After 18-plus months of building campaign furniture for this upcoming book, I’ve experimented with several different techniques for insetting the ubiquitous brass hardware that adorns every piece.
I’ve used electric routers and templates, routers freehand, drills, firmer gouges, chisels and carving tools. Sometimes I combined several of these tools.
All of the methods work just fine, and so I don’t have any particular recommendation as to the tool set you use. I’m going to show all the different ways in the book.
What was surprising to me is that the 100-percent hand-tool methods (chisel, gouge, router plane and mallet) weren’t slow at all. Yesterday I inlaid 25 pieces of brass into a trunk that I’ll be finishing tomorrow, and I did the whole job in four hours.
That’s on par with the time it takes me to do it with a router and a template.
In other “Campaign Furniture” book news: I can’t draw for possum poo. Yet, I want all the drawings in this book to be hand-drawn by my hand. The solution: Photoshop, a light table and tracing paper. All week I’ve been experimenting with taking my SketchUp drawings, combining them with bits from photos and then tracing the results.
I am not where I want to be. But it looks better (to me) than a CAD drawing in a book that discusses pre-Industrial furniture and has a “manual” feel to its design.
— Christopher Schwarz
I took a lot longer than 4 hours to make all that brass hardware:-)
And it shows!
Well, it will show. I’ll post photos after I get the trunk finished and assembled.
Chris,
Try using a “Dry Cleaning Pad”. It will keep the smug marks down when doing pencil drawings.
Or try a kneaded eraser.
Got one.
Is there any particular reason why there is a small hole outside of the recess?
Apart from that I think the drawings look really good.
Brgds
Jonas
That’s a nail.
If only Lester Margon was still alive. Those are some great drawings.
Yup. Lester was one of the greats.
Great technique for the illustrations! They’re looking good. The only thing that I’d suggest is to trace the outline of your main shapes first and then fill in the internal details with a slightly lighter line that peters out before reaching the outside shape line. (I spent half the 1980s drawing backgrounds for cartoons).
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll try that on my next round of drawings.
The same approach is used by the illustrators of the various Hayward books. It may not hurt to flip through a few of those books and take tracing paper to an image or two that catches your eye and then compare yours to the original. As always, practice is your friend.
Chris,
The illustrations look great, smudges and all. Looks “antique-ish “….Great work.
Hand drawn I understand, but why is “by your hand” important? No offense, but why not hire someone with a talent for it so that you get professional quality illustrations? Are you hiring a professional photographer to take quality pictures of the pieces? Do you employ a professional editor to edit your work? Will you employ a professional printer to print your book? Is drawing different?
Or I could employ a professional woodworker and professional writer to do the whole thing for me.
I’ve hired craploads of artists. I know how to do it.
I want to do it myself.
Indeed. It looks great Chris! And challenge for you as well.
My apologies.
By the way, I think you are quite plainly a professional writer and woodworker. You yourself stated in the post that you don’t consider yourself good at drawing much less a professional.
Have a good weekend.
Sean,
My sarcastic comment aside, I’m not trying to be a jerk here. I just hope that you and other readers of this blog will sympathize with the desire to learn new skills when possible.
I’ve always done my own drawings, photography and layout for all my books (I even laid out “Workbenches,” then they ruined it with a lighter type face). Now I want to add a hand-drawn component to my skills.
You might see if you can find someone with a Wacom Cintiq for you to try out. I strongly recommend against buying one without right of return in case you don’t like it. The Cintiq seems to be a combination of flat screen display and drawing tablet. A new top of the line version will cost you about the same as a new Sawstop table saw. They are available on Amazon for full price or used on eBay for less.
Perhaps a local college would have one that you could try? I’d recommend trying one of the larger versions – maybe a 21UX?
There’s also the newish Yiynova, which is intensely less expensive. Good review here: http://blog.drawn.ca/post/38741581411/the-yiynova-msp19u-cintiq-alternative-swings-for-the
I have also noted the difficulty in getting sketches cleanly from paper into an electronic format http://jmawworks.blogspot.com/2013/09/kinda-sketchy.html. I’ll also second Ed’s recommendation for the c-size Wacom tablets, if you can find one to borrow they are the first viable paper replacement I’ve found for complex drawing markup. For your technique, you might also try tracing over an image layer in sketchbook on an iPad, though that won’t carry over any subtlety of line weight you have in the pencil and cintiq tablet. Personally I like this style with the smudges, it fits with your vulgar (common man) writing style, not too proper, and more personable than a perfect CAD line.
Your boldness in learning new skills is an inspiration. I can only encourage you to keep at it.
the examples you posted on the blog are a very promising start, and look quite appealing.
Like becoming a master in woodworking, arts is an ongoing process of learning and discovery and improvement, but you got to start somewhere.
Someone suggested to try different hardness/softness of pencils, that is good advice.
My thoughts on CAD; it is to art and illustration what CNC is to woodworking. It does make the job easier, and it does create it’s own stile. You have made it clear in the past were you stand in regards to woodworking. I encourage your passion for adding drawing to you skills, and admire it greatly.
Disclaimer: I am a hobbyist woodworker, that uses power-tools, routers and table saws, cant afford a CNC machine, and thoroughly enjoy learning to use hand-tools thanks to your advice given in your blogs and books. For my career I am working in the arts and use CAD and pencil and paper, which I like using whenever possible. Like in woodworking, both have their strength and weaknesses.
So take your pick and make the choice that is right for you.
Looks great, Chris! Looking forward to this book.
I understand the need to do your own drawings. Many of the things that I do are not necessarily about the finished product, but about gaining an understanding through actually doing the work. I can buy chain mortisers and giant hand-held buzz saws to work on my timbers, but I would never develop the skill or appreciation that I have gotten from my Millers-Falls boring machine and a sharp hand saw.
Exactly. Plus drawing helps my other hand skills.