The Golden Ratio Quick Tip

Hi everybody,

We woodworkers are always struggling with proper design and proportions. Luckily there are a few standards set more or less in stone that help us cover the bases of our furniture drafting process. On the other hand, we Lumberjocks are always either on the workshop or with our faces glued to the screen, so today I thought useful to give you a little tip that would ease that elusive search of the El Dorado (no pun intended) of design: calculating The Golden Ratio or The Golden Mean, whatever name you fancy to stick to.

Just remember that Google is your friend so, in the standard search box, type either one of the following, substituting the # by your known dimension:

#*golden ratio

#/golden ratio

Obviously, you’ll type the former to find the length and the later to get your width.

Also, remember that you can use the very same search box as a calculator or a conversion tool using the usual modifiers * / + - (), etc.

I know it’s just a quick one for today but it’s been a long while since my last post and I though that giving my blog a quick brush and some dusting wouldn’t hurt it. I guess not much is going on on the woodworking side of my life nowadays. I’m designing quite a lot in SketchUp—by the way, version seven is out since yesterday—and I’ll probably start building some small project soon. Nothing fancy, just a quick and dirty prototype. We’ll see but, in any case, I’ll keep you all posted.

Take care and strive to get the same amount of fingers in and out of the shop.

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://twitter.com/kagushokunin