Carpentry for Geeks
Apr 2, 2008 Tips, Tricks & Tutorials
I like making things.
This may sound a bit childish. After all, who doesn’t like to make something out of nothing, but with my recent experiments in construction, I find that I really enjoy working with tools and wood in my hands.
(pause for school-boy giggling)
I’ve not done anything truly complex. Everything is constructed of rectangles, no fancy curves (other than my highly inaccurate wood cutting). So far, my faux-carpentry consists of: the wood frame for our raised garden, An entertainment center and a simple CPU stand from the scrap of said entertainment center. While none of these is high art or fashion, I think they’re all stable and sturdy. In the eyes of this uber-pragmatist: that’ll do, pig.
I’ve toyed around pretty extensively with digital 3D construction and while I’ve never been an expert, I’ve found I really do like the precision of it. Every piece fits precisely together with every other piece to the pixel. Every cube is perfectly flat and perfectly cut. Every measurement is as precise as I set it to. As I began to move from the conceptual to the real, I decided to use the skills I learned in 3D work to the real world, after all, it’s the same concept, right?
Not quite. Allow me to tell you the 10 ways that real-world building differs from 3D design. Based on experience, so they must be true.
1. Straight Lines Seldom Are
Circular saws do not make straight lines, you see, if the hands that control them are not accurate. This is something you don’t have to deal with in Bryce or 3D Studio Max or any of the 4 million other 3D design software packages. When I make a cube in Bryce, it’s a perfect virtual cube; three perfect 90 degree angles at each corner. With my 1337 circular saw skillz, straight lines are almost all perfectly curved, and while my math is accurate enough that the correct angle should exist, it almost never does. Also important: you have to line up the same part of the saw at the marks you painstakingly measured each time. Which brings us to…
2. The saw actually removes a line of material as it cuts.
In reality, it takes away about a 16th of an inch each pass. I think it’s important to say this again: the saw actually takes away material from the board you’re cutting thus making it shorter. This is not an aspect of using the saw I’d seriously considered until I started putting together all th boars I’d cut for the Entertainment center. Making cubes (or any shape for that matter) takes little more than a few clicks, 4 shelves? Dupe it 4X! In the real world… well… good thing wood is flexible.
3. I suck at Measuring.
Seriously. Example: I spent quite a bit of time marking and measuring, remembering some ancient adage about “measure twice cut once.” When assembly time came, however the 4 12-inch boards above varied by as much as a eighth of an inch not counting the 16th of an inch they would be off because of the saw blade (see number 2). In 3D-Land all I have to do to make sure a cube is 28 inches high is to take the scale I’ve decided on for pixels to inches and multiply by 28… Tada! My 3rd grade math tells me my object should be 28 pixels high! I win! The ugly reality? I lose at measuring.
4. Sanding, while easier than good texturing, is considerably more time consuming.
I spent a lot of time working with textures on my 3D work, and I found it basically oiled down to finding the right texture to start with and just toying with it till I got something like I wanted. This could take a while, granted, a couple hours, but once it was found: Bam! Repeat ad nauseum. Enter sanding. Sanding basically takes rough, ugly wood (plywood in this case) and makes it pretty and smooth. It does this in a slow and tedious progress wherein you must pass a quickly vibrating object over every square inch of each board a few times… and then repeating the process for each of 5 progressively finer sandpapers. This takes approximately 400 years and is arguably the most boring process in the history of man.
5. Screws are your enemy.
They are not interested in your success. They do not want to be a part of your little construction fun and games. 3D objects don’t need to be connected, they’ll hang in space in the precise location you want them, atom-close to the object next to them, for all time. Real objects must be forced together with sharp, spiteful, objects designed by a masochist who hated carpenters. First, they pretty much won’t go into anything tougher than tissue paper if you don’t pre-drill the hole. Even then, they tend to wander along their own path, usually taking the fastest way to breaking the surface of the board your screwing into, normally in the least attractive way possible. It will either attach the wood or destroy it, and it’s largely a matter of your will versus the screw’s.
6. All plans should be considered “fluid.”
Before I began the entertainment center I modeled it completely in 3D. I knew the exact measurements of every piece. This plan lasted until all the boards we cut, at which point I began to realize the 5 things above. I went back in one night after swearing at the pieces and redrew everything on a few pieces of paper, in pencil, with measurements scribbled in the margins. These measurements were the correct ones. $2,500 computer full of bleeding edge tech=wrong, $0.15 writing implement using 5000 year old technology=right. This is a tough lesson for a geek.
7. Wood comes in many thicknesses.
And neither of the 4 foot by 8 foot boards I purchased was ½”. This fact is amazingly important to take into account with using said wood to build things. In 3D land I can make it as thin as I like. In real life I have to buy the wood as available and re-plan the item to take these realities into account. Simply pretending that the boards are “close enough” won’t cut it.
8. Wood is a solid.
May seem obvious to all upright walking mammals, but not when you’re used to 3D Design. I can pass an object slightly through another object, just to make it look good. In the real world, I have to actually cut something to make it shorter and no amount of forcing will make the wood pieces pass through one another… not even a little. Interesting note, however: seriously heavy sanding is next best thing, if you don’t mind the board being a little wavy. I tried this today. Chalk one up for the fat-man!
9. Large physical objects are large… and heavy.
If I’m building a 3D statue of Zeus made of Steel, it weighs nothing. I can move it anyway with a minor flick of my hand. Spend 5 hours cutting wood and sanding it, however, and when it comes time to start holding these objects together to fasten them and you become keenly aware of their weight. Wood is heavy! Heavy + tired hands does not = precise, even if the boards were actually cut to the proper length.
10. Clean up
In the zany an unrestrained world of 3D design, one does not end up covered in wood chips and dust. A designer will never end up with his fingertips caked in dust while texturing. He will not nearly get hit in the eye with a wood-chip, while setting the length of the wood beam he’s creating. His mouse will not accidentally almost cut through it’s own cord when setting it down just after creating something. Not so much with the real world… if you thought sanding sucked before, sweeping it up sucks much more.
But despite all of this annoyance seemingly built into carpentry, I really, honestly do like it. It’s unspeakably cool to actually use something you made every day and to know that you made it and that you cut each piece with your own hands. I’d love to do more and the CPU case is officially the first sub-structure of the some-day desk I plan on building. I still have a lot to learn, especially about finishing the projects, staining and glazing and all that, but I’m still looking forward to it.
After all, I have a plan… and a fluid one at that.
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