Tolerances / Dimensions on furniture and furniture components

[andrew whicker]

Hi,

I have created a few 3D drawings of a project I'm building. I'd like to get quotes for the project in order to sell B2B as the designer.

I have engineering background, so am very familiar with metal fabrication and machining drawing specifications. I am not familiar with wood drawing specifications.

Are there any resources available? Sample wood furniture pieces with their components dimension'd / tolerance'd / spec'd out that I can review?

Thanks and cheers!

[Wayne Lomman]

In all my years as a professional woodworker combined with engineering and industrial painting, I was never supplied with drawings with tolerances for wood work. Dimensions were always exact in millimetres. Specifications were a combination of notes on the drawing and the separate specification document. Component drawings were the same as any other engineering drawing minus tolerances. There is a need for the extra spec document as timber grades, quality etc vary wildly compared to steel and you need to specify how dry etc.

I should note that I have never worked with CNC woodworking machinery and work exclusively with CNC machining centres and steel so I will be interested to hear other experiences. Cheers

[Art Mann]

I have probably studied a hundred or more commercial woodworking plans over many years and I have never seen a tolerance on any of them. I use a CNC router and it is easier to get more accurate detailed cuts but you are still talking about 0.020" tolerances in most cases due to the nature of wood. Some of my wood engraving needs a 0.005" consistency of the thickness but the absolute accuracy can vary much more.

[andrew whicker]

Do either of you (or the wider Sawmill community) mind if I send you a few dwgs? Maybe you could tell me what I need to do differently, etc?

Thanks and cheers,

[Wayne Lomman]

No worries. Do you want to email them?cheers