Woodworking Update

One of the enterprises we're going to be working on this year is a woodworking endeavor. It's fallen to last on our priority list because the growing season is getting under way and that can't wait. Eventually, I'll have a plan for what I want to build and how to market it and then we can try integrating it with our other enterprises.

Until then, I'm working on some living room furniture for my mother and father-in-law. They are looking for a couple of end tables, a chair side cabinet and a coffee table and they gave me some pictures of furniture they'd seen and liked.

I decided that I'd start my designs from their pictures and then add some of my personal touches throughout the process. First step was to get a space in the house in which I could do the drawings. I found a Vemco V-Track wall-mounted drafting machine on craigslist for $100 that works on a 4' x 8' board: perfect for making full-sized drawings of furniture.

I started by taking dimensions off of the pictures my folks gave me, then drew the pieces to scale. By doing the drawings this way, I was able to figure out joinery and dimensions of "hidden" parts that can't be seen in pictures. I was also able to try out different ideas to get a sense of options for my final decisions. The drawings will help me determine curves and make full-size templates for parts, like the table tops.

From this, I made a bill of materials in Excel that calculated the amount of solid Michigan cherry I'd need. Yesterday, I visited my local sawyer, Ted Demott of Straightline Wood Products and picked a little over 80 board feet of cherry for the project. I'll have to snap a few shots of that for future posts.