Here I am going to try a little bit more of this Sketchup program. I’m having a bit of trouble getting the hang of things – but I’m determined to whip this program into submission! I was going to work on a hall table – but decided that’s still out of my SU talent range so I’ve decided to do a simple bookcase. I’ve picked up few tricks. Nothing to fancy – but more than the baby steps I took with the table blog.
Between the medication for my neck and the cat sitting on my keyboard – I might get this accomplished.
First start with a rectangle the outside diameter of the bookcase. I’m shooting for 14” deep and 32 wide.
Use the push/pull tool to pull the rectangle up to 5’.
Now we’ll use the “offset tool.” This is the tool that looks like a half circle with an arrow coming through the top (13th tool from the left of the small tool bar).
Position the offset tool on the top edge of the rectangle so that the red inference dot shows up. Then slowly move the tool inward – you should see a second rectangle being created – left click and type in ¾” in your VCB box. This will give you ¾” sides.
Next select the face of the rectangle and use the push/pull tool to push the face back 13.75”
As it appears this is just a simple box that will have shelves added. Nothing fancy. I’ve not figured out how to show the rabbet on the back or the dados for the shelves. But I’ll get there!
Next so that nothing happens to my shell – I’ll make this into a “group.”
Select the box by triple clicking so that all the edges are blue.
The right click and select “make group”
Now onto making a few shelves.
Select the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle on the bottom of the case. I choose to make mine 12” deep (by 31” long).
Then select the rectangle and right click and select “make component.”
Now select the rectangle/component by using the select tool and double clicking,
Bring the move/copy tool onto the shelf component you should see four red crosses (x’s) and it should say on “on face on group”
Left click and hold the control key down—and move your copy up to the top of the case. Type in /4 then hit Enter. You should get four additional shelves evenly spaced.
Click on the bottom shelf (the original rectangle) and delete.
Now select one of the shelves by double clicking and use the push/pull tool to expand the shelf – ¾”. Because you made the shelf a component – what ever you do to one shelf will happen to the others.
Certainly nothing fancy here. I want to work on figuring out how to put the rabbet on the back and the dado’s for the shelves. I still need to figure out how to show the screen I’m looking at into the blog. That would probably help a lot. But I’m missing something in my fellow LJ’s explaination of how to do that. But will keep trying.
Hope this makes sense!
-- You can't get a hug from Facebook.
11 comments so far
lew
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4505 posts in 653 days
posted 488 days ago
Betsy,
Things are getting easier for me- at least navigating the menus and the basic tools.
With your help, I feel I am going to get this. I really appreciate all that you must be going through.
Lew
lew
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4505 posts in 653 days
posted 488 days ago
Betsy,
Here is a link to a screen capture program. It is simple to use and then you can save your screen views and upload them just like a photo of a project.
http://www.snapfiles.com/download/dlgprintscreen.html
Lew
Betsy
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2386 posts in 794 days
posted 488 days ago
Thanks Lew! Now that’s going to help.
-- You can't get a hug from Facebook.
DaveR
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1527 posts in 618 days
posted 488 days ago
Betsy, this is a good start. I’d be happy to give you a hand with the rabbets if you’d like.
-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.
Betsy
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2386 posts in 794 days
posted 488 days ago
That would be great Dave. I can use all the tips and advice I can get. Everyone has contributed to my SU knowledge. Every little bit helps.
-- You can't get a hug from Facebook.
DaveR
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1527 posts in 618 days
posted 488 days ago
You asked for it. ;)
One thing you might consider is drawing the sides, top and bottom as separate components. It would be the same idea as the way you would build it in wood. Make one side by drawing a 3.4” x 14” rectangle and pull that up to 5’. Make that a component, copy it with Ctrl+Move and then mirror it either with Flip along or Scale and -1.
Draw the bottom in between the siides; a rectangle and Push/Pull. Make it a component. Do the same for the top.
Make the shelf component and copy it as you did. OK, that’s got the case.
Orbit around the back and zoom in close open a side component for editing and draw the limits for the rabbet. You could set out some guidelines with the Tape Measure tool if you want. Use Push/Pull to push the rabbet in. Repeat that for the top and the bottom. If you didn’t do it before, edit the shelf component to push the back edge in so it’ll clear the back panel. Then use rectangle and Push/Pull to make the back panel and make it a component.
I’ll try to make some images to help.
Dave
-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.
Russel
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2063 posts in 837 days
posted 485 days ago
Great stuff Betsy. I’m not doing things as you teach, but I’m reading what you write so that I can refer back when I need to. I may actually be able to use this tool yet.
-- Working at Woodworking http://www.VillageLaneFurniture.com
Mark Shymanski
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1555 posts in 610 days
posted 485 days ago
Hello Betsy,
Thanks for the step by step approach. I agree with Dave though; I try to use SU to mimic what I’ll be doing in the shop so I like to create the components as if I was actually machining the wood. This give me the benefit of having to work through each step of construction digitally before going into the shop and making sawdust. I initially did as you were doing just using SU to ‘sketch up’ the piece to be worked on…but that left me wondering “How am I going to build this?”. Using Dave’s approach I am solving that question as well as designing the piece. My $0.02 worth… thanks again for the tutorials.
-- ...it's rennovation time!!!
DaveR
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1527 posts in 618 days
posted 485 days ago
“but that left me wondering “How am I going to build this?”…I am solving that question as well as designing the piece. “
Mark, I like that statement. That’s exactly the way I approach drawing a project after I’ve worked out what the thing is supposed to look like.
Every piece of wood that will need to be made in the real project is made as a component—never a group—so that it can be easily separated from the model later if desired. There are several reasons for only using components and not groups.
1. Using components rather than groups for parts which will have multiple instances (even if they are mirror copies) helps keep file size down which keeps computer performance up.
2. If I want an exploded view of the model for dimensioning or to show how it goes together, I make a copy of the model and move that copy off to one side. That copy gets exploded. In some cases there may be multiple copies of the model made for exploding. If I need to make a change to the model, I can edit the original and all other copies get edited as well.
3. Components can be saved for future use in other models if desired.
4. If I want to make a cutlist from the model, the parts must be components as the plugin won’t do anything with groups.
-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.
Betsy
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2386 posts in 794 days
posted 485 days ago
This is some great stuff! Thanks for all the input. I like the component as you go. With all these suggestions I just may learn this program yet!
-- You can't get a hug from Facebook.
DaveR
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1527 posts in 618 days
posted 484 days ago
Betsy, did you get my e-mail?
-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.