Lamp - Shoji, midcentury modern - inspired #3: Dimensioning lumber adventure

With 50+ pieces in this design, it’s now an adventure in dimensioning lumber. Which is made lots easier by my new planer,

which works really well. The walnut, as i said before, was free, and quite warped/cupped/bowed. pretty much everything. So I needed a sled to help the planing/jointing/4-square process:

built on particleboard, which isnt the best, but it did well enough considering that after using my table saw to do its most accurate, precise work demanded of it yet with the help of a micro-adjust thin-rip setup,

what i got was warped pieces!

pretty

but not straight. So what’s the lesson?

plane smaller pieces?
not use such curvy lumber?

any suggestions?

I didn’t want to be running 1/2” thick pieces through the planer or router/jointer – they’re really flexible! so… i dont know.

the other piece i’ve milled is the base:

which i selected for that awesome symmetrical grain pattern.

One last thing. I changed the plan to be based on 1/2” square beams, as opposed to the 3/8” i had originally. I have been struggling with Sketchup and how to scale up the size of the lumber without actually expanding overall object dimensions (ie, the lamp remains the same size, just the framework is thicker). “Scale” is making a real mess of things! I’d like to say, take a piece with lap joints at the end and keep it the same length, just different width/thickness.this appears to be a completely non-trivial process. Any advice other than settle on dimensions at the get-go?