>I need some help, I have recently bought myself a brand new (to me anyway) drafting table to help me plan out and finalize furniture plans before I start cutting wood. The only problem I have is a lack of experience drafting furniture plans. Can some one point me in the direction of a good book on basic drafting that might also include some information on furniture design? I can draw the out side of furniture pieces with out problem, it is more the interior and cut away views that I am a little baffled about.
I would recommend that you consider the following books. I personally own them and use them for design ideas and basic drafting information:
* Practical Design Solutions & Strategies (essentials of woodworking) 2000, Fine Woodworking, Taunton Press
* Designing Furniture, The New Best of Fine Woodworking, 2004, Editors of Fine Woodworking, Taunton Press
* Design Your Own Furniture, 2002, Jim Stack
* Yard sales, library sales for old high school drafting books
Good luck. Somehow using pencil, a T-square & an old drafting table seems much more a conducive to the creative process of furniture design & building than computized CAD programs.
I'm going to draw (no pun intended) a distinction between design and drafting. A lot of design goes on without any formal drafting. I don't know of any books that teach drafting with a little furniture design on the side, but I have seen a few books that teach furniture design with a little drafting on the side. One that I've got is:
"The Woodworker's Guide to Furniture Design" by Garth Graves from Popular Woodworking Books.
It's got a lot of detailed information about function, proportion, size, design standards and one chapter on producing actual drawings.
A couple more that I've got that have numerous examples of drafting, with complex cut aways, exploded drawings, details, sections etc., though they make no pretense to being a drafting manual, are:
"Furniture Making", and
"The Practical Woodworker", both by Bernard E. Jones.
I have one in a reprint from 10 Speed Press and one in original hard back from the turn of the century, with no copyright date on it. These are both from the day when drafting was an art form and the ability to read a real drawing was taken as a given.
Another example that is almost as good is "The Handyman's Book: Essential Woodworking Tools and Techniques" by Paul N. Hasluck, also in reprint from 10 Speed Press, from the turn of the century. It has a gazillion examples of furniture details, mostly in a pen and ink illustration style, not quite formal drafting.
You can probably get a preview of these at the local library. Also, if they are on line at Amazon and now at Google Books, you can usually preview a few pages and see if it is what you want.
By the way, Bernard Jones and Paul N. Hasluck appear to have been editors of popular woodworking magazines of the day and were prolific editors and compilers of anything crafty that you can think of. Some of their books are fascinating and are often available in the original and as reprints. They are a couple of my personal heroes. Check E-Bay.