Jeff’s professional journey has been deeply rooted in technology, particularly software since he founded his company in 1990. Despite retiring, his passion for creation persisted, finding solace in woodworking and integrating technology with traditional craftsmanship.
Gradually expanding his workshop over 20 years, Jeff’s woodworking journey evolved alongside his acquisition of new tools and skills, culminating in the acquisition of a Next Wave Shark CNC machine. With this, he found joy in merging woodworking with technology, marking a significant shift in his creative pursuits.
After obtaining wood from a historic oak tree, Jeff dedicated his craftsmanship to charitable causes through “Wood for Good,” raising thousands of dollars for various charities.
Seeking efficiency in his craft, he turned to Autodesk Fusion (Fusion 360) for its intuitive design and parametric capabilities, revolutionizing his woodworking process. Ultimately, striving to reduce the number of mistakes on each project.
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Jeff Rudolph
Owner of Wood for Good
Jeff Rudolph is a retired business owner who started ‘Wood for Good’ as a means to fundraise for various charities by selling his woodworking creations. Through his newfound Autodesk Fusion skills, he’s reduced errors and enhanced his creative workflow.
- What led you to learn Autodesk Fusion? Can you give some insight into your background/story?
Just about all my professional working life was in technology, primarily focused on software. I started my own company in 1990, merged with an accounting firm in 1998, and as a partner led the technology practice until I retired in 2014. I always had a connection with tools and woodworking seemed like the perfect outlet to further that connection. There’s something special about getting a pile of lumber and creating a functional and beautiful item made of wood.
I started working with wood creatively about 20 years ago and slowly added to my shop both in size and content (i.e. tools and more tools) over the years. In fact, when I retired, I strongly hinted that a CNC machine would make a great gift. I received a Next Wave Shark CNC and how fun it was, marrying both woodworking and technology – two of my passions.
About five years ago a 180-year-old burl oak tree that was a landmark in my town had to be cut down. The local food pantry arranged to have it milled and offered slabs to artists to create something that could be auctioned at their annual fundraiser. I was able to obtain a slab and made a live-edge coffee table and cutting board for their auction. After that I created a web presence called Wood for Good, where I build for charity, giving the proceeds of what I make to charity or build items that can be auctioned at charitable events. To date, I have raised several thousand dollars for charities.
My journey to Autodesk Fusion: As all woodworkers know 30% of woodworking is fixing your mistakes and we all strive to reduce that number. My thought was if I could create good, detailed plans for my builds it would probably help reduce my mistakes.
It seemed many woodworking YouTubers use SketchUp, so I ventured to learn it. With my technology background and having learned Vectric’s Vcarve Pro for my CNC I thought SketchUp shouldn’t be that difficult. Two things about SketchUp seemed not worth the trouble to overcome. One was the unintuitive use of the mouse – click a point and then drag the mouse without pressing a button in the direction of the line you want to draw – awkward. The second – it was too easy to get lost in space with no easy way to reorientate your drawing.
I searched for an alternative and found Autodesk Fusion (Fusion 360). I came for the intuitive use of the mouse and that helpful home icon to quickly orient your drawing and I stayed for the parametric design and timeline capabilities.
- Before learning Autodesk Fusion, did you have any experience with other CAD/3D Modeling packages? If yes, which software package(s)?
To learn Fusion 360 I would search YouTube and found several videos including a couple from Kevin.
Searching YouTube is very unstructured, you find a video here and another one there. Occasionally, you can find a series, but still lacking was the ability to ask questions and consistently receive an answer. For example, if you watch a video that was created two years ago, there’s a good chance your questions will not get answered.
I thought Kevin’s videos were informative and I liked the fact that they were short. You can only retain so much, so getting F360 in small bites is a great way to learn. I followed the link from Kevin’s video to PDO and decided to get a Lifetime membership.
There are several things that stand out that make PDO a great educational aid. The videos are short, in each one you learn a few skills and have others that are reinforced. This also makes it easy to get a quick refresher on a topic. The tutorials are arranged to progress from simple subjects to complex ones done in a way that makes it easy to learn. They use real-world projects that are very helpful in following along.
But one of my favorite aspects of PDO is the community. In my first F360 design, I had a lot of questions, and the community and Kevin answered them for me. I’m convinced that without their help I would not have been able to complete the project.
- What is your favorite PDO tutorial/course and why?
That changes as I move along, but right now it is Fusion 360 for 3D Printing. A need came up and I wanted to learn 3D printing. I was happy to learn that F360 supports 3D printing and even happier when I saw that PDO has a course on it.
- What advice would you give someone else looking to learn Autodesk Fusion? What challenges did you face, and how did you solve them/learn to get past them?
Having spent hours watching various YouTube videos I’ve concluded that random videos don’t work well.
I think the better way is to invest your time and energy in an online self-paced structured course such as PDO, which I did with great success.
In parallel to taking the course I worked on designing a project in F360 that I planned to build. This helped reinforce what I was learning and test my theory that a good design with plans reduces mistakes (which it most certainly does).
- With your new Autodesk Fusion (and related skills), what sort of projects do you work on? (hobbies, business, etc.)
Using Fusion 360, I designed an 8’ x 15’ media center that I built for a friend. It was in fact this project that I used to learn F360. I recently designed a desk that I’m close to finishing making for my local food pantry. If all goes according to plan I will be moving into a new home and I plan to use F360 to design the cabinets for my workshop, food pantry, and if time permits a Murphy bed with surrounding shelving.
- What is your outlook on Fusion 360? Do you intend to use it for a long time?
Currently, my plan is to use Autodesk Fusion to design all that I build and 3D print.
- What inspires you to keep making ‘things’ and learning new skills (such as Fusion, CNC, etc)?
I’m inspired to learn on an as-needed basis to increase my skill set and make what I build better. I learned optiCutter and OpenBOM, because I needed what those products offered. OpenBOM I discovered from PDO, which is another reason why I liked PDO.
I will continue to build as long as I am able to do so. I now have 3 grandchildren all under 2 ½. I will learn new skills to make them toys. I have a dream to build a treehouse with them and a further dream to pass on my love of woodworking to them.
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