Prototypes?

[charlie b]

There are those who find and build from someone else?s set of plans There are those who make their own, down to the last detail, set of plans and build from them - exactly. There are some with The Gift (and the discipline, experience, knowledge and skills) who can visualize and construct the finished piece in their head while looking at candidate boards/timber. And there are those who just wing it, starting with the basics of an idea and evolving things as they go.

A pro will often develop a set a ?product lines? of a dining table and chairs sets, a bedroom suite, etc., in a style he likes and knows will sell. He/she will basically build the same pieces over and over again, varying the woods and maybe the finish, slowly refining his/her ?style?

- and method of constructing.

But amateur/hobbiest woodworkers seldom, if ever, make the same design twice. And I?m betting that few amateurs/hobbiest complete a project without saying ?I wish I had . . .?. Am also betting that few amateurs/ hobbiests make a mock up or a full prototype before making The Real Thing.

That?s a pity since seeing an idea at full scale and being able to tweek/tweak it, with little if any risk, can take a good initial idea up a notch.

Now there are prototypes and then there are prototypes. You can do a full scale basic mock up out of MDF and use a hot glue gun and pocket screws to hold things together. With reversible ?joinery? you can experiment with parts placement and widths, edge treatments, shadow lines and proportions. However, the shortcoming of an MDF prototype is the joinery. It?s often the joinery that present the ?challenges?. THAT requires wood. Fortunately, construction grade 2x4s, 2x6s etc. are, relative to hardwoods, fairly inexpensive.

Imagine doing a mock up in MDF, then a prototype in fir or pine and THEN make the actual piece. Think of it - make your errors before you get to the expensive stuff, figure out how to either avoid them next time or fix them, THEN make the real thing. And you may be able to use the prototype as shop furniture.

How would your last project turn out if you?d made a prototype FIRST?

Just something to think about.

charlie b

[Scrub]

I have a good supply of 3x4 poplar palletwood. so i use that to make my prototypes. amazing how the finished product bears only mild resemblance to the first prototype.

[Larry Jaques]

I'm (3-D thankfully) somewhere in between the last two. I think I ended up at Rev 5 or 6 by the end of the carving bench project. I tossed 2 pieces of poplar which didn't work out for the hinges due to not having mocked 'em up first. 6" of 2" x 2-1/4" isn't too bad of a loss.

The clincher: Sell the prototype for enough dough to cover some portion of the REAL wood you use for your REAL project.

[Patriarch]

charlie b wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Does it count when I made another clock in maple to figure out how to fix the screwup I made in the one in cherry? The assumption I made from reading the illustrated drawing in FWW turned out to be incorrect.

Patriarch

[Tom Watson]

Interesting post, charlie b.

I spent most of my professional cabinetmaking life designing and building pieces that were particular to the customer.

Elements would repeat, but the whole was always a "one off" or, "prototype".

I spent a lot of time drawing.

Drawing is, to me, a fundamental skill for a woodworker.

Let me say that I suck at sketching freehand and always drew at the board, until the advent of reasonably priced drawing programs.

I would then use a simple 3D program like 3D Home Architect to do basic space planning, taking the time to draw the room, with its major elements; ie: walls, doors, windows, fireplaces, existing furniture, etc.

I would then draw in a somewhat crude representation of the cabinets, to the degree allowed by the program. Although not refined, it would show the doors and drawers, and how the intended piece would relate to the space.

I would then print out different views, setting the 'camera angle' from various positions in the room, so that I could come to a general agreement with the customer about mass, proportion, position, and the gross elements of the piece.

Then I would go to the CAD program (mostly TurboCad) and make traditional views of plans, elevations, sections, and details.

At the end of this regimen, I usually had a firm grasp on the project

- but often the customer did not.

At this point I would take sample doors, drawers, molding, hardware, and finishes to the customer's house for some show and tell.

The whole game was to avoid having the customer say, at the end of the job - "I didn't know it was going to look like that." (Note: sometimes this can be said in a positive way - I am referring to those instances where they see a finished product that they are not happy with.)

Even though I'm out of the game, professionally; I still draw and draw and draw until I understand the project that I am working on for myself.

I'm fortunate in having access to AutoDesk Inventor these days, which allows me to quickly generate a 3D representation of any object but, it has only speeded up the process.

A CAD program like TurboCad, used at the level most wooddorkers are going to use it; by which I mean basically rectilinear shapes (boxes and rectangular elements) is not very difficult to learn.

The problem is that the tutorials and books are geared to a general understanding of the program - while we only require the ability to draw rectangles and the occasional curve.

I won't say that prototyping and modeling are wrong paths - they simply were not what I learned to do when fleshing out an idea.

There are people out there who will never truly understand a two dimensional representation of an object (a drawing) - I have most often called these people "customers".

Tom Watson - WoodDorker tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)

(website)

[Mark & Juanita]

If I can find something I like that already has a set of plans, I'll use that simply from the standpoint of saving the time to make the plans

Not to the last detail; I'll make my own plans, excluding the details of the joinery -- that provides a means of identifying overall design; it's easier to see the joinery in my mind than it is to try drawing something like that out.

I think that's both gift and benefit of experience. I know that as my skills have matured, I can do more without anything more than a sketch or idea of how I want it to go together -- but I'm certainly not there with large scale designs yet.

I certainly found that doing full-scale mock-ups is a huge benefit. What one thinks may fit in a space may not necessarily work as well when you have a full-size 3D object there. That's saved me significant grief at least once. It was a simple 1/4" hardboard prototype held together using scraps and woodscrews. First layout turned out to be too deep for the space -- that caused a major redesign. Second mockup fit the space much better -- my wife wouldn't let me get rid of it until the real piece was complete.

Given that it typically takes me a year's worth of weekends, holidays, and vacation times to complete a major project, the idea of spending one year building a full-scale prototype with full joinery, then spending the second year building the real thing seems, somehow, un-appealing.

Now, components, such as doors or drawers using a technique I haven't tried before -- those I will prototype -- that's sometimes what helps add up to that one year.

In my consideration, it isn't so much the price of the materials for the prototype as simply the time.

What I have found is that by using a 3D CAD system, one can get some pretty good ideas of how to build an object and how it will look, although, as mentioned above, not necessarily how well it will fit in its intended space.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[C & S]

I think drawing is the first level prototyping... if you can build virtual prototypes with CAD tools... that's just the next level.

I have done a couple of full sclale prototypes, but I would generally skip the pocket joinery. For me prototypeing is not intended to aid the construction process. It is a design tool to hone form and in some cases function.

Steve

[Battleax]

snip

it would have been twice as expensive

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Prototyping for a one-off can be very time consuming. The couple of times I've done it, I used the prototype for a template or I made it from a lesser material (pine instead of ebony) and gave it away. I made some boxes for Christmas gifts and wanted to see if it was going to work out as anticipated. I made two from scrap pine, then did the rest from cherry and elm. One was kind of second rate, but is used as a catch-all box on my workbench. The other was good enough to become a gift. The biggest advantage was in saving the good wood from errors in setup (like in second rate box)

I also want to make a clock. I have the idea in my head, made a sketch, then made a partial prototype. It was a good learning experience on scrap or cheap wood. I've made a couple of changes so far and had no expense. It gave me an opportunity to experiment, hone my skill, see the real proportions, made some changes.

I surely would not do everything twice, but there are good reasons to make at least a partial of tricky parts. . Another tool to be used as needed.

[Mark & Juanita]

That I do. I've done so with some tricky curved raised panel doors and also for the tombstone style panels I used on the side a piece. Also spent a lot of time making up some prototype dovetailed boxes to get the hang of the Liegh jig before committing to the real wood for the drawers I was making.

Very good way to put it.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Prometheus]

There's a couple of other options for prototyping as well. One of them is a really odd duck, but man is it cool. It's called Qoole 99 (which stands for Quake object-oriented level editor) and it is used for making 3d map environments for the game Quake 2. The slick thing about it was that you can design obects from simple polygons using a drag-and-drop interface, and then skin them with a picture file (called a texture in the program) Things like drawers can be nested right into the frame you designed, and then made to open and close with a bit of very simple code. It also allows you to set up "lights" in different places, and then it automatically render shadows. It was easy to learn and easy to use- and the end result not only gives you a

3d model you can "walk around" and interact with (opening and closing drawers and doors, etc), but one which can be skinned in an actual picture of the grain of the wood you intend to use. It's kinda nifty to be able to model the room, then "walk around" the piece, and look at it from any angle in the environment it is going to end up in, and even set up lights outside the windows to replicate sunlight at various times of day. Won't look exactly like the real thing, but it can be pretty close.

And of course if you were to mess up the project after all that planning, you can just run the game and blow it up with a rocket launcher as stress relief. :)

AutoCAD may have some or all of the same features, but this one is free (or shareware, at least) and it's very small.

be warned that this page does try to install spyware, so make sure you have an up to date virus scanner, or the information for removing "Avenue A" spyware.")

Just one of those thinking outside the box things for folks with more time than money- hope it helps someone!

[Swingman]

Besides reinforcing a client's understanding/appreciation of the planning that goes into a job, It's nice not to have to reinvent the wheel on each project. Thusly, each of my projects generally has a loose leaf binder with CAD drawings, cut lists, and associated notes and sketches that go along with them.

The latest kitchen project has a 2" binder literally overflowing with these items, including spec sheets on drawer slides, etc, along with a backup CD of 5MB/125 files of the CAD drawings and cutlists.

In this day and age it is too easy not to ...

[Patriarch]

"Swingman" wrote in news:Q8ednRkVPpZt7k [e-mail]:

And makes expensive change requests easier to document and price, I would imagine...

My favorite client, the one to whom I am married, asked me Saturday if I would consider _not_ installing the wainscot she had required me to add to the bathroom project Friday morning. As the glue was setting, and the primer was drying, I asked her to exercise her creativity a little sooner the next time. The wainscot stayed, and looks pretty good.

The hardest part seems to me to be getting agreeably to a plan, and then being intelligent about making changes to the plan. That binder would seem to be an excellent tool towards that goal.

Patriarch

[Morris Dovey]

| How would your last project turn out if you'd made a prototype | FIRST?

I usually do. Photo of prototype for kitchen bookshelves (2 identical units planned) have been posted to abpw.

Came out fairly well the first time :-)

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA