Plans - rough, but useful

  When I go to make something in my shop it usually has been mulled over in my head for sometime in this case I turned various ideas and plans over in my head for a couple of months.  Since I hate designing things I often spend serious time in books and on the net looking for plans to copy, but as in the case of the coffee machine shelf I couldn't find anything out there to suit my needs.  I ended up having to design the piece of furniture.  


   One thing that I really think about right from the start is what sort of joints I will be using, some projects use mitres, some pocket holes and this others tenons.  I considered all the options before deciding on Pocket Hole Joints, I still like their speed strength and accuracy. Also, I always suspected that this would be painted in the end and putty and paint makes pocket holes look as good as any other method.
   
   A couple of posts ago you saw the final result made from elm and finished with orange shellac.  This morning I just completed the last coat of high gloss white paint that covered the shellac, and made the little shelf unit fit with the other kitchen cabinets.
  
   The plan for the shelf was worked out in general form in my head but I did make a drawing so that I could make a cutting list.

   You can see on the bottom of the page, I don't figure out fractions in my head.  Putting those calculations down on paper and working them through like a Gr.5 kid has reduced my errors in the shop significantly .


   Since there was only one non-90 degree angle I did not make a full size set of plans.  This is also a one-of project so full sized plans would have been more work than they were worth.  A couple of years ago I made a sofa table and for that I made full size plans, it is a project that is worth repeating one day.


  While the drawing is pretty rough it contained the information that I needed and enabled me to prepare all the rough stock for this project.  It only took part of a morning to build the shelf once the planning had been done.  It always takes longer to plan and to varnish, or paint a project than to build.