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Comment by seemaze | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine was borrowing the shop of a very well known luthier to build some furniture. I stopped by to check the whole situation out and I found them both with their brows furrowed trying to work out some tolerances for a joint on a scrap piece of paper. As an architect by training, I quipped "at some point you'll have to start making proper drawings of you projects ahead of time", to which the luthier replied "the plans are always the problem, you're better off letting the wood tell you how it should be put it together." to which I had no reply..

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Having recently had my bathroom done, I was surprised to see that none of the trades had any kind of drawing or preparation; everything was eyeballed together. Slightly less surprised when there was a catastrophic measuring error.

I have a lot of respect for the intuitive-improvisational mode, and some people can do it brilliantly while playing the violin, but I'm not sure it always works for making things.

My personal experience is that woodworking at hobby grade is a art+science+engineering in varying proportions depending on the person's interests. I can relate to your friend in that almost always, as I work through a project, it evolves in its details, joinery, design (even size as I make my mistakes) etc. However, it is important to visualise _what_ one wants in mind before beginning to mill wood. I sketch so much in various perspectives to narrow that down and try to visualise how my idea would materialise.

If AI could catalyse that first part and help visualise the idea in many perspectives that are easy to tweak and improve, I think it will be a solid base to work upon and change organically as we build it in the shop.

As an amateur wood worker, the main issue is that I can’t cut things as precise as I want. It’ll be a couple mm off, or slightly crooked, or I’ll have cut too much and need to find something to fill in the blanks.

You may call that the art part, but it’s actually the terrible skills part.

I'm with you brother/sister! I recently acquired a small hobby-grade laser cutter that can do 1/4" plywood happily and 1/2" plywood if you ask it really really nicely.

One of the things I intend on doing with it is cutting router templates for parts that I need to make a bunch of with "identical" dimensions. Get it as close as I can with the table saw and miter saw, stick the template to it, and use a flush-cut bit to clean up my slop.

It's a fun tool in its own right, I really get a kick out of designing and cutting tab-and-slot designs. They just fit together so beautifully right off the laser. I get the joy of designing the project and assembling the project without the swearing/frustration bit in the middle.

The grandfather of one of my son's friends was a locally-noted woodcarver --- when his daughter first brought home her future husband, he handed the prospective son-in-law a piece of wood and a knife and asked, "What do you see in the wood?" When the reply was, "A piece of wood.", he took both back rather disgustedly.

His woodcarvings were _amazing_, in particular for his ability to work with the grain and even to chase a single ring so as to make a perfectly shaped, but seemingly impossibly thin and light wing of a bird.

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