Maker's Time, A Reflection

I am thinking it's time for this blog to take a new direction. In the past the emphasis has been on particular works and woodworking tips...what and how. Needless to say, the sole proprietor woodworker's life is all-consuming. There are customers to meet, plans to draw, materials to buy, catalogs to savor, parts lists to compile, schedules to extend, tools to accumulate, new jigs to clutter space, blogs to write, maintenance to defer, shop to clean, wood to cut, rout and sand, components to assemble, completed works to finish and deliveries to make. Some family time and sleep are then well in order, but reflection would be a luxury. Nonetheless, given the subject of this blog is my career as a woodworker, it seems appropriate to do some reflecting on this life now that the shutters are largely drawn. That brings me to the primary ingredient of my work, the irascible and evanescent element of time.

Yes, my only plea to the clock was to slow down. Having done various rote jobs in my life, though fortunately never for very long, I knew well the meaning of watching the clock. Yet how opposite to watching the clock were the hours spent in the shop, avoiding any flirtatious, even fearful glances in the direction of the clock, whose hands seemed visibly to rotate. As the workday began to draw to a close, in the late afternoon, the hands experienced even further acceleration. The speed of time's movement at times slipped into a transcendence of time. I feel very lucky, indeed, to have, not always, but often, enjoyed this state of absorption, enhanced not only by the manual nature of the work, but also by the lack of an overseer. Also, the opportunity of losing a finger at any moment enhances attention nicely. Much of my working life passed this way.

I once spent a lovely summer living alone in a brown log cabin not far from the shore of Lake Superior. It was situated on a grassy knoll just above a small stream sprinkled with small boulders and falls, rapid flowing. A talkative stream it was, and at times I would swear to hear the conversations of passerby. It must have been spring-fed as it never wavered in its flow, hour to hour, week to week, rain or sun, all summer long.

Current psychology has a term, quite applicable to this stream, a term I rather like, “flow state.” This describes well the absorption I could feel in the shop. Some of the characteristics of this flow state tally with my own experience: complete concentration along with an absence of rumination, performing well-rehearsed tasks with effortlessness, the challenge of the work closing in on, though not exceeding, my skill level, pleasure and reward in seeing my goals accomplished...that pile of rough boards at the day's start transforming into a useful, perhaps even beautiful, object. And, not the least, the fleeting transcendence of time.

I have often thought of the following passage, one of my favorites, in reference to my woodworking life, a passage from Henry David Thoreau's Walden which describes perhaps the ultimate flow state, an artist who passes beyond Time:

There was an artist in the city of Kuoroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff, Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly into the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made out of imperfect material; and as he searched for it and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance as he could not overcome him. Before he found a stick in all respects suitable the city of Kuoroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole star, and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and no more time had passed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful.

 

M.V. HYAK Complete

Tom Schell's exceptional model of the Washington State ferry M.V. Hyak is complete, but this is not new news:

It has been convenient these last few years to be able to blame various personal and business failings on COVID, but, alas, I cannot use that excuse to justify the three years, two month's hiatus between my first M.V. Hyak blog post and this second one. The delay is curiously a result of the precision craftsmanship of the ferry's builder, Thomas R. Schell. When he handed over the completed model to me for photography I planned to show each deck. I did not realize, however, that in removing the sun deck I had inadvertently taken the restaurant deck with it, so perfectly were they joined, yet with no mechanical attachment. Thus, I missed it entirely in the photo shoot and proceeded straight to the passenger deck. Since this photo shoot immediately preceded my moving away from our mutual hometown of Tucson, only recently has it been possible to rectify the error. The lack of any other blog entries whatsoever is another matter altogether.

Considering that Tom Schell's entire model is designed and constructed “from scratch,” the tight fit of each of the decks is quite amazing. Due to the lightness of the thin bass wood used throughout, even the slightest distortion of a single deck would result in defective mating with gaps amidship or fore and aft. For instance, the passenger deck had a slight upward bow at its ends when finally complete. Tom placed small thin lead weights on either end until it settled upon the car deck below, and then he glued these to the underside of the passenger deck resulting in its perfect mating. Likely, removing these today would make no difference. To ensure that a light breeze would not send decks sailing, we added some hidden weight to the topmost deck, the sun deck. I bored out the bottom of the two stacks in order to insert lead split shot. Do review the previous post for Tom's own description of his work and other deck photos. So, without further ado here is the missing restaurant deck:

Three closer views of the restaurant deck, pleasantly, a light passenger load:

The passenger deck below:

Moving above to the sun deck, Tom built removable roofs over each of the two wheelhouses where we find the pilot and his tools of navigation:

Some notes:

● All windows in the vessel are actually glazed. Tom describes his method in his notes in the Nov. 30, 2020, Hyak post, i.e. sandwiching clear plastic between two pieces of 1/32” thick bass wood. Note that all walls had to be shaped to match the contours of the hull. Well, OK, you may say it's not rocket science, but I beg to differ, as that was, in fact, Tom's career path.

● Hollow punches were used to cut round objects from thin bass wood such as the stools found in the dining area.

● This model is constructed entirely in the traditional handmade manner with no CNC machinery or laser printers employed.

● The perimeter dado in the solid walnut base, made by yours truly, (see the restaurant deck photo above) receives the custom-made plastic dust cover which protects the model. Tom was most kind to include a brass plaque on the base attributing my contributions.

● I asked Tom recently how he counted 5 decks as I only counted 4. He pointed out that the car deck is actually composed of two levels with ramps leading up to a “mezzanine.” Here you can barely see the cars tucked underneath this second deck, again more authenticity:

I conclude with a note on global warming and ferries. The Washington State Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal in Seattle, for instance, is being rebuilt to accommodate higher tides. Here is view down the car deck of a B.C. Ferry on a recent trip after which we passengers had to exit via the car ramp due to the tide being too high to use the normal passenger ramps:

M.V. HYAK

 

(See also: M.V. Hyak Complete)

My part was small, but my pleasure is great. As with previous collaborations presented in this blog my role amounted to 1%, generously 2%, but like that same part of the population my wealth was great. At first, I did not believe my friend Tom, who is a superb model ship builder, when he said he was about to attempt a ferry vessel but this time from scratch: no plans, no kit, no directions, no pre-cuts, no dimensions, only photos and videos of the Washington State Ferry M.V. HYAK. Without question I spent many times the time over discussions about scaling the hull than in the actual rough shaping of it. Subsequently we had many a pleasant chat over coffee at our COVID café in my front patio, hashing over detail after detail. More is yet to come as additional decks are constructed. Nonetheless, let's get up-to-date on this monster miniature project and let Mr. Tom Schell speak for himself: 

 

BACKGROUND

The M.V. HYAK was a Super-class ferry that was operated by the Washington State Ferries; built in 1966 in San Diego and finally retired in 2019. “Hyak” is a Chinook Indian term meaning “speedy”. The normal routes were the Seattle-Bremerton or the Anacortes-San Juan Islands run. At times, other routes were substituted namely the Edmonds-Kingston. While her sister ferries were up-graded (usually interior) the HYAK never was so the interior was the original and in her later days it had started to show. Top speed was around 17 knots but I suspect the boat was worked at around 15 knots which is approx. 17 mph. The Edmonds to Kingston leg took 30 minutes.

Just a few tidbits from her history: on her maiden run in 1967 she almost rammed pier 52 in Seattle due to an engine failure, in 1986 she ran aground outside Anacortes due to a navigational error, and in 2013 she stove and sank a 27 foot sailboat between Orcas and Shaw islands. Being a native of the Seattle area and having vacationed there many times since, I was able to take a “poor man’s cruise” many times on both the Edmonds and Anacortes routes. For approx. $7.00 a passenger could purchase a round trip “sea excursion” from Edmonds over to Kingston and back. Ah, fresh air, the bounding seas, and great fun for me!

MODEL

I decided on HYAK more for memorabilia purposes than anything else. But my memories were not just of the exterior of the boat but also the interiors (there are five decks). To show these, I decided to build the model such that these different decks would be visible; hence each deck is removable in order to see the one below.

There were no “model kits” available so I researched what original plans still existed (only one deck was found on Google) and photos that were available on line. Plus, there is a “tour” video someone made of the HYAK interiors just before it was decommissioned. I then had to determine on how much display space I had available and this set the model length at 2 feet. Just by coincidence (it could be referred by some as blind luck) this, in turn, set the scale at about 1/150 which just happens to be the scale of “N” gauge railroad models and supporting scenery.

Plans were drawn (old fashioned pencil to paper) and work commenced. I don’t think I am too far off on the model, but it certainly is not exact, yet still “close enough for government work”. The material used was bass wood. To shape the hull I enlisted the aid of Kurt Meyers who is versed in woodworking and has tools, saws, skill, etc. and he rough cut the hull which saved a substantial amount of work for me. Side bulkheads were fashioned from two 1/32” thick bass wood sheets using clear acrylic for the windows (sandwiched between two sheets).

“N” gauge railroad scenery was the source for the coke machines, sinks, human figures, toilets, etc. The paint used was acrylic, and here I ran into a problem. Acrylic is water based, and water warps wood. Once again Kurt came to the rescue; all boards are first coated with shellac which prevents warpage when the final acrylic paint is applied. To purposely bend the wood where needed it is first soaked in water and then bent with the aid of a “soldering iron” device. Note: there is a special tool model makers use to do this using a round heated cylinder shape instead of a normal sharp point iron. The automobiles were in part “N” gauge scenery that were available (expensive) and smaller cars (cheap) that were originally manufactured in China as cake decorations. 

The logs on the logging truck were made just by staining normal doweling. The stain soaks in a little and it looks like bark. Glue was cyanoacrylate (fast drying and structural) or plain old Elmer’s Glue-All (used where you want to move the parts around a little bit to get the right position before the glue sets up). Both dry relatively clear.

Notes: 1) The empty areas of the passenger deck (second level) really had movable chairs positioned there. They put these in so that they could be used or moved aside for dances (sometimes square dancing) during the passage. During my trips on the HYAK I never saw any dancing and, as such, the chairs were always just scattered about or pushed aside. I have not shown these as it neither adds nor subtracts from the impression. 2) I have shown the exhaust stacks thru the inner decks as cylindrical. On the actual boat they are not visible to the passenger and, therefore, they have to be contained inside the office space which is a locked room. They well may be some other shape.

                   

Self-Isolation Accessory -- Kindle Holder

The mornings pass passably well, but the afternoons can get long.  Time then to pick up a good book without cricking the neck or tiring the arms.  The hand not changing pages can either rest on the base or wrap around the bottom of the upright.  The Kindle is held by light compression, the side supports adjustable tighter or looser.  The angle can be changed and the whole assembly flipped over to position the upright on the left side instead.  A set of holes in the upright allow the Kindle to be raised or lowered.  It can also be moved up or down on its platform to obtain the perfect reading height.  The side supports can also be expanded to fit a tablet.  Without access to the "shop," this was a fairly easy garage project, for a happy wife is the secret to true business success.

Mirror Box/Desktop Vanity

How many the ways to lid a box? Let me count: oh, really, only a handful. Certainly love has more variety. Little boxes do come in an absolute myriad of forms, of woods, of shapes, but when it comes to the lid all are just themes and variations on the basic handful of methods. So my twist to the sliding lid, a popular method for pencil boxes, fine liquors, game pieces, jigsaw puzzles, was to replace the wood with plate glass mirror. This must be pretty novel as the first ten pages of Google images for sliding lid box have nary a single sliding mirror lid. The edges of the plate glass are seamed (relieved) to prevent cuts, and the glass locks in place by virtue of a slight squeeze in the dado groove thus requiring no catch. The mirror lid can stand independently or be positioned upside down in its receiver. 

I call this the “desktop vanity” or perhaps the “oh-very-small secretary” or perhaps the “reflective treasure chest” revealing the only true treasure.

The unstained box with its deep, almost cherry-like tone is made from Brazilian Pine, Araucaria brasiliana, related to the Monkey Puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana, the national tree of Chili (above in Butchart Gardens). It is so named because the configuration of its limbs would make it impossible for a monkey to climb (maybe). A whole set of such boxes were made from the cutoffs remaining after fabricating this thick and heavy exterior door, thus adhering to my career-long precept of utilizing scraps from large projects to make unas pocas cosas. (Sorry, couldn't help that reference to my favorite Tucson restaurant Café Poca Cosa)

P.S. Please note that this is a quite vintage Flying Circus Studios piece, the wood amazingly failing to fail to the mistaken joinery.

Bike Cable Lid Support - Woodworking Tip #23

For a cyclist a broken brake cable just means longer stopping distance. For a pilot a broken elevator cable means landing, look mom, “no hands,” using flaps, power and trim for pitch control. For my lady a broken jewelry box lid support cable meant holding the lid with the left hand as the right hand sought the day's adornments. Really, not bad: after 29,251 cycles this bike cable lid support broke, though not the cable itself. The cable pulled out of its crimped ring connector on the lid. It was easily replaced with a fresh piece of bicycle brake cable and a new ring wire connector.

Using Soss hinges, as I did, on this walnut and cherry jewelry box with a full-width earring tray and music movement, the hinge itself provided no lid support. Furthermore, the full tray under the lid allowed no space for a scissors lid stay.  A light cord or chain tends to either get kinked or ends up draping outside of the box.  The solution was found in of all places my cycling ditty box. Taking a brake cable I cut the nipple end down to about 6 inches, threaded it through a diagonal hole in the support dowel for the earring tray and crimped the end to an uninsulated ring wire connector. The ring connector was then screwed to the underside of the lid. The clearance of only 1/16” between the tray and side of the jewelry box still allowed the cable to slide by, though during this recent repair I relieved the side of the tray slightly to permit even easier movement.  If you use a rail instead of dowels to support the tray the diagonal cable hole would go through it.

The barrel nipple at the end of the cable hits the bottom of the box when the lid is closed and neatly slides forward along the bottom of the box. The real beauty of this system is that the bike cable is rigid enough to have no tendency to fold or kink. Surprisingly, little pressure must be exerted on the felt as it appears completely unmarred even after 29,251 cycles.  There you have it:  a synthesis of two of my loves, cycling and woodworking, for my love.

To view all previous Woodworking Tips just type "woodworking tip" into the search box at the top of the blog's first page.  Unique woodenwares made from saved wood are available at our eco-friendly Etsy shop:  FlyingCircusStudios

New Needlepoint Collaborator

My wife's lifetime role of educator has taken a new turn with her granddaughter Amelia as student in needlepoint.  Much love and patience were injected into this lovely still life, though ofttimes the progress of the piece suffered its own still life.  Nonetheless, our six-year-old Amelia, turning seven just at completion, persevered and accomplished a fine first needlepoint, a gift to her parents.   Readers of this blog might realize I fabricated the accompanying frame out of cherry wood as I have done with my wife Sara's needlepoints, ten framed pieces so far.  Amelia also helped out some with the framing, bringing out the rich cherry wood color with applications of Watco oil.

A hearty congratulations to the artist and also to her dad Josh whose birthday is today!

Southwest Christmas Tree 2018

Our Southwest Christmas Tree aka Yucca flower stalk has re-emerged this year albeit with only a couple new additions as we steadily replace the ornaments made in China with ornaments handmade by our friends and family members.  This year a fine hummingbird carved by Tom McDevitt of McWidget Studios joins the throng adding song, crackle and movement amidst the yucca flowers.  Also, a family heirloom, yes, handmade, though by whom, unknown, hangs now.  It's a cut glass crystal that once graced the family dining room chandelier.  Other handmade ornaments can be seen in the background:

The Baltic birch scroll saw cut angel mentioned in last year's Southwest Christmas Tree blogpost was fabricated in a limited number for Etsy with two finishes even.

Happiest Holidays to all and best wishes for a great year ahead.

Twin Hungarian Shelves

The wedges must scare people. I find it unbelievable that the best shelf system out there, to my mind, is still not, as of this date, available even at IKEA. The wedges satisfy me: nothing like tapping in the wedge, the last step of mounting the shelf, and seeing the shelf align rigidly 90º to the vertical standard. Hungarian shelves are dynamic and interesting with elements of simple machines: wedges, fulcrums, levers. It's almost as if Hungarian shelves are busy working right in front of you supporting their loads.

These twin Hungarian shelf units were designed to fill the voids on either side of a large fireplace and chimney as well as provide both library space for books and display space for artifacts, sculpture and artwork. Though the eye wants desperately to make these shelves appear symmetrical they are not, every shelf width and vertical spacing actually different. The lowest shelf is 12” wide, stepping down 1/2” per shelf until the top one is 10 1/2”. The height between shelves also decreases 1” per shelf.  Compare to the pillars, not really parallel, at the Parthenon. All the shelves are solid red oak, one of the 12” shelves actually a single piece of wood, quite a rare find at a lumberyard these days.

The joint that joins the shelf to the upright standard is technically called a cross lap joint. Because the notches or slots in each standard must be exactly in line I cut all the notches simultaneously by clamping them together, then clamping a guide at right angles to the set and running a router with a straight bit through all the standards. Typically I do the same thing to the shelves by standing them all together on their long front edge and routing notches on the back side. Alternatively, I've clamped the shelves together, placed them back side down on a table saw sled and pushed them through a dado blade. In this case, however, their large size and varying widths made this difficult. Thus I opted to cut the shelf notches with a tenon saw and chisel, thus proving two things: that Hungarian shelves can be made with just hand tools and that retired guys have more time on their hands.

I should add that SketchUp helped give birth to these twins, my first foray into using this 3-D CAD program for furniture design (dimensions removed for clarity):

I want to thank my fellow Columbia alumnus David Heim, a SketchUp for woodworking expert, for his generous advice and even a little personal YouTube tutorial critique of my design. I used his extremely well-written and helpful book SketchUp Success for Woodworkers every step of the way.

I also want to thank Tony Fuhrman of Summit Woodworking in Tucson for use of his shop facilities, as well as thank my favorite mechanical engineer Kyle Colavito for first introducing me to Hungarian shelves many years ago.  Find pics of my other Hungarian shelves by searching this blog or on the very first page of Google images.

Thank you so much to these and all my other patrons...
and, of course, Happy Thanksgiving!!

Find useful wooden objects including wedges for Hungarian shelves at:  FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com 

Meyers Collaboration X

Clearly there's some tomfoolery going on here. Or is it teddy-foolery for this turkey with inflated vest, spectacle and oversized pocket watch is a bit reminiscent of President Teddy Roosevelt, well noted, you know, for his bullying, braggadocio and bluster. But note the red tie: did Teddy wear those? Of course, this turkey is really a pilgrim, and all these references are likely connected. Anyway, quite a neat bird, a lovely product of Sara's craftsmanship, a perfect complement to our Thanksgiving celebrations.

As before the word collaboration is used loosely as the handmade frame of oak takes so little time to construct compared to the exquisite needlepoint stitching. I did, however, help out in one other way: spending near an hour going through dozens of bins at Ace Hardware until I found the exactly sized set of washers which compose all the circular forms here, each then painstakingly wrapped with thread.  The gold chain was found in a flea market in Sierra Vista.

Find our online shop at:  FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Pipe Clamp Supports -- Tool Tip #20

One of the old saws of woodworking is that you can never have enough clamps. I will attest that this is certainly true despite owning a fair number of them, relying mostly on the inexpensive but powerful pipe clamps by Pony, Bessey, Harbor Freight, etc. If you've done more than two glue-ups with these you've already run across the issue of the tail end of the pipe falling and the jaws bucking up off the workbench. This is not a frustration, of course, when the clamp length is appropriate to the width of the glue-up, but during multiple glue-ups one migrates inevitably toward clamps too long for the job.

To control this little bucking bronco I always put a long strip of wood about 7/8” thick underneath all the ends of the hanging tails. This does the job nicely of keeping all the pipe clamps level and in a single plane so the boards can be laid in with no difficulty. I've thought of using pipe insulation placed on the tail for the same purpose, but such insulation is not thick enough. Too recently it occurred to me that your typical pool noodle would provide exactly the right thickness to keep the tail from falling. So now instead of a bunch of bucking broncos, we corral a well broke line of Ponies. Hope this helps.

(The astute observer will observe that the photos show a situation where the noodle was actually not needed, but I was nonetheless eager to share the use of my other noodle.)

Find the online shop at:  FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com

Lotion as Hand Cleaner -- Tool Tip #19

One of the neatest things about my 1970 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 were the convenient repair kits that Toyota provided. Packaged in their individual red boxes were everything you needed to rebuild, say, a universal joint or a brake assembly or the master clutch cylinder. I think the idea was that if you filled a modest satchel with a bunch of these kits you really could head out in the boonies and fix most anything on the run. I, however, worked on our FJ40 in the driveway, used quite a few of those little red boxes and got my hands mighty dirty. Back then I used Goop or Gunk or Gorp, whatever, to dissolve the grease and grime, pretty nasty products actually, maybe a step away from washing your hands in gasoline. Took quite a while before I incidentally discovered that most any ordinary hand or body lotion also works well as a hand cleaner. Frankly, for myself, those expensive balms and creams that are supposed to do magic for working hands are mostly hype.

Ever since this discovery, several times a day, I slather lotion on generously as a hand cleaner, and using no water (reduce cracking!) just dry my hands on paper toweling or a terrycloth towel...works quite well. The dirt and grime transfers to the toweling.  Plus your hands don't end up marinated in petrochemicals or dried out by soap and water. Those little lotion tubes and bottles turn out to be perfect to drop in a tool bag during installations.  Alas, I've come up with a fairly lame excuse to post a couple pics of my favorite vehicle, but on the otherhand certain individuals in your life may appreciate hands that feel more like 220 grit than 40 grit.  To see all 18 previous tool tips type "tool tip" into the search this blog window.  You might find something you can use in your own shop.

Useful wooden objects including hand carved teaspoons at:  FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com 

Meyers Collaboration IX

As with all our previous collaborations, in which my wife Sara does the needlepoint, and I make a custom frame, 98% of the labor is hers and about 2% mine.  We are particularly fond if this particular piece for its lovely colors and simple symbolic elements.  Take the heart to symbolize our love for one another rather than a heart perched over a handlebar moustache symbolizing my love for cycling.

I finally abandoned using biscuits to secure the miters in small frames as they inevitably interfere with the rabbet cut for the glass and mat.  Discreet brads secure the corners instead in the black walnut frame.

This beautiful work is photographed with the glass intact, the reduction in reflectivity due to the use of non-glare glass, something we should have used all along.

Useful wooden objects including hand carved teaspoons at:  FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com 

SketchUp Success for Woodworkers -- Woodworking Tip #22

The 22nd woodworking tip is:  buy this book and use it to learn SketchUp!!

And yes, here I thought I was the only woodworker graduate from Columbia. Turns out I was wrong, for David Heim, one of my fellow alumni, is not only a fine fine woodworker, specifically wood turning, but also one of the country's leading experts on the use of the 3D modeling program SketchUp as applicable to furniture making, cabinetry and all the other lovely objects made from wood. SketchUp is a complete drawing program, useful not just to woodworkers, but to interior designers, architects, landscapers, city planners, etc. What David Heim has done in his excellent book SketchUp Success for Woodworkers recently published by Spring House Press is extracted and tuned the aspects of the program which enable woodworkers to produce attractive, realistic 3D models of their ideas, designs and projects.  (At this point I have finally stopped my word processing program's constant urge to turn SketchUp into ketchup.)

If you stop reading here, my advice to you woodworkers is get David's book and learn SketchUp! While you're at it also visit his online shop at Etsy:  www.etsy.com/shop/DavidHeim  to see some of his beautiful turnings.  You can also buy his book through his Etsy shop.

So how does design happen? Starting to learn SketchUp got me reflecting about the evolution of the design tools I've utilized throughout my woodworking career. Now please don't ask why I still have this, but it all begins here:

Back in the day, while the girls were sewing and muffining in Home EC class, the boys were combating Sputnik by taking Mechanical Drawing. I don't think this was an elective either; it was a manly skill.  The main object of the course was converting some fanciful 3D object, often resembling the parapet of a Medieval castle, into front, top and side views. A lot of your grade depended on placing a dotted line where superman's Xray vision would have detected a change in form on the opposite side.

Years later when I took up professional woodworking, home computers, let alone drawing software, had not yet been invented, and thus dredging up this old junior high school skill proved most useful. At this point we call it "drafting."  I found myself even building drafting tables for myself and customers as well as gathering a nice collection of those green plastic Staedtler templates.  These templates helped me learn such important things as curves are French.  Still the plans did not appear all that different from those in 8^th grade:

Continuing on: thanks to the urging of our son Josh we were one of the first families on the block to own a computer, a handmade XT. Fast forward years later Josh has opened his bicycle trailer and accessory business BikeShopHub and required a CAD-CAM program to operate a ShopBot CNC tool in the manufacture of his novel bicycle travel case the Cello. The Cello amazingly converted a BOB one-wheeled bicycle trailer into a travel luggage box for not only itself but also the bike that pulled it! The chosen program was bobCAD-CAM (ironic, but no relationship to the trailer company), and thus thanks to my son I myself moved to the next stage in design: computer aided drafting using BobCAD-CAM. Without question the greatest benefit of CAD was what I call “dimensional integrity,” no more struggling with finest line on a triangle scale to extract a particular dimension or carefully adding up a series of dimensions to verify sums. Any part of a plan could be measured, and the numbers were precise, perfect, always added up!

So now I have reached the latest stage in the evolution of my design career: starting to learn SketchUp using David Heim's excellent book SketchUp Success for Woodworkers. My first recommendation and his too is to pass over the online program and download SketchUp Make 2017 (still available free as of this posting). Then with program running follow David's clear step-by-step instructions: from choosing a template to setting up your first file to learning the basic tools to creating your first board. He is easy to follow. The centerpiece of the book, his four rules for success, makes enormous sense to anyone who has ever encountered a table saw and attests to his major investment in both mastering and adapting SketchUp for fine woodworkers. What I particularly like about David's approach is that he walks you so very carefully through the SketchUp learning curve. I would not expect to become adept overnight, but you could not have a better guide.

Perhaps only second to the joy of creating, for a custom fine woodworker, is the joy of working directly with your clients, getting to know them and their vision of the environment they desire to inhabit. Yet with few exceptions the difficulty has always been offering a clear picture of what exactly they were commissioning. Shop drawing and blueprints are generally insufficient in this regard. Once I even had to build a piece completely over again because I could not see the “picture in the head.”

I only wish I had had a tool like SketchUp throughout my career. I could have then offered to clients a fully 3-dimensional model, built in the chosen woods and with the right stain color, something they could “walk” around. In the later chapters of his book David explains how you can import any wood grain or texture to your model or even render it realistically. Clients are always finding photographs of some piece or environment they like, and you will even learn how to initiate your design using one of these. Both client and creator benefit. You will be able to push, pull, stretch, shrink, reshape, add components, subtract components until the picture in your own head is achieved.

Afterword: SketchUp and computer assisted manufacturing (CAM)

Though in most cases I did not use the CAM side of bobCAD-CAM, occasionally it came in very handy especially when both precision and duplication were required such as cutting the triangular solid oak countertops that formed this 15-sided customer service center. The screen shot of the bobCAD-CAM file used to cut these on ShopBot is pictured above along with the finished product. SketchUp Success for Woodworkers does not cover using SketchUp files (.skp) to operate CNC machinery, but a quick look on the web indicates that conversion to CNC files is possible. I am no expert on drawing programs, but I do know a good guidebook when I see one. David Heim's book is the first place to go if you want this powerful tool in your tool bag...happy sketching!

I would be remiss not to mention that Flying Circus Studios is also on Etsy.