Question

How many here build from plans. Personally, I never have but judging by the number of woodworking plans for sale, there must be many who do.

Reply to
CW
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I sketch on yellow sticky notes most of the time... gross dimensions only.... probably doesn't count?

Reply to
John Grossbohlin

I do, almost always. But then, that's my personality. With my tendency to be a control freak, I need to know that everything is going to fit exactly as I designed it. *Then* when it doesn't fit, my creative side takes over and I usually manage to make that "flaw" appear as a design feature.

Reply to
Dave

I design everything I do, and the final design documents themselves are shop drawings suitable for fabrication.

And when I say everything, I do mean everything, now matter how small or menial. :)

As in this morning's shop work - corbels for an island that is going into a current kitchen remodel:

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Reply to
Swingman

I don't know if you'd call them "plans" but I roughly sketch what I want on a legal pad - no scale - and dimension it. I also roughly draw larger details of a few key areas to show what goes to what, how deep dados/rabbets are to be etc. From those, I often make up a cut list so I can do things that have width and/or length at the same time. Check them off as I do them, label them too.

The only time I ever did real, to scale, accurate plans was for my kitchen. Took nearly as long to do that as it did to build it out.

As far as other peoples plans, I hate them...I find them hard to read.

Reply to
dadiOH

The only plan I ever bought was for a railroad clock and I wound up making minor modifications to it. But I do usually draw up plans before any complicated project. I've been using TurboCad under XP, but I keep looking for a decent CAD package for Linux. I have 4 of them on the system now but haven't had the time to check them out.

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

"CW" wrote in news:qaidnZKUae8qW_nSnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

My first three pieces of real furniture, I made from purchased plans. After that, I started drawing my own. And the plans for this one existed only as an image in my mind.

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Reply to
Doug Miller

I've been using TurboCAD for years, and I'm quite comfortable with it. I really tried to convert to the Sketchup way of thinking (I did Karl, really I did) but I just haven't been able to wrap my mind around it. I recently upgraded from TurboCAD V8 Professional (which I got on eBay years ago at a decent price) to V16 Deluxe (it was TOO costly to go to a recent version of Professional), and I'm very happy with it.

I normally use TurboCAD's 3D features to construct a nice (sometimes very detailed) model of the thing I want to build, up to the point where I have just enough detail to define the cutting list, then I never finish the damn drawing to the point where it could be considered "a plan". I could probably sell some of my plans if I had the patience to do that. :-)

Reply to
Steve Turner

"CW" wrote in news:qaidnZKUae8qW_nSnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

I've never bought an actual plan. I've used plans in magazines and books. Magazine plans ALWAYS get modified because they're never right. :) I also use pictures of what I might want or just an idea in the ol cabbage. These get planned enough to start. Once I've started I go to the cad program and work out specific dimensions or lengths & joints. Works good for me.

Reply to
notImpressed

that, I started drawing

Reply to
Swingman

that, I started drawing

Very nice Doug. Is that cherry and quarter sawn elm?

Reply to
Leon

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