to a sketch ASAP, berfore you get flumoxed on the details, and caught up in endless regressions.
Once you got the sketch, go from there. Put a big circle around a corner and label it, then take another page from yer sketch book and map out some details, put some dimensions on it. Take another joint, and map it out too. You'd be suprised how quickly the design process progresses.
The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, and once you start sketching, you keep on sketching, no doubt erasing, scribbling out, and making revisions, nodoubt make mistakes, but at least the work becomes a work in progress, and will eventually get finished.
The pencil is still the original cordless computer, despite what the computer afficianados will have ya believe. It's got more CPU power in the articulated manipulator (generally called the hand) than any idiot-savant has ever succeeded in translating into digital fuss. It is also the most economical by a far cry.
If you want to go for books, instead of looking at drudgery-doo drafting stuff which is either so general that it is boring, so specific that it is expensive, and despite my interest in draughtmanship and tools, has NEVER produced any substantial technical work on furniture drafting, and if anyone finds one, I betcha its 20 years out of date....., why not just start with a book on "Architectural rendering" and that will show you creative sketching.
I think this translation of thought into delineation is indeed within the realm of most folks , once they take that first step.
And hey. if you can't read yer own mind, how could ya ever expect to read the mind of any client?
Pencil, pen, whatever, it does come easy once you start.
Eric
"Architectural Rendering"? Sounds great. I will embark on my book finding quest as soon as I can. Actually, I did sketch it out already, and I know exactly how I want to build it. There is nothing complicated about it. Just some dadoes and maybe a rabbet or two. A Bandsaw would be good, too. Yeah, I have had this image in my mind for several months now, so I don't expect to forget it. I can't wait to build it. Thanks for your time,Josh
While you are on the quest for books, I highly recommend James Krenov's "The Fine Art of Cabinetry". He covers a lot of fine points about selecting the grain in your components to complement the overall design. In other words, don't forget that the grain of the various panels is a part of the design too.
Hello Hoobs ,
When I apprenticed I had few drawing skills . I was taught that in order to build and propose a job for a client I must be able to draw a reasonable sketch to convey the design .
One of the first things my boss had me draw was a piece of molding as though we were looking at the end of the piece and extending the profile to show the length of the piece . The shading and perspective gradually came .
What works for me is to draw a picture that shows how each piece of wood connects to the others, as a working drawing . Many design flaws may be un covered and present an opportunity to correct them.
Draw like your minds eye sees it , then bring it into proportion and scale .
A book case or a kitchen can be a straight line sketch done on graph paper to exact scale . A chair or a lathe turning have fewer references to straight lines but can be drawn to scale .Try using different size graph paper to find the one that works best for you .
good luck dusty
Go to an educational supply store and buy a large roll of paper. Lay your projects out full-size. Then you can mark workpieces directly from the drawing by laying the wood on the drawing an making tickmarks.
Certainly the only way to build/layout chairs, IMO.
Use a plain artist's sketchbook for aesthetic design and generally toying around with ideas.
A little knowledge of sketching in perspective can help but is not an absolute necessity.
hoobs,
i'm not a professional woodworker, but i have a shop and build quite a bit. in my job, i use Adobe Illustrator on the computer quite a bit. i find that it is invaluable for laying out my work. you can make "grids" with subdivisions to any specification, and then "snap" lines and points to those grids. it's really taken the pain out of drawing to scale. you can then use the ruler tool to make sure that the drawing is full scale if you want to print it out in pcs. then tape them together for a full size template
lastly, if you need curves, it has curves that it calls "bezier" which ensure a smooth line and it's not only infinitely repeatable, but easily adjustable.
i'm sure it would help you, if you have a computer, this particular software can cost some money, but there are any number of cheap alternatives.
good luck
There are a number of books on the design process and Taunton I know has a few.
My process is to get a quick sketch of the idea down on paper and label the page with a name/title of the item ie "5 drawer dresser"
Once the basic idea is there, I then start to fiddle with proportions. At this point, I may go to some graph paper to make a scale drawing and see if the idea of proportions looks good in scale.
I then play with that drawing till I have the final look design done. At that point I will make a somewhat larger scale drawing and incorporate joints, doing an exploded view off to the side when needed. At this point I usually discover any design flaws that needed/desired joinery will effect and go back and alter one or the other - doing this till that part is done.
Then I start labeling parts and marking dimensions of pieces to create a cut list.
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