Pro Woodworking Tips.com-Mock Ups continued

Mock Ups

Mock Ups, continued

Our latest mock up was a desk, which needed to fit in a home office we built. The size of the room, and the shape of the cabinets surrounding the desk made it absolutely necessary to do this. The desk had to allow for two people to work at it, and still allow people to walk past it. No stock desk would permit this.

The client was quite particular, and would not settle for something that "almost work's". The results were the client got to live with this full sized mock up, and decide if it would suite his tastes, and needs. When ever he or his wife walked past the room, they got to "feel" whether or not it belonged there. We did alter the mock up several times before presenting it to him, which allowed us to tweak the design, and get it right. It also gives the client some insight to both the complexity of the project, and also shows your commitment to the project.

One more example of making practical use of a mock up, would be the example shown below. We were building a dining room table, using some very fine veneer. We definitely did not want to waste the material, or spend a considerable amount of time doing the veneer layup, only to find out the client didn't like it. Since the table length was determined by the room, we just needed to verify the design, the shape of the table and the width of it.That being said, a full size mock up wasn't necessary. We built a small table top, (about 12 inches long) and did all the work in scale. I don't recall the exact scale, but that's not as important as making sure to use the same scale on all the parts. We made several top designs until one was accepted. This is much easier on a 12 inch model, than a nine foot table.

While I still don't like wasting time, I now realize, that's the biggest reason of all to make use of those horrible words; "LETS DO A MOCK UP"

Written by: Lee A. Jesberger © 2006 - 2010
Inventor of: Ezee-Feed Systems ®

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