I began working on a new design tiny box yesterday using inlay that I made last week. These are so easy that I know my readers will love making them. I also made 20 golden mean detector wands to share with my students at Marc Adams School of Woodworking later in the month. The boxes will be hinged with copper pins (with heads sanded off), and given an angular shape on the front. The detector wands will be used to provide insight into proportion.
The Golden mean detector wands are shown at left. To cut out the opening, I use a 1/2 in. square chisel mortiser, and then widen the cut to 13/16 in. Using the golden ratio always results in the use of irrational numbers, and 13/16 is about as close as I can measure to .809 in. with the tools I have in the wood shop. For those interested in the math, the aspect ratio is determined by multiplying the fixed width of the hollow chisel mortiser .5 x 1.618.The wand is used by holding it up between the eye and the object and aligning its edges with the outlines of the object being viewed. If the edges align, the object conforms to the golden mean.
Perfect alignment is rare, as most designers consider adherence to the golden mean as being of less value than meeting other important design criteria.
In a sense, this is much like the rest of life. We can either shape things to match some intellectualized abstraction or to fit the real world.
Education, too, should fit the real world. Wood shop, anyone???
Make, fix and create...
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