What happens when you actually cut the wood?
Station 3 of 5 on the road every made thing goes down. Someone cuts wood. The first one is never the good one.
- How long
- Nothing to do here yet, and the page says why.
- You need
- Nothing yet
- Messy
- No.
Where each one stands here.
- The JumboNot yetTwo prototypes built: T-01 + No. 001 · waiting on Maker
- Max, the Shop LightNot yetPrototype on the desk · waiting on Maker
- LarryNot yetFirst article sewn · waiting on Dan
Try this at the table.
One for each object. A grayed-out one is not us being lazy. It is a thing that cannot honestly be done until somebody clears the gate written on it.
Two airplanes, built together.
Three hundred eighty millimeters nose to tail, and two of them: one to test hard first, and one that is a present. Maple body, walnut nose. The walnut is there because that is how the drawing looks, and it is the softer wood, so the joint between them is built for the walnut.
IdeaMaterials. Pick a wood for how it looks, then build the joint for how weak it is.
Opens when: Two prototypes built: T-01 + No. 001 · Maker
Watch a first attempt go wrong.
When a shop builds the first Max, we will put up what they got wrong, in photographs, with the measurements. Nobody publishes the first one. It is the most useful one.
IdeaA prototype is a question, not a product.
Opens when: Prototype on the desk · Maker
Watch a pattern be wrong for the first time.
Nobody has sewn Larry. Everything we say about how he fits together is a prediction from geometry, and predictions about cloth are wrong in small ways that only show up once it is cut. When somebody sews the first one we will put up what did not fit, with the measurements, and what we changed.
IdeaA first article is a question. The pattern is the guess; the sewn one is the answer.
Opens when: First article sewn · Dan
That is the end of this one
The word for what you just did is prototyping.
Prototyping is what a grown-up calls this station on a resume. It is one of five, it always happens in this order, and skipping it does not save you the work. It only moves the work to a later station where it costs more.
Where to go now