Craftsmanship in Wood

Very shortly after I became interested in geometrical carpentry drawing, Chris blogged his 13-part series "X Marks the Spot".
http://thecarpentryway.blogspot.be/2010 ... -spot.html
This was a great inspiration and was one of the reasons I joined this study group on day-one and have continued, with ups and downs, to study carpentry drawing. It had always been an ambition to make a version of those interesting, intersecting sticks and around last Christmas I thought the time had come.

So I went through "X Marks" again (at least the third time!) and reproduced the key drawings in SketchUp. I also got a friendly wood merchant to size some larch(?) for me: 2 meters of 2"x2" (well, 51mm x 51mm was the nearest we got).

Although, as in the blog part XIII, I made a "rolled-out" version of the cuts to stick "b", in the end I used angles and distances measured directly off the 3D model to record the values which I then transferred to the stick itself. (I found it very tricky, without Chris's comments, to decide what lines were significant in the rolled out 2D version.)
Here is the bitter truth:
When you look at the photos, yes I am aware that I am an even worse carpenter than I thought I was ! That small "lug" was a constant source of worry and is probably why the other incisions are a bit oversize. In retrospect I would first make a prototype ignoring the lug and just concentrate on getting the other dimensions in tolerance - this gives you much more freedom of movement for your tools. Only then would I make the real version - with the lug.

This was a very satisfying exercise; I can recommend it. It would be nice to hear on this Forum from others who have, or plan to make "X Marks the Spot".
And I have just seen that Robert R. Rix completed the task in November 2014 - see comment at end of Part XIII - hat's off to another Robert.

Rob,

very nicely done!!

Maybe only the Robs of this world are allowed to tackle this model?

Nice work Rob!

I'm totally doing this one. In small scale though, just have 1.5"x1.5" and some 40cm long pieces... I need to finish my finger joints and then I'm totally free for the next challenge.

Well, since my last drawing (see "An investigation Begins") I fell under the spell of descriptive geometry again.
Back in 1998-2000, during my carpentry apprenticeship, I draw and built dozens of these models.
So here is my solution of the given project.
And as Rob did before, I want to encourage the other readers at this forum to give it a try. It's very satisfying (at least for me) and a lot of fun!
Chris did a great job with his blog and this forum. Thanks again.

Make a out of your

Great work Marc, nice to see.