Practical Design Solutions and Strategies brings together the best material on design from Fine Woodworking in the 1990s. This rich volume covers a wide range of aesthetic and structural design options. You'll discover new ways to conceive projects, organize their construction, and engineer them to last. You'll also be inspired by options for tables, cabinets, and chairs. Best of all, the emphasis is on "practical" design -- fine furniture that works.

INTRODUCTION

1 CONCEIVING YOUR PROJECTS

Where Designs Are Born
From Concept to Cabinet

2 ORGANIZING YOUR PROJECTS

Models Solve Design and Construction
Problems
Organize Your Projects

3 ENGINEERING FURNITURE TO LAST

Designing along the Grain
Finishes for Outdoor Furniture
Choosing the Strongest Joinery for Doors

4 CONSTRUCTION OPTIONS FOR TABLES

Dining Table Design is Not as Easy as Pie
Engineering a Table with Drawers
Attaching Tabletops
Breadboard Ends to Keep Tops Flat
Supporting Drop Leaves
Drawer-Design Strategies
Metal Drawer-Slide Options

5 CONSTRUCTION OPTIONS FOR CABINETS

A Dozen Ways to Build a Box
Designing Frame-and-Panel Doors
Exposing Your Back Side
Face Frame Options for Plywood Cabinets
Making Big Cabinets Manageable
Shelf Support Options
Keeping Doors Closed

6 CONSTRUCTION OPTIONS FOR CHAIRS

Design a Chair that Fits Like a Glove
What Makes a Chair Stand Up to Abuse?

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

CREDITS

EQUIVALENCE CHART

INDEX

Design is a dirty word among most furniture makers. A woodworker who proudly tells guests "I design all my own furniture" and asks if they'd like to see some of it will surely elicit a rush for the exit. That's because furniture design as a concept conjures up images of brightly painted chairs without seats or legs, tables with undulating tops and legs that wander recklessly before they hit the floor, and other sculptural "statements" that need a lot of explaining to understand, not to mention use.

Playful and artistic furniture design, however, is not the only kind. In fact, it's a rare type. It might come as a surprise, but all woodworkers must be designers to some degree. To design is to simply make a plan or build according to a plan. Design describes everything from thinking up and executing a grumpy dolphin in zebrawood to thinking through and executing a Shaker table. Cut lists, drawings, and even learned strategies for making parts are all evidence that design runs through everything woodworkers do. Without conscious design, furniture making simply couldn't happen.

Designing in its everyday sense is the problem-solving process most woodworkers love. It starts with pie-in-the-sky explorations of all the possibilities. How long of a table? What wood? What type of legs? How should they be made? Then the process becomes grounded in experience and practical realities. A 4-in.-thick bird's-eye maple dining table might be a pretty cool idea, but try to find 16/4 bird's-eye boards, the money for them, or the strength to lift them onto a tablesaw. From a sound, practical design comes the details of the execution. How should the top be attached to the apron? All these aspects need solutions, and every time a woodworker finds one, he proves he's a good designer.

This book collects the best material on practical, everyday design from Fine Woodworking and Home Furniture magazines. Professional and amateur woodworkers alike were asked to write about their strategies and solutions to particular design problems. Their many years of experience have yielded a thorough knowledge of the possible ways any one task can be accomplished. These solutions have been distilled here as design strategies for every woodworker, whether they consider themselves designers or not.