More Sketch Up help needed, at wits end.

Hi Frank,

I’ll pm you with my e-mail. I have about an hour before I have to be at work :)

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

Scott may have fixed this already but from the image it looks to me as if you haven’t made components of the parts you are drawing. You need to draw each part as a component to keep them separated from each other. The face of the upright is being split by the shelf so there’s two surfaces—actually more than that because of the intersections of top and bottom edges. If the shelves were already components the upright wouldn’t be affected by their geometry.

Edited to add: I zipped this out based on your images. I probably didin’t get all of the dimensions right but it’s the idea, right? So, you can see in this screen shot that each of the components has been selected and has a blue bounding box. Each part is discreet from the rest just as the wood in your real project was discreet parts. And just like the real parts. if you lay one piece up against another, they don’t change each other. Of course glue changes that but I hope you get the idea.

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

Dave is correct. You did not make components. I created a new file. There are three components. They are all mirror images of each other. Try editing one and see what happens to the other.

Sides

Shelf

Uprights

Check it out. This will give you a good feel for the power of components.

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

Ah, Scott. We’re on the same track. Fortunately we’re going the same direction, too. :)

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

To work?

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

I guess I’m in the lead because I’m already there. Have a great day.

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

I am as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to this program. I came across someone that has a web site called sketch up for woodworkers. Here it is.

http://sketchupforwoodworkers.com/

-- Sell it here> http://woodworkerslist.com

Thanks, guys. I see what you’re doing, now gotta learn to do it for myself. Thanks again.

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

Stay tuned, I feel a tutorial coming on. Gotta run to work though.

Hah!

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

Scott, are you going to do one?

There is this although there’s no pictures. And of course there’s this one.

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

I’ll second (or third) Scott, and Dave, components is the way to go, the sooner you’ll get used to working with it, the easier and faster your sketchup work will become.

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

And don’t make groups. Use components.

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

How do you change the dimension readout from 64’s to fourth’s or eight’s?

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

To late to delete my message but I think this guy is giving out some incorrect information so if you use the tutorial I would verify his teachings with someone that knows sketch up. Sorry for the possible misleading information.

-- Sell it here> http://woodworkerslist.com

It depends. the dimension tool will give you the dimension to the nearest units selected under window>Model Info>Units. If a dimension is, say 1/4”, it will be displayed as such even with Precision set to 1/64”. If you just want to know to the nearest 1/8” or 1/4” then set Precision to that. If you have Precision set to 1/4”, though, you could end up with some major problems due to rounding errors.

My opinion is that you should draw to higher precision than you’ll work in the shop.

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

I’ve just spent some time trying to do a sketchup of a workbench, and it was a very time consuming frustrating ordeal. I wouldn’t have persisted if I had to make money on it.
Some tips that I discovered;
When moving a component to add it to an assembly, put the selection point dot on a surface or corner that will meet with an edge on the component. It might be necessary to rotate the view.
After selecting the move tool and component to be moved, press and hold the up, left or right arrows to keep the movement in green, red or blue axis directions.
Yes make components of everything even assemblies of components that have to be replicated.