Behind The Design: Mike Korsak’s En Pointe
Mike Korsak takes you through is design process for one of his newest pieces, a case on stand, En Pointe
In this video, Ben talks to Mike Korsak about his piece En Pointe from FWW #262, going behind the scenes into Mike’s sketchbook and plans to see how the piece came to be. According to Mike, “everything starts with a sketch,” small scale doodles in his sketchbook that are easy to tweak and easy to discard. For this piece, he spent a lot of time refining his leg ideas, as those are the most difficult part of any piece for him, and then moved on to designing the case.
Once he had a good idea of the proportions and major shapes in a doodle, he moved on to full size drawings and a full size mockup. Most of this mockup was made of MDF, but he made one leg from real wood to verify that they were exactly what he wanted. Because the cabriole legs were so complex, he spent time thinking through and writing out the process for laying them out and cutting them, taking note of measurements and references, so that he could accurately lay out the next cut as the square faces of each leg were sawn away. He also made patterns to ensure he could cut each leg quickly and accurately.
Comments
WOW! What a beautiful piece and a great interview by Ben. The attention to detail in this piece makes it even more interesting and a fine addition to Fine Woodworking. Thanks, Mike, and Ben, for the video...great way to start my week!
Fantastic video about a fantastic piece. I would love to see more videos like this. It's fascinating to see the thought and design process all the way up to the finished piece as told by the designer. Thanks for this!
I love this segment. Please continue to explore the design process with us. The Designer's Notebook has become my favorite section in the magazine. I get even more from the videos!
How long did it take the whole process?
And how much does it cost?
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