I finished up the web site details on my latest project: a slightly
embelished, Mission-Style Entertainment Center/Curio Cabinet.
Here it is if you are interested:
http://www.the-wildings.com/shop/current/

One of my complaintes about woodworking, or I guess woodworkers
specifically, is that too many people are way too dependent on plans. Don't
interpret this the wrong way. I think plans are a great learning tool in
woodworking. I have built several things from plans in the past and I often
study plans intently to get design and construction ideas, and then apply
these to different projects. I also sell plans. However, there are certain
times when you need to build something that has dimensions or a layout that
plans just don't exist for. Unfortunately, I think getting too dependent on
plans tends to stifle ones creativity.

I have decided to try to help people by putting more details on the design
of our projects on my website. I started this a few years back with a
detailed description of the rocking chair we designed
(http://the-wildings.com/shop/furniture/rocker/), but haven't provided much
detail since. I am going to try to put more effort into this as I develop
new projects going forward.

On this current project, I discuss some of the contraints and the thought
process we went through during the design phase. I also show some of the
jigs we developed to do the automated carvings. I haven't spent too much
time discussing routine stuff, like edging plywood, etc. If people find this
more basic stuff useful, I can focus more on that in the future as well.

So, if you are a relatively new woodworker that tends to work mostly from
plans, I challenge you to try your hand at design. It is not all that
difficult, and for me at least, it is kind of fun. The satisfaction you get
when the piece is complete is even more as well.And if you have tried it and
things didn't turn out quite as well as you like, then keep trying. Design
ability, like all things in woodworking, gets better with practice.

I'd be interested in other people's thoughts. Also feel free to contact me
if you have any questions about the project, or want any further details.

Joe in Denver
My Woodworking Website:
www.the-wildings.com/shop/

Beauty of a project.

I guess I am fairly new to woodworking (At least I am definitely new to
"fine" woodworking). I just finished my first really nice nightstand
and I am working on a second one to match. Here are my thoughts on
plans verses design.
I am doing bedroom furniture based on plans from a woodsmith book. I
followed the plan closely on the first one and got into some trouble as
not all cuts are exactly perfect every time. So on the second one I
have followed the plan loosely and followed the actual project
dimensions very closely. This seems to work much better.
I am also in the process of helping a friend build a
winerack/sideboard. This design is completely from my head to paper. I
am really glad that I have done the woodsmith based projects as they
introduced me to techniques and design ideas that I really needed to
know in order to make a good and stable design for my friend.

So... I think that every woodworker should spend time looking at plans.
Even if they don't build the thing. I think plans are a very effective
medium to share and learn ideas about design and style. I also think
that for inexperienced (I came from a background of a lot of "not-fine"
woodworking) woodworker plans help to solidify techniques, hone skills
and understand common mistakes in a somewhat sheltered environment. At
least this was true of the fine and very detailed plans from woodsmith
(in my mind the best beginner-intermediate woodworking mag). This in
mind I think that eventually a hobby woodworker will become bored with
the reproduction of someone else's work. We hobbyist woodwork because
we like doing it, something that I think is rooted in creativity not
expressed at our "real" jobs. Thus eventually it must come from us.
W

"Joe Wilding" wrote in message
news:1110204506.cb0f84eaf5c48f04220cad9e9801df9a@t eranews...
I finished up the web site details on my latest project: a slightly
embelished, Mission-Style Entertainment Center/Curio Cabinet.
Here it is if you are interested:
http://www.the-wildings.com/shop/current/

Nice site. I really like how you show pieces from which the design elements
were inspired.

One of my complaintes about woodworking, or I guess woodworkers
specifically, is that too many people are way too dependent on plans.
Don't
interpret this the wrong way. I think plans are a great learning tool in
woodworking. I have built several things from plans in the past and I
often
study plans intently to get design and construction ideas, and then apply
these to different projects. I also sell plans. However, there are certain
times when you need to build something that has dimensions or a layout
that
plans just don't exist for. Unfortunately, I think getting too dependent
on
plans tends to stifle ones creativity.

I'm with you 100%. I have never built anything from a published plan. But
that does
not mean that published plans are not a very appropriate way of
communicating how
a project goes together. Just as you gathered inspiration from other pieces,
a plan
can be an effective way to communicate a design technique.

On the other hand, I think some people just want to build and either don't
get, or can't
get the design/creativity aspect of woodworking. If that makes them happy,
well good for them.

-s

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 07:08:20 -0700, "Joe Wilding"
wrote:

I finished up the web site details on my latest project: a slightly
embelished, Mission-Style Entertainment Center/Curio Cabinet.
Here it is if you are interested:
http://www.the-wildings.com/shop/current/

Interesting looking piece.

One of my complaintes about woodworking, or I guess woodworkers
specifically, is that too many people are way too dependent on plans. Don't
interpret this the wrong way. I think plans are a great learning tool in
woodworking. I have built several things from plans in the past and I often
study plans intently to get design and construction ideas, and then apply
these to different projects. I also sell plans. However, there are certain
times when you need to build something that has dimensions or a layout that
plans just don't exist for. Unfortunately, I think getting too dependent on
plans tends to stifle ones creativity.

I have decided to try to help people by putting more details on the design
of our projects on my website. I started this a few years back with a
detailed description of the rocking chair we designed
(http://the-wildings.com/shop/furniture/rocker/), but haven't provided much
detail since. I am going to try to put more effort into this as I develop
new projects going forward.

On this current project, I discuss some of the contraints and the thought
process we went through during the design phase. I also show some of the
jigs we developed to do the automated carvings. I haven't spent too much
time discussing routine stuff, like edging plywood, etc. If people find this
more basic stuff useful, I can focus more on that in the future as well.

So, if you are a relatively new woodworker that tends to work mostly from
plans, I challenge you to try your hand at design. It is not all that
difficult, and for me at least, it is kind of fun. The satisfaction you get
when the piece is complete is even more as well.And if you have tried it and
things didn't turn out quite as well as you like, then keep trying. Design
ability, like all things in woodworking, gets better with practice.

I'd be interested in other people's thoughts. Also feel free to contact me
if you have any questions about the project, or want any further details.

Joe in Denver
My Woodworking Website:
www.the-wildings.com/shop/




Design threads die like a dog on the Wreck.

It's a damned shame.

Your point about the dependence on plans is well taken. So is the one
about their usefulness when one is starting out.

In any artistic area, when one begins to practice in it, it is useful
to copy, as much can be learned from those that have gone before.

Once a person builds a few items and gets the basics of general
technique down; it may be time for them to go to graduate school.

I've learned most of the small amount that I know from working from
the plans of good designers, working with antique furniture, seeing
furniture in galleries and museums, and trying to incorporate what
I've experienced into what I build.

To me, the design process has become more interesting than the actual
building of the piece. After you've built enough stuff, the
execution, while not diminished in importance, is simply expected.

The fundamental underpinnings of good design can be absorbed in a
number of ways.

For proportion and a sense of scale, I always refer people to
Palladio, and The Four Books On Architecture. In particular, the
study of the classical proportions of the five columns is worthwhile.

A column can be analogized to a room, with the area of the plinth
standing for the base detail; the shaft of the column being the wall,
or the vertical portion of the cabinet between the horizontal
elements; and the cornice being analogous to the crown. I've stolen
classical entablatures for the cornice work of built in cabinets and
it has worked out very well.

But, the sense of proportion within the piece is directly related to
the scale of the piece within the environment that it will reside in.

For my money, there is no substitute for drawing the whole room, or at
least the wall that the piece will sit against, to get a read on the
scale and proportion of the piece in its space.

Graduate school is when you start drawing your own plans.

Designing involves you in all four of the Aristotelian modes of
causality; the Material, the Formal, the Efficient, and the Final.

In few areas of our lives can we be involved to such a degree in
causing something to exist.

Creativity, in this sense, is one of life's great pleasures, and it
would be sad if someone were to satisfy themselves with a subset of
the four - when all are within their grasp.

In a less esoteric expression of the above:

"I thought this up, I made it - and it kicks ass."





Thomas J. Watson - WoodDorker

tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1 (webpage)

Tom Watson wrote in
news
snip
In a less esoteric expression of the above:

"I thought this up, I made it - and it kicks ass."


Amen, brother.

Except my drawing skills are rather rudimentary, and I work much better
in building prototypes, mockups, and final pieces that 'grew as they
went along'.

Not that I'm in their class, but what I read from and about such
luminaries as James Krenov and Gary Knox Bennett is that their 'plans'
are far closer to sketches than working, scaled drawings.

Lonnie Bird and Phillip Lowe, to name some current authors/craftspeople,
are far more likely to create full-scale engineering drawings, detailed,
and measured to great accuracy. Their apparent focus, seen from the FWW
articles, is reproducing a style of an earlier time.

And David Marks, at least viewed from his television show, cuts MDF
templates before ever working in natural wood.

I think part of the cause goes to basic training, and perhaps
motivation. Marks expects, as part of making a living, to make
multiples. Bird and Lowe make accurate replicas. Bennett and Krenov
(who, by the way, seem to have little love for one another), are, in the
most basic sense, sculptors who happen to work mostly with wood, capable
of multiples, but not really interested in making another "just like the
first".

My training was in ceramics and sculpture, (and calculus and chemistry
and economics), all areas in which one waves their arms, and says
"Something like that. You get the idea."

It is a real chore for me to do more than two of anything of the same
pattern. Even the Shaker wall clocks I made were of different woods.
The pair of nightstands I made in maple and cherry were a single
project, from the start.

I think I could only run a woodworking business if I had trusted
apprentices. It was the only way I could run any of the other
repetitive aspects of the businesses I had. "Do it like this. Holler
if you have a question."

The problem solving, the art, the nice people, the respect - those are
what makes for the rewards.

Patriarch

"Tom Watson" wrote in message

To me, the design process has become more interesting than the actual
building of the piece. After you've built enough stuff, the
execution, while not diminished in importance, is simply expected.

Agreed ... except for me it is the most frustrating part of woodworking.

I rarely work from plans, and thusly have been handicapped in having to go
it alone for much of my woodworking existence. If there is one area I know
that I consistently fail in, it is +design+. And if I do succeed, it is
entirely accidental ... despite spending many more hours in research and
drawing up of a plan, then in executing it.

I have been making a conscious effort these past couple of years to write
down what I feel are design shortcomings in my projects in hopes that the
"lessons learned" will sink in ... but I am beginning to believe that, like
art, design ability, while something that can be taught, is often better
left to the truly talented.

Hell, the way my "inspirations" always end up looking like a Velvet Elvis,
you'd think I was Jerry Springer watching, poor white, trailer trash. (Could
those pink plastic flamingos in my front yard have something to do with it?)


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 11/06/04

"Swingman" wrote in
:

snip

I rarely work from plans, and thusly have been handicapped in having
to go it alone for much of my woodworking existence. If there is one
area I know that I consistently fail in, it is +design+. And if I do
succeed, it is entirely accidental ... despite spending many more
hours in research and drawing up of a plan, then in executing it.

I have been making a conscious effort these past couple of years to
write down what I feel are design shortcomings in my projects in hopes
that the "lessons learned" will sink in ... but I am beginning to
believe that, like art, design ability, while something that can be
taught, is often better left to the truly talented.


Somebody I read lately said that the secret is in knowing what the rules
are, so you can selectively break them, at the right times.

It is being guided by principles and judgement, rather than slavish
adherence to structure.

Kind of like coloring cherry. (g,d & r)

Patriarch