Quilted Maple

I love the grain lines of a figured wood and, when finished properly, how they draw you in and almost mesmerize you.  Quilted maple is one of my favorite woods to see in a piece.  It forms a pattern and yet at the same time is completely random.  It is but one of the ways God shows his artistic hand in nature.   Its beauty can evoke a sense of awe and wonder.

The style of a piece can also induce an emotional response.  Sometimes, the response is favorable,  and sometimes not so favorable.  Everyone has their own interpretation of what good style is.  Some people admire the artistic curves of a contemporary piece, while others prefer the the straight lines of a mission or arts & crafts piece.

The workmanship of a piece can certainly add to or detract from the beauty of a piece.  Great workmanship is at the same time visible and invisible.  It is visible in the sense that you can tell that it took someone with great skill in order to create something as beautiful as this.  It is invisible in the sense that you can see very few, if any, flaws upon close inspection.

I often find myself paying careful attention to all three with style and wood grain being the first things that I look at.  Even if I do not care for the style or the wood selection, I will still check out the workmanship involved.  When it comes to looking at the workmanship, I try to discern whether it was made by a person or on an assembly line.  The way that the wood grain is running can be a sign of good workmanship.  I look for slight imperfections in dovetails or a piece of inlay that doesn’t quite fit perfectly.  I look for these things not to criticize, but to admire the hard work that went into it.

So, how does all of this help me design a beautiful woodworking project?  What I try to do is to learn something from the woodworking pieces that I see.  I ask myself questions like; “Does the grain of the wood add to or detract from the design?”  “Is the style of the piece pleasing and is it right for the setting that it is in?”  “How would I have gone about making this piece so that my workmanship would be both visible and invisible?”  All of these things will directly and indirectly affect how I design and build a project.

End Table

Rendered End Table

Wood grain will be in the back of my mind while designing something.  Once I have a CAD model of my piece, I will sometimes do some photo renderings to get an idea of how different grains or woods will look.   Renderings allow me to experiment with the look of a project in a very short amount of time and help me to select the best woods for it.

Style, of course, will directly affect a design that I am working on.  When deciding on the style of a piece there are several things to consider.  The style always has to be pleasing to not only my eye, but also the clients eye.  It also needs to look right in the setting that it will be in.  A contemporary styled chair would look out of place in a setting where all of the rest of the furniture is mission styled.

“How” I am going to build something will also affect my design to some extent.  I certainly would not want to design something that was impossible for me to build.  Knowing my own capabilities and “potential” capabilities helps prevent this.  By “potential” capabilities, I mean that I might sometimes have to make a new jig or template in order to accomplish something.

As you can see, there are several things to think about when you start designing a piece that you want to be eye catching.

Alibre Design

To fully answer why I chose Alibre Design I should probably give you some of my background with CAD/CAM systems.  I started out about 20 years ago designing plastic injection molds and programming CNC machines to cut these same molds.  The CAD systems that I have used over the years have always been considered very high end systems.

I currently used Unigraphics NX at my day job.  A single “bare bones” installation of NX will cost somewhere around $5,000.  On top of that, we add in assembly functionality, drafting functionality, and a mold design add-on.  This all adds up to about $20,000 for a single installation.  These systems that I have been using professionally are very high end, very powerful, and quite easy to use.

When I decided to look for a CAD system to use for Maple Grove Woodworks projects, I realized that I was quite spoiled when it came to the CAD features that I was looking for.  I really wanted to find a system that had similar features, the same ease of use, but not the cost of a high end system.  Well, I knew that I was going to have to sacrifice on some of these things, but I was bound and determined to find the system that gave me the closest thing to what I really wanted for the least amount of money.

One of most important features that I wanted was for the CAD software to be both a three dimensional(3D) and two dimensional(2D) system.  What I found was that many of the low cost CAD programs out there were only 2D.  I know that some people like to draw in 2D and use software like DeltaCad or CadStd and that is perfectly fine for them.  It is just not the way I like to do things.

My own design process usually starts out with a 2D sketch on a piece of paper. At that point I will try and draw it three dimensionally in order to get the joinery figured out.  Sometimes, I will prototype something at this point in order to clarify the scale or refine a shape.  Once I have everything drawn 3 dimensionally, I will then make a set of working drawings to take out to the shop, although, lately I have just been taking my laptop out to the shop and using the 3D model to take measurements.

The 2D systems just were not going to work for me.  I would rather get the old drafting table out with a T-square and triangles.  (Remember, I’m spoiled).

I then decided to then look into Google Sketchup.  It certainly meets my cost criteria for a new CAD system and there are a lot of woodworkers using it.  It is also a 3D system.  I proceeded to design a few projects with it, and Sketchup is … well … fine.  I know it works for a lot of others out there, but I found it very cumbersome.  (Again, I’m spoiled)  I was able to design pretty much anything I wanted to, but the “ease of use” criteria was just not there.

This is certainly a matter of preference because I know that there are a lot of woodworkers who do very well with Sketchup, such as, Bob Lang at Popular Woodworking.com, or Tim Killen and Dave Richards over at Fine Woodworking.com.  These guys have really mastered Sketchup and have taken it to new levels.

Coffee Table

One of the features that I was really looking for that the higher end systems have that none of the lower end ones have, including Sketchup, was parametric feature design capabilities.  What this means is that everything that I draw has a history of every operation that I used in creating a particular part.  In other words, if I create a 1/4″ fillet on a piece and then later on decide that the fillet should be 1/2″, all I have to do is edit the fillet feature and change the dimension.

It also means that if I design a Mission Style Coffee Table and then realize that I would like a matching End Table, I could simply change the length dimension of the table top and the corresponding length dimensions of the cross members would automatically change as well.  As an added bonus, all of my drawings would update with the new dimensions too.  (I am planning on making a video of this at some point to better explain this).

I decided to keep looking for the perfect software for me.  I finally came across Alibre Design.  Alibre has 3 versions of the CAD design

End Table

software.  The low end version is called Alibre Design Personal Edition (PE).  At the time of this posting the PE version retails for $99.  This falls in the range of my cost criteria.  It is also both a 2D and a 3D system.  All of the Alibre Design products are also parametric, so it also meets my criteria of having some high end features.  The coffee table and the end table shown are from the same design and by just adjusting the length dimension I now have 2 designs.

I decided to download a trial version and test it out.  I really liked how it worked.  Its approach to designing things very much mimicked the higher end systems that I was used to.  This meant that it met the “ease of use” criteria.  I have since purchased Alibre Design and have designed several projects in it now and I am completely hooked.

So, that was the long winded explanation of why I chose Alibre Design as my CAD system for Maple Grove Woodworks.  And, like I said earlier, I am planning on make a couple of videos of how Alibre Design works and I will post them here when they are complete.

Why use a template?  Templates are especially handy when you need to create multiple items repeatedly.  I will admit that I get a little template crazy.  I sometimes create a template just to create another template.  For instance, recently I decided to make some racks for my pipe clamps so I could hang them up neatly on the wall.  It wasn’t really necessary that all of the U shaped slots on the rack be identical, but I am a bit of a stickler for such things.

I first made a template for a single slot.  I then used this template to create another template with multiple slots.  I accomplished this by using double stick tape to attach the single slot to longer workpiece of the final template.  I then routed the slot by following the single slot template with a flush trim bit mounted in my router table.  Once this was done, I then moved the single slot template the desired distance and reattached it.  I then routed out the second slot on the final template.

I repeated this process until my final template had the right number of slots.  In this case, I only had to put a little effort into making one slot, which translated into several identical slots.  This was a real time saver on something that could have become very mundane.

I did something similar on my Marquetry Mirror project.  I wanted to make sure that the mirror frame was completely symmetrical.  I started by making a template for half of the mirror frame.  I then used this template to create the other half of the frame.  By book-matching the templates together, I had a perfectly symmetrical mirror frame template.

Other times, however, there are “gaps” in the image I want and I can’t quite seem to fill them in.  My brain gets locked into an “it must be this way” attitude where I refuse to come up with a better solution to fill in the gaps.  My creativity at this point gets blocked by my own gray matter.

At times like these, there are several solutions that I have tried in the past.  some of them seem straight forward and others seem kind of crazy, but at least one of them usually helps to get the creative design juices flowing again.

1 – Start over

No, seriously, get a clean piece of paper and start over.  I was once having a hard time designing the legs that I wanted for a coffee table.  I had the top figured out the way that I wanted it, but I couldn’t get the legs to look right with the top.  It was at this point that I grabbed several clean pieces of 8 1/2 by 11 sheets of paper and taped them together.  I did this so that I could create a sketch of a leg in full scale.  I then proceeded to draw some free hand curves of a leg.  I made a few modifications here and there and eventually wound up with a shapely leg that was pleasing to the eye.  Next, I redesigned the tabletop to match.

2 – Look for inspiration outside of your brain

Sometimes you need to look elsewhere for inspiration.  Start looking through woodworking magazines, or furniture catalogs, or look for images online that might stimulate your creativity.  I am not saying that you should copy what you find, but you might see something that sparks your interest and gets you going again.

I have a box full of pages that I have ripped out of old catalogs.  Whenever I am looking through a catalog and I find something unique, or just something I like, then I rip the page out and put it in the box.  Sometimes when I am stuck on a design, I will flip through these pages and find something that will work in my particular situation.

3 – Forget about the “how” and focus on the “what”

Sometimes I get too focused on how I am going to make something, and it stifles my imagination.  It is at this point that I need to forget about “how” to build it, and figure out “what” I want to build first.  Once I figure out the “what” then I can focus on the “how”.

Of course, at this point the “how” can take on some creativity of its own.  For instance, look at the rocking chairs that Sam Maloof built.  If he had tried to figure out the “how” before the”what” he may never have come up with such a creative design.

4 – Forget about tradition – add a fifth leg!

Get a little crazy.  Throw something completely crazy and off the wall at your design.  If your trying to design a chair, add a 5th leg to it, or something equally crazy.   Your design may or may not end up with a 5th, but adding it in may kickstart your creativity.

5 – Forget about it – go have some fun

Sometimes you just need to step away from the design.  Go outside and throw a ball around with your kids, or take your spouse on a date, or go jogging.  Leave the design behind and think about something different for a while.

I am sure there are other ways to get your creativity kick started, and I would love to hear about them.  Go to my contact page and let me know how you get past your Design Block.