Design Follows Functionality...

[Two Much]

This was the pic I was looking for to show.
I really liked this design, but nixed it because it
mirrored my laptop table to much (in the same room,) and
even though the legs were very different
I wanted something that stood up on it own.

We did made the cymas for the legs, but when we tried
them out it was too much.The table looked nicer without them.

[Two Much]

Here Ya go Radhack. There is a light strip along the back. The hole for the light strip plug is
on the bottom right side ( that's where the outlet is on the wall)
The little flip top is just hinged, it does not pop up and down. The divider wall that holds
up the mini iPad, kindles, and battery pack, slides back and forth to adjust for more stuff,
if necessary.
The little brass buttons on the divider and the flip top door are buttons
from an outfit of mine. I really wanted a little drawer, like I have on the laptop
table for the extra charging cords...that I probably will never use anyway
but I thought the drawer was overdoing it -- in this simple little table.

[capncarl]

I have been requested to build a drawer with hidden pulls, or a drop down compartment in tables this size for a hidden pistol compartment!

The person suggesting that you set up an assembly line and pop out a number of these tables is totally unaware of the many man hours you have invested in this table! Making them for gifts at your own speed, for your enjoyment of building and for people you want to give a nice gift to is fine, but there is a limit on the man hours spent on gifts I pass out to the rest of the world!

[cwsmith]

I think your thought process through the development of this piece is similar to mine in many ways. Difference of course, is that you actually executed it, whereas I seem to be caught up in the thinking and sketching to the point that execution never happens!!!. (Perhaps it's just that I don't achieve the level that I want and I certainly don't gain the vision that you had with this piece.)

Perhaps it's the illustrator in me, but it seems I spend more time thinking, planning, sketching, drawing, and then changing this and that. The actual build, seems less important than the dreaming and illustration of it... a terrible flaw that I have. Perhaps that's why I am attracted to this particular piece of yours. It shows a lot of imagination, planning, and per your latest post, a bit of changing along the way to reach the final art.

Regarding your statement, "I wish I had taken some design courses in my younger days, as I struggle with trying to her my ideas on paper for a build." It appears you have that down pretty well. I've spent decades on the drawing board as a Technical Illustrator. While I did have some formal education to be a tool designer, the illustration thing came pretty naturally. I think you either have that ability or you don't... and YOU do.

Sketching it out or doing a formal drawing gives an advantage as you can see what looks good to you, and what needs to change to please 'your eye'. It also serves well to fit components together and contemplate those little things that you want to finesse.

I don't recall where I read it, but I somehow remember a sculptor once saying (paraphrasing): that the art piece was somewhere in the stone, it was just a matter of chipping away the stuff that didn't belong. Any art is like that I think, you simply keep sketching and working it out until your 'eye' see's what is there.

CWS

[Two Much]

"I don't recall where I read it, but I somehow remember a sculptor once saying (paraphrasing): that the art piece was somewhere in the stone, it was just a matter of chipping away the stuff that didn't belong. Any art is like that I think, you simply keep sketching and working it out until your 'eye' see's what is there."

CW, funny you mention that ...it was Michaelangelo, he didn't see a hunk of marble, he saw David inside, and
chipped away at the stone to release him.

It's funny cause I see something and I vision what I can make out of it. I bought a jeweled pin at good-will
for a dollar. I showed it to the head guy around here, he said, what are we making out of that???
I said, "it's going to be a perfume cabinet." And it turned out awesome and I have a perfume cabinet
with a jeweled knob.
We made lots of stuff from yard sale pulls and knobs and other stuff.

Just look around and use your imagination, the world is your canvas.

What I can't master is shop drawings for a piece. I can only do one dementional drawings...then the head guy
says, "I need shop drawings" .. yeah, right. I designed our whole kitchen with one dementional drawings...What a devil
of a time -- I had trying to communicate my vision with the head cabinetmaker.

Right now we're making a simple tray for the Dining room table. At first I had my heart set on a mirrored
bottom (we have a stash of mirror) but them we scrounged up some mahagony from a drive by haul (someone
was throwing away a big maghogony desk -- we've made a couple of things out of this mahogany already.

The sides of the tray are going
to be oak ( cause that's what's on hand) ... I plan on staining the mahagony bottom and painting
the oak frame and feet around the bottom in gold paint...

The inside of the frame, I'm going to paint red ( I think) ..the handles I'll decide on after the frame is painted.
I may stain the handles to match the mahogany or paint it red or gold...it sounds glitzy, but what the heck, I could use
a little glitz in my life.

[cwsmith]

Thanks for the "Michaelangelo", I had forgotten.

I've always liked to draw and I took three years of drafting in high school (Class of 62') and also did some sketch and watercolor work. But out of high school finding a job was ridiculous as you'd have to have work experience (Catch 22). Finally I went to night school under Gov. Rockefeller's Manpower Development Training Act (1966).

I remember it was Sunday and I was out on the porch doing a sketch of my dog, when Dad came out and tossed the Sunday paper at me, saying I ought to enroll so I could make money drawing. Well I went over and applied that next morning and the lady in the employment office told me it was only for the unemployed! (I had a job working in data processing.) So, I went back to the office, told my manager about the opportunity and he said, "No problem, you just got layed off. He gave me a wink and told me to come back that afternoon if it didn't work out. So, I returned to the employment office and got into the 6-months of night classes to be a tool designer. Half way through that, one of the instructors announced a part-time opportunity with a local company who needed a couple of people interested in "technical illustrating". No idea what that was, but four of us tried out and I was the only one that they kept... I still have that isometric drawing, which was a card-feed assembly for a keypunch machine. I finished night-school in December and went full-time as a technical illustrator immediately thereafter. I stayed with them for eight years and then went to work for the Ingersoll-Rand company in Painted Post, finally ending up in the Marketing Dept. I retired from there after 30 years.

Doing an isometric drawing or sketch isn't very hard, I think. Problem today is that a drawing board, parallel, triangles, templates, etc. can get pretty expensive and it takes up a bit of room. A much better option is to download SketchUp. It's fairly easy to use, provides for very nice perspective 3-Dimensional sketches which can add color, texture-like fills, zoom and rotate it, etc. It gives you great detail for visualization, and dimensioning and build. Best of all, is that it is FREE. (http://www.sketchup.com/)

Lots of woodworkers use SketchUp and there are a number of tutorials, including a CD "SketchUp Guide for Woodworkers" (Taunton Press, $16.95). The CD may be available at your local library too.

CWS

[Two Much]

That was interesting CW how you got into your life's work.
Do you still dabble is art? Paint? sculp?

I love to draw and design things. Both our Dads were wonderful
oil painters (Hobby) We have one son that's artistly talented ...He paints,
sculps and loves to whittle, again just for a hobby.

We both make stained glass windows, and use stained glass
in a lot of the Wood working pieces we make.

We got into stained glass in 1995. I wanted a big window in the DR
so took my guy to the stained glass store to help me pick
out a design...next thing I know he's buying a starter kit, glass cutter,
soldering gun, foil, flux etc...We went home, not knowing anything,
took book out of the library, he studied, while I did a big drawing...
we jumped in the pool head first! we made a window that's about
38" x 45" ...of course now we had to find a window to install
so that we could apply the stained glass window to it!
what are the odds that there was a window that fit our piece???
well, we did, there was an Anderson window out there that was the perfect
size!
The second window we did for the same room, we bought the window first.
So, our DR now has two windows, where there were never windows before.
Matter of fact the whole house has windows where there were never windows before.
We even have three that we made and hung outside. ( this is the result of two
obsessive compulsive people marrying each other )

As far as sketch up, I have it on my main computer, never really got into it,
I rather draw by hand. I read recently that 60 percent of designers rather
desiign by hand than use a computer.

[cwsmith]

With the talent in your family, you must have a very artistically interesting home.

My DIL made a couple of stained glass panels for their home when they lived in Oneonta. I thought they were pretty nice, but like so many other things it was just a passing fancy I guess. She's not returned to it since.

I did like the way they looked and from her saw a little bit of the process and found it quite interesting. I'm not sure what kind of supplies can be obtained locally, but maybe someday after I get my new shop established I'll have a chance to look into it. We're going to redo the fireplace area, building new mantle and surrounding cabinetry. (About 118th item on my list of things I want to do... maybe the two windows above it will be #119 )

When we moved in 1973 to Painted Post and I started my career with I-R, I sort of put the water-color and acrylics away. There I worked 50-60 hour weeks always under some kind of deadline. So, when I finally made it home, I'd spend time with my wife and son... just didn't seem right to dive into a personal hobby like painting, as I neglected them enough because of the job. Instead we'd do things with our son, spending my creativity with things that we could share, like model railroading, photography, making games, and doing things that the little guy could participate in.

I've been retired a bit over ten years now but so much time gets eaten up in working on the house, etc. Right now I'm trying to get the city to let me put a shop out next to the garage. Once I can get a place outside of the home living area, maybe things will open up quite a lot.

CWS

[Two Much]

I have been requested to build a drawer with hidden pulls, or a drop down compartment in tables this size for a hidden pistol compartment!

The person suggesting that you set up an assembly line and pop out a number of these tables is totally unaware of the many man hours you have invested in this table! Making them for gifts at your own speed, for your enjoyment of building and for people you want to give a nice gift to is fine, but there is a limit on the man hours spent on gifts I pass out to the rest of the world!

capncarl, have you come up with a design for your table? I just remembered that we have a chess table that
was a family heirloom. I totally ruined the top with water damage. We intended to toss the top and make a new top
but the head guy surprised me and restored the old top. Anyhow, this table has a secret compartment that I didn't
know it had -- until it was restored.

[Two Much]

CW..stained glass is a hobby best shared between two people as it is all time consuming.
You become a mad artist, working like crazy until all hours of the night to complete the project.
It's always a surprise when you pick up a piece after soldering and see it for the first time with
the light behind the glass. When you really get into it, that's all you want to do, forget about
anything else...

One time when the head guy came home, I greeted him at the door
with my hand bandaged from a burn...I told him I got it from the soldering gun, He said, "oh,
you couldn't get that from cooking!?! "

[capncarl]

Too Much, I do have some drawings for the tables and should have some more posted here soon. One sketch was posted several weeks earlier. Note that I do not do drawings before you do the builds, like you and cwsmith were discussing. I create some concept sketches and head to the shop and see what the wood tells me. After I make some sawdust I look at the results, change some angles and figure out the best way to make everything work.
I like doing it this way because for the last 7 years I operated acad every day on the job creating detail drawings, and finally had my fill of drawings, burned out on drawings. I like the challenge of the hands on route of create it in my head, make a few sketches, build it, work out the bugs, work out the way best way to build it with the tools I have and utilize the materials, then do the documentation. A number of times in my career I have been faced with the problems created by engineers and designers that produced drawings that look good but that could not be built.
capncarl

[Two Much]

Capncarl, you're the Michaelangelo of woodworking, you see your
piece of furniture in a pile wood and then create it.

I see something like a jeweled pin and know I want to make a perfume
cabinet to go with it. However, I first have to dream it up, then put it
on paper.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night, with another tray design
in my head for a tray for our kitchen table.
Whatever works, right?

[cwsmith]

A number of times in my career I have been faced with the problems created by engineers and designers that produced drawings that look good but that could not be built.
capncarl

Hey Carl, do I know you? Did you work in that big factory in Painted Post?

I know exactly what you mean as I too have vast experience in that area. But let me tell you this, as a technical illustrator (at least the way I was taught and practiced), every isometric exploded view illustration I did was from the individual component drawings from engineering. In the process, I'd spend some time down both in the development lab and out on the assembly floor. I remember one time in my early career (I was just 24), coming up to Painted Post to confirm the assembly was proper, as the drawing seemed to be in errro. I looked at the assembly process and pointed out to the mechanic that it didn't match the drawings. His reply was, "Look sonny, Engineering can draw them any way they want, but when it gets down hear on the floor, we've got to make things fit and work properly!"

After that I used to joke that Engineering drew it their way, the shop assembled it their, and Technical publications was where we all discovered the difference!

The challenge of course was that people needed to work closer together to ensure that things got properly communicated, properly fixed, and properly documented. I think that is still a struggle today.

Your building first is a great way to do it, if you can and I've approached only a handful of projects that way, usually small. I just find that I can't work that way with satisfaction. But, I like to draw and I guess that's just my nature. Fortunately for me, I had a career doing what I like to do best. Other things I did in my profession was not so much and things like photography which I liked, turned into work, and once it was "work" it never quite seemed to be that enjoyable again.... so I understand about your years on CAD and now like just doing it your way.

CWS

[ArtworksIII]

Mechanical drawing was an elective in my years of school. I still do use a T-square and flexible curves. A great example of what that mechanic stated shows up today in cabinetry makers like IKEA.. Sauder and such.

[Two Much]

I never took any mechenical drawing. I do my final drawings (after I'm sure what I want) on
graph paper. I drive the head guy crazy... I just came across this drawing (
the only one I have from our kitchen build of
eight or nine years ago.) After we did the galley part of the kitchen, we took the summer
off and in the fall went back to do the dining area.

The TV cab was originally installed lower. We moved it up several
inches to accommodate a new bookshelf. We also added the new spice cab and the new
oil cab. These three additions were done several years apart, as well as the wood. The
cabs were made from QS and rift sawn white oak. The three add on's several years ago,
we made mostly from red oak that we got recycled. We re-sawed the wood and chose
the pieces that best looked like rift sawn.
The big challenge was the French door, It opens onto this wall, so the new spice cab
and oil cab is about 7" deep... The TV cab is about 9" deep... The actual wall depth is 13"
and dies into a bay window.
The second challenge was to match the stain.
BTW,
the only piece of wall space in our entire kitchen -- is that little piece (12") of wall space
where the clock is and the other side of the door which is 10"
Believe it or not, I was seriously looking at that piece of wall next to the oil cab yesterday.
Unfortunately, I then wouldn't be able to leave the door open on that wall against the cabinets.


Right now we're struggling with a simple little tray...go figure, it seems sometimes the
simplist things to make, are the hardest things to make. Also, the older I get the less sure
I am about things.