How do you get your ideas from your head to completion

[adzeman]

Mistakes are expensive affect profits they also take up valuable time. The most common mistakes I come up against are in taking measurements with contractors and operatives is measurement. The more times they use their rule or tape increases the risk. Having a dicipline helps. Measure round the room or object clockwise. measure length, width, depth in that order. Have a closing dimension so when back at the shop you can have a check. Take plenty of diagonals but errors do occasionally occur. The rod eliminates errors in manufacture because generally the only time you use your rule is to measure rebates insets etc. Spacing of mullions say are spaced by using geometry and large (homemade) deviders. For large jobs I have to use a drawing not having the facilities of a shopfitter for large rods. I have been trained in CAD but now use Sketchup myCad cost me £400.00 Sketch up is free. CAD takes about 10 weeks to learn Sketchup is intsant. The problem with Sketchup is iits simplicity I had to blank out my CAD training it was holding me back. This mind cleansing took about a week. My son who is has an office job took to Sketchup like a duck to water and is still faster than I am.

Sketch of a proposed frame

I wanted to see what it looked like from the back

You can change the apperance of a sketch by using a pull down menue, I like the pencil sketch to take into the shop and transfer to a rod

 

[Jelly]

What is propper, forget the spelling. I've seen people go to great lengths in plans done either with cad etc or on a board with paper and all the great detail that goes with it all for what.

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance! Its an irritating little aphorism, mainly because it's true.

If you have a detailed drawing, if you're unsure, you can refer back to it... If you're working from an idea, and you're unsure you have to stop and think about it or try to recall the original decision.

 

[Jacob]

What is propper, forget the spelling. I've seen people go to great lengths in plans done either with cad etc or on a board with paper and all the great detail that goes with it all for what.

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance! Its an irritating little aphorism, mainly because it's true.

If you have a detailed drawing, if you're unsure, you can refer back to it... If you're working from an idea, and you're unsure you have to stop and think about it or try to recall the original decision.

Things often go wrong when you have to work and rework lots of figures as you try to make things fit.
The rod (or any full size drawing) works as a graphical calculator and permanent record. You can put measurements in by dividing with divider, or by laying on a sample piece as in adzeman's demo above. You can then take them off directly, without using a tape or even using figures. If you need to you can construct precise and accurate components fitting together perfectly without measuring or calculating anything.

 

[Jelly]

That too Jacob, unless you're building to a specific set of dimensions (like a replacement part that needs to fit an original exactly) you can correct an error simply by altering the design on the fly... (intentionally?) systematic errors are not nearly as bad as individual ones.
Easier to do that graphically than arithmetically (I don't have a problem with doing the maths mentally, but making many measurements and marks simply introduces a basis for further variations)

 

[Jacob]

That too Jacob, unless you're building to a specific set of dimensions (like a replacement part that needs to fit an original exactly) ....

No unless about it! If you have the original it may be possible to mark up the rod directly from the original and proceed from there, with no error-prone measurements intervening. In fact this is fairly common practice.