Paper Bits digital, paper, notes and bits.

I sketch almost all the parts I make. This sort of back of the envelope scribbling is very different from precise engineering drawings - I change my mind all the time, scrubbing over the lines again and again. Drawing like this is a wonderful tool for thinking, for exploring different solutions, rejecting bad ones and developing good ones. I also use Solidworks, and I can see the power of CAD programs like this, though I still prefer drawing. Drawing parts is actually very similar to drawing cartoons - scrubbing over lines, trying to make the idea clear and concise, thinking up endless variations and embellishments.

Drawing parts does depend on experience. I don’t remember drawing my machines much as a child, and when I started making things again after leaving Cambridge I still did very little drawing, working out the detail by trial and error. There were so many factors, particularly with moving parts, that drawings didn’t help with - will a lever be rigid enough, will a spring counteract a weight, will a grub screw be enough to hold a pulley on a shaft, will a motor be powerful enough, will it stop quickly enough. The only way to find out things like this was to try them. There is something intuitively obvious that it must be a good idea to make use of as many of the senses as possible (smells and sounds can also be very useful in identifying a problem), but in practice trying everything out is very slow. With experience, it’s much quicker to solve design problems on paper…

My cluttered workshop, particularly the comprehensive stores of bits I’ve salvaged or otherwise acquired, is also vital to my working process. Browsing through my stores, I often think of a better way of making a part, and sometimes ways of adapting something I’ve already got. The stores and the tools are literally an extension of my brain, a physical version of a memory map. Anything I can’t find in my stores will be in one of my many vast catalogues. Rural sheds may seem quaint but they are no longer cut off from the world. Modern distribution means I can get anything within 24 hours.

I sketch almost all the parts I make. This sort of back of the envelope scribbling is very different from precise engineering drawings - I change my mind all the time, scrubbing over the lines again and again. Drawing like this is a wonderful tool for thinking, for exploring different solutions, rejecting bad ones and developing good ones. I also use Solidworks, and I can see the power of CAD programs like this, though I still prefer drawing. Drawing parts is actually very similar to drawing cartoons - scrubbing over lines, trying to make the idea clear and concise, thinking up endless variations and embellishments.

Drawing parts does depend on experience. I don’t remember drawing my machines much as a child, and when I started making things again after leaving Cambridge I still did very little drawing, working out the detail by trial and error. There were so many factors, particularly with moving parts, that drawings didn’t help with - will a lever be rigid enough, will a spring counteract a weight, will a grub screw be enough to hold a pulley on a shaft, will a motor be powerful enough, will it stop quickly enough. The only way to find out things like this was to try them. There is something intuitively obvious that it must be a good idea to make use of as many of the senses as possible (smells and sounds can also be very useful in identifying a problem), but in practice trying everything out is very slow. With experience, it’s much quicker to solve design problems on paper…

My cluttered workshop, particularly the comprehensive stores of bits I’ve salvaged or otherwise acquired, is also vital to my working process. Browsing through my stores, I often think of a better way of making a part, and sometimes ways of adapting something I’ve already got. The stores and the tools are literally an extension of my brain, a physical version of a memory map. Anything I can’t find in my stores will be in one of my many vast catalogues. Rural sheds may seem quaint but they are no longer cut off from the world. Modern distribution means I can get anything within 24 hours.