For the Beginners - A Simple Table

Thank you for posting this step by step plan. I actually did it.

Thank you.

-- Hope Never fails

Mario, I’m glad to know it helped.

I think I’ll replace the images with some larger ones when I get home from work. Might make it easier to see things.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Great step by step process! Thank you. I look forward to the joinery session.

-- ...it's rennovation time!!!

Hi Dave its always good to see someone’s view on sketchup have you seen betsy’s blog’s on sketckup

andy

-- cut it saw it scrap it

Dave—now I get tapering!!!!

Andy——Dave was the reason I could do the blog. He helped me through the whole process. Dave runs a blog and teaches SU classes. I am glad to know you saw my blog though!

-- You can't get a hug from Facebook.

Thanks Dave

-- There is no such thing as a mistake. Its called a design modification Rick Kruse, Grand Rapids, MI

I’m glad this is helping some of you.

Betsy, I’m glad that adding the taper made sense. There are actually several ways to get that taper but this is dead easy once you see it.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Important: I should have added this earlier. Before you start this tutorial, make the following setting changes. I’m assuming you haven’t already modified the starting template.

Under Window>Styles>Edit, click on the wire frame cube and uncheck Profiles.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Dave, thanks for the step by step. A couple of neat tricks and shortcuts I didn’t realize were in there. I had made a couple of decent models before, but as I was trying more complex drawing methods gave up on it because I didn’t want to put the time in to learn. This had renewed my interest. I will have to go through the tutorials again for things I may have missed.

Again Thanks!

Dave, this has been a great tutorial. Thank you!!!

I have been struggling with one thing and I cannot figure it out.

“Draw a guideline between diagonal corners on the top of pone of the legs”, for the life of me, I have not been able to get the tape measure tool to give me the diagonal guide lines. I have clicked one corner and dragged the line across to the other corner while…holding the cntl key, w/out the cntl key, while in edit component, while not in edit component… Not sure what I am doing wrong? I know this is not a major issue, but if I understand what I’m doing wrong I’m sure I won’t break my mouse in frustration:)

Thanks again,
Mike

Mike, thank you.

Have you tried drawing the diagonal guideline by clciking on diagonally opposite corners of a single leg? You shouldn’t need to hit ctrl or anything.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Dave,

Ok,....I’m not sure if I was using the correct tool, but I used the pencil tool not the tape measure to draw a line between the diagonal points and it worked? The picture in the blog looks like the tape measure guide? Well, not sure if this is a good alternative or not, but I’m thankful that I finally got it to match your finished desk. Whew.

(Edited: Dave, just realized SINGLE LEG in your post. Thank you…that was the problem, but I guess the pencil will work too. Thanks.)

Mike

Mike, I’m glad you got it to work. The Line tool (pencil) would work for locating the center, too. The reason I would choose the Tape Measure tool, which I did use for this, is that I can quickly delete the guidelines with a single keystroke. Lines drawn with the Pencil tool take more time to get rid of.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Tks Dave. I just completed the table. I too had a problem with the tape measure on the diagonal but substituted with the line tool. I liked the taper and the rotate thingie.

Now of to part 2.

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them

Hey Dave, I tried the table and failed. I got to the legs and the taper. I tapered the legs and had them flipped the wrong way. Is there a way to rotate the legs individually or are you stuck once you make them a component? I could have fixed it easily if I could have rotated them. Anyhow I got bored of it and will need to try again later. Thanks for posting this. It isn’t as easy as it looks, at least to us computer illiterate folks.

-- ~ Inspiring those who inspire me ~

You aren’t stuck once you flip the components. You can use Undo and back up. Rotating the legs would work for this table but there are a lot of similar applications where rotating the copies of the original wouldn’t be appropriate.

If you’d like, send me your SKP model so I can see what you’re getting stuck on. I’ll PM you.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Thanks Dave. This was helpful to learn some new tricks. I too gave up on diagonal guides and used lines before you mentioned just using one leg.

-- ED

Thanks Dave. I took your advice and went to your blogs and loved this first one. Great help to us beginners. You’ve been a great help today.
Doug

Took me a couple of trys at the moving parts, but I did it. Thanks Dave.

-- There are three signs of old age. The first is loss of memory. I forgot the other two!