On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 16:07:30 +0000, Bay Area Dave wrote:

Ben,
funny you began your post with "narrow and egocentric" view. I used
somewhat the same description of myself earlier. I hope you realize
that I crafted the OP to be provocative. I expecting to be flamed,
actually, but thankfully everyone that has responded has done a superb
job of detailing that plans are useful in many ways.

I wasn't flaming or attacking, just letting you know how your question
came across to me.


Yup, I am mixing (in my thinking) woodworking with design, as relates to
woodworking as a hobby. That's why I was looking for comments on the
practice of using plans. From many of the replies I can now see that a
plan can be like a recipe that you spice up. a starting point. well
engineered joinery. I'm getting it, man, I'm GETTING it!

Are you trying to claim that somebody on a newsgroup learned something by
reading it? Impossible!


Yes, I know I sounded self-righteous. I expected that response. I was
playing devil's advocate in order to prompt discussion. The tone I took
was " I don't get it. why are you guys doing this? doesn't make sense
to me. plans aren't needed. why spend money on them?" Now I've gotten
a more clear understanding of the value of using a plan, or maybe just
culling some ideas from one, to incorporate into our own creation,
thereby saving time, using proper joinery, or adding design elements
that otherwise would have been lacking, or misproportioned.

Plus some of us just don't know how to build something without some
step-by-step instructions. I followed a plan to build my work bench but
using that knowledge, I was able to draft my own plans for an assembly
table and put it together without assistance. Plans can be a learning
tool. I didn't learn calculus by sitting down deriving the Fundamental
Theorom on my own. Isaac Newton did that and somebody else taught me,
step by step, how to use it.

and to answer your question about what I'm amazed people ask for plans
for: a sled. I gave my .02 to a recent thread on sleds, and I believe
that the OP understood my response that HIS sled needs to be dimensioned
for HIS needs, rather than a one size fits all strategy.

I wouldn't know how to build a sled. I'd go get plans, adjust the
measurements, but otherwise basically follow them.

I wasn't trying
to be either rude or unhelpful; quite the contrary, sometimes it's good
to push someone to think a little more about the reason for building a
shop aid, such as a TS sled, BEFORE they blindly follow someone else's
design. When they ask how big it should be, wouldn't you tell them to
think about what they plan on cutting with it?

Yeah, I agree with you here for sure. When I wanted to build my
workbench, I found four or five sets of plans. One just used 2x6's for
the surface and I didn't like that. For one, they're never straight and
for two, there'll be cracks in them that dust and crap will fall into. I
kept shopping around until I found something closer to what I wanted, and
even then I changed the height of it to fit my physical size.

I'm not sure it doesn't take some skill to paint by numbers. My
attempts at it as I child were atrocious. The final result always
looked like hell!

Yeah, same here, but my point was that the paint-by-numbers analogy isn't
very good. You hit on this earlier, but basically it comes to knowing how
to build something and knowing how to design something. I could make a
design for a bookcase that looks great, build it, put four books on it and
have the shelves collapse because I used the wrong kind of joint, wrong
kind of wood, or any other number of things that goes wrong. You may have
the know-how to avoid those kinds of mistakes, but not everybody does. I
almost built my workbench out of yellow pine until somebody told me to use
a less brittle wood. I didn't know pine was brittle, I'm just starting
out.