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Clamp front chest 7: the spreadsheet!
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Clamp front chest 7: the spreadsheet!

The consumer may assume their consumption pattern sets them apart from the rest of society, marking them as an individual, but this is a fallacy. Consumption is one of our most creative and most restrictive practices. Due to this fact it must be concluded that consumer driven production of self is less to do with “who am I” and more with “who are we” or “with whom do I belong.” There is no such thing as individualization no matter what we may think.

Todd, D. 2012

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 I don’t like cutting lists. Many amateurs, myself included, work wood to have something individual, something that says something about us (who knows what?). Building from a cutting list or a set of plans in a book or magazine gives us the illusion of creativity. But that creativity is restricted by the choice available.
Ultimately we are building someone else’s design. What kind of individualism is this that we conform to someone else’s notion of individualism?
But what is the alternative? A thorough grounding in the principles of design? Will this liberate us from the “restrictive practices” of buying furniture from the multinational corporation or building it to the designs laid out by other woodworkers? Or are we then just subject to the same set of principles by which they operate?
Let’s break free from the cutting list!
And how shall we throw off the shackles of our corporate overlords? With a spreadsheet of course!

This spreadsheet will enable you to enter dimensions for a clamp front chest of your own ‘design’. You might not be able to enter your desired dimension into the embedded sheet above (it’s a little temperamental).  If you want to try it out click here to go to the full, unabridged Google Sheets version.

If the figures you enter are changing it’s because someone else is using it. If you want to keep your own dimensions use the link above and download the spreadsheet (File/Download as…) or open a copy in Google Sheets (File/Make a copy…).

You can select the outside dimensions of the chest you want to build, decide if you want to make clamped (breadboard) ends for your lid and choose the length of the legs in relation to the rest of the chest. As you enter this data the spreadsheet will work out your cut list and spit it out in an easily digested table. Voila, instant liberation from the strictures of design dogma and the restrictions on your identity of consumer culture. You lucky thing.

But it won’t draw it for you.

Bear in mind that the spreadsheet doesn’t care about proportion or aesthetics. It has some concept of the required thickness of planking for different sized chests but it’s not very bright (I shouldn’t anthropomorphise my spreadsheets, they hate that). Magazine writers/woodworkers are better at this sort of thing than spreadsheets (there’s feint praise!).

Caveat utilitor

I don’t guarantee the results of this spreadsheet in any way. If you use it to design a series of chests to sell from your burgeoning Etsy store and have several cubic metres of timber cut to length only to discover that the I haven’t calculated the tenon length correctly or included the lid overhang it’s entirely on you.

Last word

Please don’t use this. Draw a chest using your own hands and eyes. It will be better and it will be yours.

But if you do use it please let me know how it goes!

 

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Welcome!

Yesterday my inbox exploded.

My alert settings from this blog and my YouTube channel default to sending me an email every time someone subscribes, likes or comments. I should have changed this before Nancy wrote nice things about me on the Lost Art Press blog.

You know Nancy Hiller of course. Saying that she has an interesting and varied life is akin to saying the Rolling Stones are well travelled: technically accurate but fails to convey the talent, the highs and lows and the enormous sense of fun.

So if you’re here because of her: Welcome. And if you’ve been here for a while: Apologies –  it’s high time I introduced myself:

SJS

I’m St.John. Pronounced ‘sinjon’. David Haig gets it right in Four Weddings and a Funeral at 1.52 here.

As if blogging isn’t self-indulgent and narcissistic enough blogging about the reasons for blogging is downright solipsistic but I’m going to allow myself a moment’s self-indulgence and then get on with the scheduled programme.

I write this because I want others to do the same. I like reading about and watching other people woodworking, particularly with hand tools. By posting my own work I hope others feel less self conscious about posting theirs. As the man said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” The change I want to see is more hand tool wood work online. So here it is. (Not exactly high level aspirations I’ll grant you).

So what can you expect to see and read here?

My woodwork started when my father, brother and I built a boat together during a long summer holiday when I was twelve. Since then it’s mostly been about boats. Along the way furniture has, by necessity and then interest, has taken over. Vernacular furniture dominates. I’m far more interested in the chairs of Philip Clisset than of Thomas Chippendale.

Over the next few months I’m planning to build (and write about) a clamp-front chest, a Clisset style chair or two, a bookcase (though it’s not going to get many column inches – it’s pretty much straight out of The Anarchist’s Design Book) and some odds and ends.

I’m also starting an occasional series entitled Tools they should make again. I’d rather this blog was about techniques than tools but since Nancy and Chris have given me a platform I thought I’d at least try to attract the attention of some passing tool makers for my own ends.

If you have any questions, suggestions or general encouragement feel free to comment.

Lovely to see you all here!