Popular Woodworking 2003-06 № 134, страница 62

Our technical illustrator unplugs his high-end software, gets back to the basics with an entry-level program ($50!) and walks away with some surprising results.

CAD

FOR WOODWORKERS

In the dead of winter, my daughter Carah and her husband, Dan, felt the need for some extended family time and set out to visit Carah's maternal grandmother, an antiques dealer in Belfast, Maine. While there, Carah developed an interest in painted and stenciled wood furniture, and Dan had an opportunity to catch up on some reading, including the February 2003 issue of Popular Woodworking. Both of them (as was I) were taken by the lines and proportions of Warren May's Kentucky Sideboard, which appeared in that issue. A little sketching on Dan's part convinced them that the piece could easily be transformed into a small dresser - the missing element in a bedroom remodeling project at home. Dan would build it and Carah would do the painting and stenciling. As a practicing architect and project illustrator for Popular Woodworking, I was selected to be the design development member of the team.

Rather than simply recycling the drawings I'd done for the project, I decided to start from scratch like anyone else, and work with the information in the article and some entry-level CAD (computer-aided design) software I'd been wanting to put through its paces. When I'm illustrating for Popular Woodworking, I use a combination of AutoCAD 2000 (from Autodesk), Macromedia Freehand, and Microsoft Excel - all told, about a $3,000 investment. The new

by John Hutchinson

Comments or questions? Contact John at jhutchi2@columbus.rr.com.

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Popular Woodworking June 2003