CDH

I'm surprised that nobody has commented, yet. This is a good story, well written.The shop teacher angle on power machine safety is effective. I did wonder why the shop teacher who felt the way the narrator said would be in his office instead of directly supervising every use of the bandsaw that day.

It reminded me of a simulated compound fracture of a tibia that my first aid teacher pulled on us many years ago. It got quite a reaction from the class.

Matt,

In the mid 1960's, about the time my first child was born and I was starting my first job after graduate school, my brother-in-law, Will, asked me if I wanted some tools.

Wills’ father had died, and Will offered me his set of vintage power tools, mostly Craftsman. My shop was now equipped with a 8" table saw, W/T 4" jointer, drill press, lathe, polishing arbor cum grinder, and jig saw.

These tools are from the late 1930's and early 40's (pre-WWII). They are as old as I am. When I got them they had not been used for many years. I rehabilitated and adjusted them over the years. I still use all of them except the table saw, which I replaced five years ago. (I simply did not have space for it in my shop beside my new 10" hybrid table saw.) They are excellent tools, all well-aged American made cast iron.

In those days (the late 1930's, I mean) power tools did not come with motors. Most of these tools were powered by motors mounted to rocker rails that could be switched from machine to machine. I gradually bought some (slightly) better motors, but my drill press, lathe and buffing wheel still run off of old 1/4 or 1/3 hp induction motors taken off of washing machines and clothes dryers.

This experience has greatly influenced my attitude about power tool ads in magazines.

Best regards

Tim,

A big thank you for this post. I was searching for an efficient way to draw a round, curved, tapered leg. I didn't really expect to find one. But here it is, exactly what I need.

Since I'm not a metalworker I wonder if I ever would have found the Taper and Curve plugins on my own.

Also, thanks to Dave for his help with other problems and to the editors of FWW.com for hosting this blog.

Doug Hepler

Thank you. I had been working on a part of this problem -- drawing one curved slat. I had almost figured it out. Its great to know how you did it, and three at a time is a lot more elegant. This should save your readers a lot of time.

I'm looking forward to further posts on drawing chairs.

I was going to suggest this as a topic. Very interesting, and I learned a general skill: I had been wondering how to "skew" a shape.

I have a related problem -- What if I were drawing a chair with round, bent back posts, e.g., a ladder-back? Let's say I want the side rungs and the bend in the post to be in the same plane. I drew the curve for the bent posts, then used Follow Me to draw the bent post. Then I drew the rungs using push/pull on a circle.

My difficulty came when I tried to orient the side rungs in the same plane as the bend. (I can get them in the same plane as each other easily enough by using the copy tool and locking the inference, but I can't get them oriented in the same plane as the bend. It's hit or miss using the rotate tool from a top view.)

If they are not exactly in the desired plane, the drawing does not look at all like the chair I intend to build. It can look really odd with the rear posts akimbo. I had to give up on a 3-D drawing, and settled for a side view.

I'm self-taught in Sketchup, so maybe this is a very elementary question, but how can I keep track of the orientation of an object without a planar face?