Fall Sketchup Challenge

Hey Mot;

Beautiful design.

And yes, it’s feasible. If you need any construction input, just let me know. I’ll be glad to help out.

Oh, your sketch up skills far exceed mine. You did a nice job.

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

Nicely done Tom. Great looking table and excellent inspiration. Nothing wrong with your Sketchup skills either.
And I learned something new…I always thought it was simply the St. Louis Arch too.

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

You bet, Tom. It’s a keeper! You can do it! We can help!( maybe that was the wrong commercial)
Tom. ( Where’s the other Tom?)

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

I lived in St Louis for about 20 years. I always enjoyed the arch. They have a great 4th of July celebration. Around 1 million people show up. That was when I lived there. I don’t know about now.

The building to the left of the old Courthouse in the center of the monmument is where I worked.

Great rendition Mot.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

ah, I thought it was a fine coffee table, but it’s an Awesome Dining table. I like it – a little wide though, no?

I never knew the monuments proper name either.

Quick – anyone know the REAL name for the Statue of Liberty? (no google or wiki-ing)

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Vincent Van Gogh

Tom -

Very cool design! Impressive Sketch-Up skills.

David

-- http://foldingrule.blogspot.com

Thanks guys. It was fun fiddling with the math of the arch. In doing research, the arch is actually as wide as it is tall and the base is an equilateral triangle. It’s 3.17 times smaller at the top of the arch than the base and is considered an inverse catenary. As making the arched bases an equilateral triangle of 3.17 times smaller at the peak than the bases seemed an insurmountable task in my shop, I made the bases square with thickness 3.17 times at the peak than the base. For your viewing pleasure, here is the equilateral triangle base with proportioned thickness but base:height ratio of my table:

A table with arches of exact proportions goes beyond my sketchup skills as the math is quite complicated and I keep drawing bulges rather than a catenary.

And for the obsessive compulsives’ out there, a catenary is basically what a chain would do if hung from two fixed level points with only the forces of gravity pulling on it.

Cheers!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Scott, I agree that the width is a little big. However, if you knew my family, it’s best to be outside of my brother’s accurate throwing distance while seated.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Oh, and for those of you keeping track of my wife’s first comments to anything I create…”Is that a little race track on top?” groan

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

I’m going to Mcdonalds!
They must have simple answer for this!

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Bob, maybe that was the American monument that inspired me? The Golden Arches!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

why are you apologizing re: Sketchup Skills?? (Oh , that would be the Obsessive-compulsive-perfectionist characteristics???) haha. .. first of all – you did an awesome job!!! and secondly, that’s what this challenge is all about—to CHALLENGE us to develop new skills.

Again, awesome table. Let us know when you have it built.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Very nice! Great design and a great execution of the inspiration in the table. That would look really good in curly cherry with curly maple for the accent pieces! Great job on the model. Curves and round objects are tricky at best in Sketchup. It is not exactly suited for “organic” modeling! You have nothing to apologize for, your model looks great! The one thing I have learned in looking at allot of professional 3D artists and renderers is the biggest difference between a great model and an amazing one is the quality of the textures. There are allot of websites that offer them for free and some that require a membership, but they are out there. You can even create your own from digital photos. Nice job!

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

I’d sure like to be able to lay out exploded diagrams similar to what the guys and and gals at shopenotes etc. can do.
Is this a reasonable task to set up with Sketchup?

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Hey Tom:

What a great inspiration especially for furniture considering Sarrinen was involved in the design and he’s done his share of furniture design for Knoll.

COOL…........tie-in. Always a lttle something extra with the spud-man.

OH….....as for sketch-up….....you haven’t seen rudimentary yet!!!!

Neil

Bob, this is actually possible. By creating elements in your design, you can move them along a plane to “disassemble” the piece. I’m not the guy to talk to on how to do this, but your namesake should be able to chime in if we create a separate forum discussion that he might read.

Neil, thanks! I enjoyed reading about the design of this monument. I did not know that Sarrinen was a furnitologist as well.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Actually guys there is a ruby script out there that will do exactly that for you. http://www.smustard.com. The script is called explodeimplode..and it’s $10.00. You could do it without the script like mot said group all the pieces you want to “explode” and move them apart along a simillar plane. I have never used the script, but I read that it works pretty well… Smustard is a great site for anyone that isnt familliar with ruby scripts..there are allot of free ones and they are real timesavers! They are really easy to install and once installed they just appear in the pulldown menus inside Sketchup. Check them out!

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

came out great !!

-- ..... art for lifes sake

Very nice design.

My spouse, who grew up an hour from the arch in Illinois, wants to know if your design includes windows at the peak of the legs, like the actual arch. ;-). I highly recommend a visit to the arch. There’s a nice small museum underneath, the ride to the top is an experience, and the view is fun – the Mississippi River on one side and the city on the other.

-- Chelle http://artsgranddaughter.blogspot.com

I like the bent lamination. It is something I want to try. Great Table!

Bob, Tom, et al,

Exploded view diagrams is how I do all my final dimensioning in Sketchup. It’s a pretty typical process. If you subscribe to FWW online take a look at the Design, click, build blog. I haven’t been contributing to it much since finding LJ but Tim Killen , one of the other contributors is a master Sketchup user and has done some great explanations of his methods. Very impressive stuff. Very well documented design process.

During development of the piece every individual piece of wood is made into it’s own component (components are the key to working effectively in Sketchup). Once I have the design finished I’ll make a copy of the whole thing and then create an exploded view. I then dimension the individual parts. I can then either print them out, print full size templates, or just review them onscreen while I build.

here a view of my Morris chair with an exploded dimensioned view of the side pieces.

I guess this would be another good topic for a tutorial.

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org