hey neil.... i was wondering what you thought about the process steve and i went through on the bombe case sides and i hope this week the drawer fronts too....for me allot of the design is about the wood...you know the bulls-eyes and all that...graduated drawers ....just curious....other guys can jump in to....

Hey T.......what Bombe.........did you build a Bombe!!!! .....that's my little RAZZ guy!!

Hey Guy's...... Chizz is right here.............ABSOLUTELY.........everybody jump in. I can't view until tomorrow.

As you view stop and think about your design elements:

the visual balance, symmetry, is there continuity to the piece, think about this part to the whole Bombe', look to find a rhythm in the piece (the Bombe end panels, the line of the brow to the to the end panels, the line of the brow being in the foundation of the piece), the scale of the drawers to each other, are they proportioned.

Is there another way to have done the drawers????

Lets not just say WOW, that's great........Come up a level and bring "design speak" into your discussion of the piece. The last thing you want to do is to decide whether you like the approach or not. This is hard, because its the first thing we all do.

That's really what Big-T wants. Good solid, discussion that we can build off of; when discussing our future builds together.

I really liked the discussion about the "bulls-eye" and how to get the grain to follow the curved surface of the bombe. Its something that I haven't thought about before and, to me, its brilliant thinking (of course, the guy who came up with it probably had a bulls-eye on one side and a big X on the other, poor guy). Those are the type of skills and ideas that are lacking in furniture made today. Anyone can build a project out of wood but a true craftsman will use the wood's natural beauty to enhance the flow and beauty of a piece.

It was also interesting to see how the compound curves were made for the bombe. The discussion of how to define the pivot point for the secondary curve was very helpful to me and was like a 'bulb' going off in my head (like: "Oh, that's how they did it! "). That's the stuff that you don't get while working by yourself.

I do like how you adjusted the curve to better fit the drawers. Adjusting the measurements and keeping things balanced while looking right is one of the harder parts of design and you guys did a great job. Thanks for the great video Tommy. I'm really looking forward to the next installment!

I completely agree! After watching Tommy lay out all the lumber on this and other projects, it has added a completely new dimension to how I pick wood for a project. Thanks for the insight! It seems pretty obvious once someone explains it, but until I watched the podcasts I've been preoccupied with the mechanics of dimensions and fit, and not about the big picture about the color and grain. I found this discussion to be a real eye-opener.

I totally agree; this is something that has absolutely been missing for me. I usually walk into the lumber yard and and say "I need some 5/4 cherry, some 8/4 cherry, etc..." and then pick through the stack. This all leads me to a question I'm going to ask in another thread...