{"id":1786,"date":"2014-09-02T08:35:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T15:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=1786"},"modified":"2023-02-19T10:00:45","modified_gmt":"2023-02-19T18:00:45","slug":"making-things-i-drew-in-illustrator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=1786","title":{"rendered":"Making things I drew in Illustrator"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blognosticator<\/a><\/p>\n

Last summer I built a nice Adirondack chair. It was based on an existing chair that had rotted-out, a victim of years of being out in the weather. I decided for the clone that I would make it entirely of oak lumber, and wherever there was a connector, I would use stainless steel.<\/p>\n

\"Adirondack<\/a><\/p>\n

This is my assembled Adirondack chair on the dock of a friend\u2019s pond. The chair is painted with white exterior primer prior to being assembled, then later painted with the final color \u2013 purple.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I took the old chair apart, mostly by sawing the rusted fasteners apart, then tracing the wood pieces onto kraft paper. I took the tracings home and spent a bit of time reconsidering the design of the chair. I made some technical changes to make the chair stronger, then I made some changes that I thought would make the chair look better.<\/p>\n

I made full-size drawings in Adobe Illustrator, then printed those out on my Epson ink-jet printer on a smooth, uncoated paper at 720 ppi resolution. I didn\u2019t need photo quality; I wanted speed. Then I took a trek to the local lumber yard to purchase some oak boards, and several hundred dollars later, I had all the wood I needed.<\/p>\n

\"Adirondack<\/a><\/p>\n

This is my cutting diagram, which I printed on my Epson wide-format ink-jet printer at full size. I then glued the curved patterns directly to the boards, and cut them on the bandsaw. Later, I sanded the pattern paper off.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I ordered stainless machine screws, carriage bolts, washers and nuts from McMaster-Carr, a Los Angeles based purveyor of everything mechanical. Several scores of dollars and a couple of days for shipping later, and I had all the hardware.<\/p>\n

I glued the ink-jet printer output to the oak boards (I cut them to approximate size first) with water-soluble glue. Then, using a combination of tools including a table saw, a bandsaw, a chop saw, a router table, a hand-held router and other hand tools, I had all the parts cut and ready for assembly.<\/p>\n

For those boards with ink-jet paper glued on top, I used the printed lines as cutting guides on the bandsaw. Where two parts had to be identical, or mirrored (the arms are a good example), I screwed two boards together then cut them at the same time on the bandsaw. Whatever irregularities occurred, occurred to both boards. I completed all the cutting, then moved on to surface sanding and smoothing curves. For those operations I used a hand sander, two stationary belt sanders and a stationary spindle sander.<\/p>\n

\"Chair<\/p>\n

This is the entire chair as cut and sanded boards. Some of the board edges are routed with a half-round cutter \u2013 I did this only where the boards touch the person\u00a0sitting in the chair. All other edges are left square. Assembly began at this point, following a primer coat of white exterior\u00a0paint.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When all the boards were smooth and finished, I cleaned each one, then applied two coats of latex exterior white primer on the boards. It\u2019s better to paint the raw material then assemble it into a chair than to build the chair and paint it. Unpainted parts, especially those hidden by joints and corners, tend to be an invitation to dry rot.<\/p>\n

When the chair was assembled, a couple of days later, I sanded the tops of wood plugs I used to cover the screws, and then I sprayed several coats of exterior latex paint on the finished chair. You may wonder why I started with beautiful oak boards, only to paint the chair with purple paint. Remember that my objective was to make a weatherproof chair. The color was chosen to work with the other colors in our garden.<\/p>\n

\"Chairs<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2026and here is the finished chair on the right, its beautiful purple color fitting in nicely with the plants and the sister chair on the left in aubergine. I plan to replace that chair soon, as it\u2019s showing signs of decay from the elements.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Using Illustrator as a design tool for real objects is interesting. For me it\u2019s easier and less expensive that getting a CAD program, and I already know how to use it. Working entirely in 2D is easy for me, and Illustrator is delightful for this. As mentioned, I draw at full size, requiring that the canvas be set to the size of the full size lumber.<\/p>\n

The finished chair is very nice on our back deck garden (we have a very small yard), and the colors of that chair and its counterpart work nicely with the greens of my wife\u2019s wonderful flora.<\/p>\n

A combination of software \u2013 Illustrator, hardware \u2013 the wide format Epson printer, and harder-ware \u2013 the various tools in my wood shop, make nice finished products. It\u2019s nice to be able to design, then build real objects from the computer screen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last summer I built a nice Adirondack chair. It was based on an existing chair that had rotted-out, a victim of years of being out in the weather. I decided for the clone that I would make it entirely of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,12],"tags":[415,411,413,64,414,412],"class_list":["post-1786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-art","tag-2d-design-in-illustrator","tag-adirondack-chair","tag-adobe-illustrator-as-a-woodworking-tool","tag-brian-lawler","tag-building-chair-from-plans","tag-woodworking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1786"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3562,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786\/revisions\/3562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}