Designing a custom conference table can be a challenge, especially with wide-open design parameters. Scott Wunder of WunderWoods in O'Fallon, Missouri, recently released a video giving viewers an intimate look at his design process from sketches to a prototype scale model.

Wunder starts with paper and pencil, working through a number of ideas with quick sketches. The table is for a construction company, so he plays with several construction-themed concepts such as bridge-style trusses and a metal base that looks like I-beam girders. Eventually, he lands on an arch-based design that has definite challenges in construction.

To work out those issues and create a better visualization of the final product, Wunder draws the table in the SketchUp 3D modeling program and then sets out to make a scale model in the shop. He has to work out complex angles and practical construction problems, so the scale model helps with that before he starts to build the real thing. He uses CNC and conventional tools to make the scale model.

In these days of CNC manufacturing, fewer shops bother with scale models, but Wunder shows how building the scale model can make the project more likely for the customer to approve and easier for the shop to build. Take a look.