One of the advantages of working with wood is that if you make a mistake, many times it can be fixed by a slight adjustment. That usually doesn't work with software since it operates to exact commands. Of course, if you want to be literal about it, the slight fix in woodworking is analogous to a bug fix or service pack in software.
"Stephen M"
This is what is called a machined assembly. A good designer knows this and can specify it. Even if it is not be specified, a craftsman can end up there any way he chooses.
The prints do not tell one how to build something. They just say what it's supposed to look like when it's done.
The only thing I hear you saying is that you need to know how to build it before you can do a good job designing it. You are correct, but this should be obvious to most.
Time spent at the front end is time more efficiently spent. You have to make every decision, every measurement, and every part fit into the assembly at some point. Might as well close the design up front to help eliminate scrap and wasted time. This is such a good idea, it is how most of the things in this world get designed and built.
I admire a craftsman who can visualize and execute without much in the way of plans. I'm not that person nor do I strive to be. I also would guess that person has made a lot of firewood in their day to get where they are.
If I might give you some personal and jovial BS - I think you may have arrived at your way of doing things because of your "recompile all" button at work. My 3-6 week lead time for design turns really sucks compared to watching our code guys wait 15-60 minutes for a recompile.
- Nate
This isn't making sense to me. If I want to include an adjustment allowance in a CAD design, I do it. Often I don't, because my tooling produces exactly what I specify (±0.0015" or so); but sometimes I do (I prefer to make joint tails and pins about 1/64" proud to be sanded flush after assembly). I have control over how much space I allow for glue; and can even make joints so close-fitting that I need to do same-day assembly with a vise or clamp - because tomorrow they may not go together as easily as they do today.
Before CAD, I worked things out at my drafting/drawing table. Designs that I thought of as "keepers" were painstakingly re-drawn in india ink on vellum and filed (anybody else remember doing this?) Now I work with a mouse and burn a CD-ROM. If I want to share a plan, I can e-mail a DXF and the recipient can pull it up on their screen in seconds - no more trips across town for a copy and no more mailing tubes. The nature of drawing and planning haven't really changed, but the amount of time needed to make the drawing have changed significantly - and it's a lot less hassle to share and to customize existing designs.
CAD also facilitates discovery and exploration of new ways of working with wood. I happen to be especially fascinated with joinery, so I used my CAD package to design and build myself a
44" (expandable to 50") jig with which to experiment (there are pictures atCAD may not be the tool of choice for everyone; but that doesn't make it not a good tool. I've known people who wouldn't ever make even a pencil sketch before they started a project. Care to make a quick guess about the usual quality of their results?
Well said... (certainly more succinctly that I was able to express). This
*is* what I was driving at. It was my impression that the OP was a newbie and had not yet dicovered some of the subtlties of execution.One of the things the OP asked for was "tool descriptions" which I read to mean: "what does a jointer do?"
If I may lightly paraphrase you: "learn to build before you learn to design".
-Steve
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