New to the breed with rookie questions
My past woodworking endevors have been refinishing, adding nice touches to kitchens, home building/carpentry, making from magazine plans, and finally just cutting wood until it looks like what I wanted.
Technique-wise I'm solid. Cut a fair number of dovetails, punched in a fair number of Dominos, tuned my bandsaw 'til it plays Mozart, my dust collection system makes my bench brush feel neglected, actually have started taking jigs apart and combining them to free up space.
I am trying to learn to design, plan, write cut lists, use templates. I am semi-repentant of past sins, but prone to relapse. So, if you were going to learn design and actually use the results, where would you start? I've looked at Sketchup, didn't like it much,done a lot of pencil and paper drafting in the past, tho I am a bit rusty.
I bought and am reading the Seth Stem book on design, Jim Tolpin's Measure Twice, old FWW articles. Right now, today, I am pondering how I would contruct a model, and whether you could actually use foamboard as a template on a router table instead of MDF.
Insights would be appreciated.