The Design / Skill Sets / Aesthetics Interplay

[charlie b]

I wing it a lot, primarily because I want to create my own "challenges" and the wood often dictates what and how a piece will be made. Where I start and where I end up are often miles apart. Because of that, the design and the making involve plenty of decisions along the way.

Thinking about the process, I've made the following observation - at least about how I work. At some point I may even flow diagram it - NOT!

There are things that I can do and should. There are things I can do and do. There are things I can do but don?t. There are things I can do but shouldn?t. There are things I can?t yet do but should. There are things I can?t yet do and shouldn?t.

The trick is to know which is which as a piece evolves

Have you got any insights you'd care to share on how you work?

charlie b

[Tom Plamann]

That's pretty much what I do Charlie. I have a starting point but almost never end up with that as the final product. Whenever possible, I mock a full size sample, and look at it for awhile. I don't have any design schooling so if it looks good it's a keeper and if it doesn't, it gets reworked. I find it this to be a successful process and I stay away from that "designer" terminology stuff. Out of all the different aspects of making things, I probably enjoy this part the most.

Tom Plamann

[Unisaw A100]

The first foreman I worked under told me that most people (the average Jane/John Q. Public) wouldn't know a badly laid out veneer job but they would know that there was something they didn't like about it/it just wouldn't click with them.

Design is the same. Try as you might you'll sit there, work your ass off and something isn't right and you just can't seem to get it right. Then there are times when what you've done causes you to stand back and marvel at your talent.

Finding the way between the two/getting from one to the other, that's the hard part.

UA100

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 09:08:32 -0800, charlie b calmly ranted:

Yes, the wood and how I attack^H^H^H^H^H^Hallow it to evolve show the large difference 'twixt 1st sketch and final project. Sometimes* the wood on hand determines the actual shape and size of a piece. "If I cut this piece up, it would make the case, and these smaller pieces could be the shelves. Yeah, it could work." I say to myself, confidently.

(* more often than not for this frugal vooddorker.)

Har! I may draw up a pencil sketch, then change it several times before the piece is done. My carving bench (my first real "furniture") is on iteration 7, I believe. None but the original sketch is on paper.

My motto is "Muddle Through!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If God approved of nudity, we all would have been born naked. ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Your Wild & Woody Website Wonk

[Ba r r y]

Kind of like not centering a tile job in the room. Everything is straight and square, but you just can't put you finger on something.

Music and any other aesthetic pursuits are similar.

Beer and hallucinogenics...

Barry

[Bob Schmall]

Steal only from the best.

Bob

[Jay Pique]

Linearly. I just don't, or can't, multitask.

JP

[patriarch]

Unisaw A100 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

The design part comes easily for me. It's the craftmanship part that is trying my patience.

And starting this detail stuff at age 50, when some of the other skills are sliding southward isn't necessarily a help.

When I can build what I can envision, I will have arrived. It may not happen in this life, however. ;-)

Patriarch

[patriarch]

Jay Pique wrote in news: [e-mail]:

A guitar builder of some repute had this insight, when he spoke to our wood dorker's club this week. "Make one change at a time. Otherwise, you won't know what the effect of that change was, as they all muddle together."

I don't yet have that kind of patience. Yet. But I'm working on it. In a hurry.

Patriarch

[Charlie Self]

What is multitasking? I'm currently working on five magazine articles, and doing the normal office work, plus sales work, that goes with freelance writing. But each is done linearly, one step at a time, because if it isn't, one editor gets an article on saw blades for his homeowner's magazine and the woodworking magazine gets an article on composite kitchen countertops and sinks, while the business magazine gets an article on a planer/molder.

Charlie Self "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." H. L. Mencken

[Australopithecus scobis]

Basic scientific method. Works for more than guitar making...

[Larry Blanchard]

I used to multi-task. Then I hit 60 :-).