Designing Fine Furniture..........Whats your take!

[NewLou]

Gidday:)

A great 'piece' or work of fine furniture often involves a lot of research planning and development. For others that seem to be given 'the gift' they have an uncanny ability to work from ideas in their heads on the go.

Truely satisfying work not only involves the form of a 'piece' but the Finish; technique used hardware and where it is placed once finding a home. There are a number of approaches to 'the Journey' some of which in the long term tend to make things easier....................others frought with danger!!!

.................those of us that are established may be able to develop a piece of fine furniture through the use of proto-types & CAD whilst some rely on pen paper & a head full of ideas!!!

There is no doubt that there a few things more satisfying than developing your own furniture Jig or fixture from start to finish. for me personally I follow the following process:

1. Begin with concept pictures drawings & designs
2. Develop my own concept design
3. Fine tune my concept design
4. Do a techniqual drawing of my final design which also doubles as a plan
5. Develop a cutting list
6. Consider finishing options
7. Build the 'piece' from final drawing

This may seem a little labor intensive but in the long run I've actually found saves me time!!!

Whats your take on designing and building things with Wood???

REgards Lou:)

[redwood]

late at night, a pencil, a pad, a nice smoke, some music, lots of coffee, another smoke, more coffee, go to sleep when the sun rises, wake up and look at all the crap iv drawn and their will usualy one or two gems in their somewhere, then work on refining them, when done its then into the shed to have some fun:cool:

[ozwinner]

Drink grog, lots of grog.
When you think you cant drink anymore, drink more grog.
Or...............
Smoke a joint ( I have never smoked one ) .

Then you will get the RUSH of insperation....

Al :D

[Harry72]

I dont do "fine" type furniture, but make normal everyday stuff that you'd buy at a crapiarta furniture shop.
I simply sit down with the customer and throw around a few ideas and then rough draw their ideal, then I draw it neatly to scale with joint/fixtures details and show it to them too get the go-ahead or make adjustments.
Then I make up a cut and costing list... start cuttin!

[Richardwoodhead]

Lou, can't think of anything in the way I design & prepare that is different to what you've listed. If at least 2 of us do it that way, maybe we're on to something!

Richard

[E. maculata]

#1- need/want, maybe been inspired by something?
#2-quickly follows #1 envisage (visualise)finished item, at this stage I've mentally selected the materials needed, including species, particular features.
#3-describe & quick sketch for significant other;)
#4-take sketch to shed, find pieces I'm after
#5-as Harry says I "just do it" until it's done.

been down the CAD, 3-D street, not my cuppa-t, too pedantic for my tastes get my kicks with the wood:eek: .

[AlexS]

Similar to Lou, but:
consider finishing options during fine tuning
often make a half scale model out of scrap/mdf
often don't do a full technical drawing, just dimensioned sketches of overall piece and details

I've found that the early stages of developing a design can be assisted by a bottle of red.

[Andy Mac]

I have a couple of ways:

First is more or less for something required or ordered:
1/ Come up with some bright idea, make dubious sketches.
2/ Refine drawing, pencil in dimensions.
3/ Go through my stash of timber/metal and change drawing to suit.
4/ Start cutting, then realize I'm seriously short of something.
5/ Rejig design to suit newly found material.
6/ Supply finished item to whoever/where ever, and don't mention the initial design...

More creative approach, something that isn't required but made on spec:
1/ Find some nice timber, an interesting branch, or found object.
2/ Lay it out, ponder and muse, rearrange. (wine or beer etc as available)
3/ Go through my stash of timber/metal to find other parts.
4/ Make sketches, multiple.
5/ Leave it layed out overnight, with various parts in position.
6/ Return, armed with a fruitful night's rest and further sketches, then rearrange.
7/ Knock it together!

I'm only half kidding here, as I'm more of an artist than tradesman these days:D , and rarely buy new timber, so I what I make depends on what is at hand.

Good question New Lou, I think there could be some interesting comments:eek:

Cheers

[RufflyRustic]

Pretty much what Redwood said, but I do my coffee-ing in the morning.

cheers
RufflyRustic