04-12-2016, 04:48 PM
One day, after a trip to the local vendor, the quantity of liquor bottles on my kitchen side table began to clearly exceed its given limits; the lady of the house suggested I build something capable of holding them on the wall. "I can build a shelf this very day", I says. And thus I took the opportunity to spend the rest of the week drinking said liquor and waxing (internally, mind you) on how modern design pedagogy had failed me as a woodworker. When a few kind folks in another thread mentioned interest in a drawing I posted of another project, I finally decided to design the shelf, build it, and post a little bit about the process as a basic introduction to the methods I've maladapted over the years. I've studied geometric ratio and proportion since graduate school, where I applied them to the music of Bach. It all carries through.
This design is unconventional because [it seems that] the rage these days is simple integer ratios. I don't like simple integer ratios. They're simple and boring. Paradoxically, I like simple furniture, and this is the simplest of shelves--an only once divided frame. Yet I've managed to design it completely out of those terrifyingly infinite decimal ratios known as the "incommensurable", and this is sure to raise the hackles of many.
Anyway, here's the drawing, with all the geometrical fluff left in:
Here's the short on the design process. I had 42" between the refrigerator and the end of the wall in which to put the shelf. This is the first constraint... thus, a circle with diameter 42. In my opinion, there are two major interesting three part divisions of a space: the square root of 5:1, that is, a square in a semi-circle... big in the middle; and the square root of 5+2:1, the division of line in the pentagram...skinny in the middle. (Both of these manifest the golden section). I opted for big in the middle, for reasons of capacity. Thus I draw a square in my semi-circle, and my overall width is ~18.78", or a hair fat 3/4.
From here I need to determine the overall height. What's in a good-looking rectangle? I know I've got two shelves on which bottles will sit. Tall on bottom, short on top. A bottle of Corralejos tequila is around 14", but I want a little headroom for appearance's sake. 15". A wine bottle averages 11.5" or so, so that's the max I need on top. 11.5"+15"+2.25" (for wood thickness) means I need at least 28.75", and preferably not more than 30, as we're pushing the height I want to ever reach from in front of the side table.
28.75/18.78 = ~1.531. Close to the golden section, but closer to the height of a pentagon (~1.5388:1), which I find to be the most handsome of the rectangles. So I draw a pentagon from the side of the square, and the height is 28.9", or a fat 7/8. Where do I put the middle shelf? Again, I need about 15" at the bottom. 15.75/18.78 = .839. Real close to the height of a triangle (.866). So I draw an equilateral triangle, and my height from the bottom is 16.27", or a fat quarter.
And thus I've determined the front elevation, and we have cycled through all the hated ratios of geometry, and all quite simply from a single width, determined in harmony with the space allotted. The side profile is easy: I want to slant the sides downward, so I need a couple of points from which to take the line. Minimum bottle depth capacity at the top should be about 3", for the aforementioned Pinot. But exactly 3" might be stuffy; at least an inch extra would look good. I eyeball and then arbitrarily divide the middle shelf in half from the center line (which is about 4.7 inches), and then eyeball how I want the slant to look. What I eyeball is almost exactly a tangent to the circle within the triangle. So I draw the circle (for thoroughness, at this point), and the side profile is determined.
The last element is a brace in the back through which I will screw the assembly to the wall. I divide the very top depth in half to echo the previous, and draw a circle with this radius. The width looks good, so I mark the line.
I build the shelf. Through dovetails and stopped dados in the cheapest conifer that grows, with a couple coats of blonde shellac. It looks like this:
Now the kitchen side table is covered in other junk.
This design is unconventional because [it seems that] the rage these days is simple integer ratios. I don't like simple integer ratios. They're simple and boring. Paradoxically, I like simple furniture, and this is the simplest of shelves--an only once divided frame. Yet I've managed to design it completely out of those terrifyingly infinite decimal ratios known as the "incommensurable", and this is sure to raise the hackles of many.
Anyway, here's the drawing, with all the geometrical fluff left in:
Here's the short on the design process. I had 42" between the refrigerator and the end of the wall in which to put the shelf. This is the first constraint... thus, a circle with diameter 42. In my opinion, there are two major interesting three part divisions of a space: the square root of 5:1, that is, a square in a semi-circle... big in the middle; and the square root of 5+2:1, the division of line in the pentagram...skinny in the middle. (Both of these manifest the golden section). I opted for big in the middle, for reasons of capacity. Thus I draw a square in my semi-circle, and my overall width is ~18.78", or a hair fat 3/4.
From here I need to determine the overall height. What's in a good-looking rectangle? I know I've got two shelves on which bottles will sit. Tall on bottom, short on top. A bottle of Corralejos tequila is around 14", but I want a little headroom for appearance's sake. 15". A wine bottle averages 11.5" or so, so that's the max I need on top. 11.5"+15"+2.25" (for wood thickness) means I need at least 28.75", and preferably not more than 30, as we're pushing the height I want to ever reach from in front of the side table.
28.75/18.78 = ~1.531. Close to the golden section, but closer to the height of a pentagon (~1.5388:1), which I find to be the most handsome of the rectangles. So I draw a pentagon from the side of the square, and the height is 28.9", or a fat 7/8. Where do I put the middle shelf? Again, I need about 15" at the bottom. 15.75/18.78 = .839. Real close to the height of a triangle (.866). So I draw an equilateral triangle, and my height from the bottom is 16.27", or a fat quarter.
And thus I've determined the front elevation, and we have cycled through all the hated ratios of geometry, and all quite simply from a single width, determined in harmony with the space allotted. The side profile is easy: I want to slant the sides downward, so I need a couple of points from which to take the line. Minimum bottle depth capacity at the top should be about 3", for the aforementioned Pinot. But exactly 3" might be stuffy; at least an inch extra would look good. I eyeball and then arbitrarily divide the middle shelf in half from the center line (which is about 4.7 inches), and then eyeball how I want the slant to look. What I eyeball is almost exactly a tangent to the circle within the triangle. So I draw the circle (for thoroughness, at this point), and the side profile is determined.
The last element is a brace in the back through which I will screw the assembly to the wall. I divide the very top depth in half to echo the previous, and draw a circle with this radius. The width looks good, so I mark the line.
I build the shelf. Through dovetails and stopped dados in the cheapest conifer that grows, with a couple coats of blonde shellac. It looks like this:
Now the kitchen side table is covered in other junk.
