Doc Font wrote in news:docfont-F50F5A.16421726062005
@corp.supernews.com:

Is there a way to determine the esthetics of a turned table leg,
banister or spoke in a wheel? Is there a mathematical formula for
proportions or is it just in the eyeball of the woodworker and
experience? Do you determine how deep a cut can be by the minimum
strength needed by the part, cut to depth and then shape the rest of the
part?


Samples. Prototypes. Models. Trial & error. Catalogs. Old style books.

It's woodWORK. Or practice. Doesn't have to be done with expensive stock.

As to the minimum scale, I have an inbred tendency to overbuild. Being a
well-fed American of Northern European stock, I tend to build sturdily.
The esthetics sometimes suffer.

"It ain't pretty, but it's hell for strong" was learned at my father's
side. I suspect he learned it from his father, a Danish immigrant
blacksmith.

Windsor chairs seem to survive. Carriage wheels often looked too slender
to survive. Using the right woods correctly seems to help. That takes
research, since few of us trained as chairmakers or wheelwrights in our
youth.

Good luck. Take pictures. Ask for opinions of those whose opinion you
value.

Patriarch