Ash Dinning Table #1: Table Top

Good work on the table.

If I may comment on your SketchUp drawing, your table is underground. ;) Well, most of it is. Not bad for your first drawing, though.

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

That thick top looks great…I really like ash.

It started above ground then I moved the axis to draw the table top. Just never but it back. Not sure if correct but I did have it at the bottom of the front left leg in the picture. Not sure how but I was trying to work with layers as I had previously done 15 years ago with CAD in college but struggled with the top. It kept connecting to the table base. It was last Friday so I can’t recall exactly what it was doing in detail but I eventually got things worked out and had to do so by creating the top completely away from the table and then moving it back.

Thanks for the nice comments. My first plan was to only have the sides and breadboards ends be 8/4 and step the inside down to 4/4 but was concerned the that table may not move correctly and end up bowing. This is my first project working with wood other then 3/4” pine and oak. I am still trying to figure out how I am going to move it.

Dave,

Forget everything you think you remember about CAD. Especially when it comes to layers. Layers in SketchUp are not used to separate geometry. They are used to control the visibility of components and groups. To separate entities from each other you must ‘wrap’ them up as components or groups. (My personal view is that you should only use components. There’s no need to make anything a group at all. That’s another story, however.)

Follow these rules and you should have no trouble.
1. Always leave Layer 0 as the active layer. That means you leave the radio button to the left of the layer name where it is at Layer 0.
2. Leave all entities—lines & faces—on Layer 0.
3. Place only components or groups on other layers. This is done in the Entity Info box.
4. Never, ever change the radio button away from Layer 0.
5. Never move lines or faces to other layers. Draw only on Layer 0.

Yes, I know I was reating myself but it can’t be stressed too much. If you need proof that not following these rules causes problems, I can send you an SKP file that demonstrates it. Yesterday I worked on a very nice looking tool chest model drawn by someone else. I spent better than half an hour straightening out the layer problems he induced by disobeying the rules.

By the way, you don’t need to move the global axes when you are drawing.

Dave

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

Thanks for the info. I did start playing with components when drawing the legs. It is nice to only have to play with one and have it modify all instances. I also figured out how to break the link when needed to make them unique. I will have to play with the components a bit more as I see your point. I wanted to hide and show the top separately as well as the dimensions. I did not want to clutter up the drawing with dimension so I switched layers to place them.

Yea I figured I did not need to move it but for some reason it felt that while drawing the top away from the main table base the top was not drawing square. The lines just were not at 90deg. I was able to merge two layer attempts to get the results that I was looking for. I will now take your advice and make the top a component and merge that down to layer 0.

Thanks again for the good advice. I should probably do some homework on the program but being a software developer I like the challenge of figuring it out without directions. But good advice always comes in handy when trying to work more efficient. I’ll have to read through your blog to see what I can pick up.

I have to say I just bought two 24” monitors to sit side by side and it is one of the best investments I have made in a while. I spend about 10 hours a day writing software but putting SketchUp on one monitor and all the pop out windows on the other is really nice. I got them from office depot for about $250 on their website. I had to go to the store to pick them up and I tested them there for dead pixels. Good thing I did because two had a few dead pixels but well worth it in the end.

When you are drawing with the Line tool, watch for the colored trailing line. It’ll be the same color as the axis you’re drawing parallel to. You can also set the line color to By Axis and lines that are parallel to an axis will be displayed in that color.

Here’s an example of a drawing with the line color set that way.

The dado wasn’t drawn correctly and you can see that its long edges are black rather than green like they ought to be. the fix in this case was simple. I selected the face at the end of the dado and moved it to the left until the corner was aligned with the guideline.

Get in the habit of using Guides to help in Layout. They are put in with the Tape Measure tool. Click on an edge or an axis line and drag out a parallel guideline to the desired distance. This can help with getting things oriented properly.

If I was drawing your table, I’d have started with the legs and once they were positioned correctly, I’d draw a rectangle on the tops of them from one outside corner diagonally across to the opposit outside corner. Push/Pull to add thickness and Push/Pull on the edges to create the overhang.

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

That all makes sense. I found the guides. I don’t think I would have been able to do the drawing without them. I’ll have to set the color setting for the lines. That seems so much easier to verify. Your way of drawing the top would have been much easier. I probably spent a half hour doing what could have been done in about 2 min’s.

It won’t be long and you’ll be able to draw stuff like this:

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

Wow!