Making things is a huge part of my DNA, and so is CAD. So it should come as no surprise to hear that I use CAD to design almost everything I make. ...even the projects that you might look at and say - "you don't need CAD to design that". That thought crossed my mind with the harvest basket that @CO and I made this week.
...but, then I remembered why I use CAD for almost everything I make... because it helps me answer questions without any investment in material consumption or time in the shop. Oh, yeah, and it gives me the chance to practice my CAD skills!
No matter how many years you've been designing in CAD, practice is still the best way to improve yourself. So I jumped into xDesign and focused on the two things this project needed from CAD. The first being the design (scale, proportion, aesthetic) and the second being material usage.
I created a simple shape (influenced by how a canoe looks if you sight it from bow to stern), and then experimented with the dimensions to alter the aesthetic until I like what I saw.
Then I used a simple layout sketch to draw the boards I'd have to glue up to create this part. That gave me a sense of how much material this project would need.
With just a bit of time in CAD, I answered all the questions I had about this project and was able to move forward with confidence. Check out the full video to see how this project came together, and to see the thing we built without CAD!!!
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