Fellow Members

As woodworkers one of the problems we face is when to adopt new technology.

Our ancestors made cabinets and furniture thousands of years ago.

We can, and indeed some woodworkers still do, build our projects using only the tools and methodologies of bygone years. But in the modern day and age there are often advantages for using newer technology. For example most of us would not think of making a cabinet today without using at least a table saw. But new technology is not always better.

So recently I decide to design and build a small Chinese cabinet. It was to 30in high, 27in wide at the base, 16in deep with a "Chinese look" which meant the sides were going to slope inwards at 2 degrees. I decided to design it using the fairly new technology: SketchUp.

But with my limited experience of using SketchUp this was not a good idea. Those 2 degrees added many more degrees of complication to the design process.

When I was well into this design process I stopped and consider what was it I needed from Sketch Up. It was very efficient in providing an overall 3D model of the outside of the cabinet and allowed me to think through some of the design features. But to go further and use it as I had been trying to do (ie: design all of the detailed joints) may be using it to excess.

The problem was the 2 degrees. All of the joints between the vertical frame and the horizontal frame were affected by this 2 degrees in some way or another and drawing them with SketchUp became difficult. [For the technically minded I think the root problem is that in SketchUp I was working to a resolution of 1/64 inch and when you draw edges of a piece of framing at 2 degrees they do not always land cleanly on a 1/64 inch grid. Hence lots of small errors]

The solution was easy. If I had succeeded with my detailed SketchUp plan I would have transcribed the details onto a Story Stick (or Story Pole) and used that as a reference for building the cabinet. So I just created a Story Stick and bypassed drawing the details in SketchUp.

A case where modern technology was good for one level of the design but old fashioned technology was better for another part.

So having written this letter I looked up Story Stick on Google and yes some company is out there selling a modern Story Stick made from extruded aluminum for $34.99. My old fashioned 1in by 36in piece of plywood cost less.

I wish you all the best for the holiday season and hope you are making plans for many new projects next year.