From a survey to a fitted piece
Five stages, and the third one is the one that matters: you approve a drawing with dimensions on it, not a mood. Everything after that is machining to figures that have already been agreed.
- 11Earliest
- 14Latest
Stage 1
Survey
Somebody comes and measures the opening, the floor-to-floor rise, the wall you think is straight and the one you know is not. Nothing is ordered off a plan alone: a drawing tells you what was intended and a survey tells you what is there.
Stage 2
Setting out
The piece is drawn full size on a board — the rod. Every member's length and every mortice position is taken off it directly, and the cutting list comes off it too. The drawings establish the dimensions and joints before timber is cut.
Stage 3
Approval
You see the rod, the cutting list and the specification, and you say yes to a figure rather than to an impression. Changes here cost a pencil. Changes after machining cost timber.
Stage 4
Making
Timber is selected board by board for where it will show, sawn oversize, left to settle, then machined to the finished section. The sections are run on the spindle, the joints are cut and dry-assembled, and the piece is finished in the workshop rather than on site where dust is.
Stage 5
Installation
Fitted by the people who made it, because they know which face is the good one and where the scribe was left. A staircase goes in before the plasterer; a kitchen goes in after.