On 1/11/11 11:31 AM, Bill wrote:

I know there are quite a few software people here. Even if you're not
one of them, I hope you'll still get involved in this thread!
In software engineering, we learn to put a lot of effort into design
(and the more of it we do, the better we appreciate that approach, I
think).

Question: Assuming you a a hobby-ist and not someone running a small
business, do you spend a large percentage of your time in woodworking in
designing your projects? Do you think of designing as "part of the work"
or "part of the fun"?

I don't really want to interject my own answer here, but I rather enjoy
drawing things out with SketchUp (and I feel confident the quality of my
woodworking will be the better for it). In my teenage years, the last
time I had the resources to work with wood, I would get to the cutting
in minutes--in fact, I probably often started by looking at the
woodpile...lol. Feel free to put your own spin on the question.


Note, I do not build fine furniture, but I have built a desk, workbench,
closet doors, storage cabinets, decks, and benches etc.

Mostly is rolls around in my head a day or two, then a quick sketch, and
on to making sawdust. On two occasions my wife provided the quick
sketch of what she wanted, I just built from there after an hours thought.

Don't take this personally, but you seem to go for the government
approach of designing a $100,000 hammer, when $50 will do just fine.

Too much planning and thought, leads to more questions, ad nauseum, the
little details seem to fall out in the process for me, I did the same
process with computer programming, think a bit about the problem, and
then start coding.

--
Froz...


The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance.