Skpy to Completed Project

Jerry Palmer

Member
Messages
317
Location
Cedar Park, TX
For most of my woodworking life, I've built things based on an idea in my head, and maybe a rough scratched out sketch. While I've gone back an modeled (not always exacting reproductions) of a few things I had made before beginning to work in SketchUp, this piece for my church was the first piece I designed from scratch in SU and built.

SandTable04.jpg

Here is an export of the table and the SKP is here.

And here are a couple pics of the finished piece.

Sandbox02.jpg


Sandbox03.jpg
 
Very nice, Jer!

I've done a couple of shop things so far that went from SKP to finish product but I haven't had enough of a shop to do any furniture work, yet. How well did the skp mate with the real world?
 
I did an enlarged parallel projection export of the end of one of the stretchers and used that to set my sliding T-Bevel to transfer the angle for the tenon shoulders to the miter gauge of the table saw. There is a just noticeable bit of taper to the legs and the angle was something around 1 degree from perpendicular, and the fit was spot on. So I'd have to say that the SU transitions quite well from 1s and 0s inside a box to the real world of matter. :thumb:
 
jerry, handsome piece with classic lines. i'm still doing my planning by drafting with pencil and triangles...i just missed the electonic design age by a short time. actually did my last truck design in a 2D system but the 3D systems that replaced that were not in my job assignment.

byw, let's hear about that rocker in the background and on your avatar. is that your work?
 
Very good indeed, 3d cad systems, are a real help to visualize any design, modify it and keep track of all the variations that one may have. Look at them all together and compare.

However, the learning curve is rather steep, no matter wether is SU, Rhino, Autocad, Solidworks, Solidedge, Catia, Alias,3dMax, to mention a few. That is specially difficult if one is being self taught with the aid of a manual, and wants to use the system to design a piece that wants to have it finished by next month.

It is like trying to learn to cut dovetails when building a chest of drawers.

You made a terrific job both in design and execution, congratulations:thumb::thumb:
 
Clark,
I missed the electronic design age by a number of years. I took several "Mechanical Drafting" and archetecture classes in high school back in the day of pencils and T-Squares. I was in hog heaven my senior year when we had real drafting desks with those "Drafting Machines" on them.

I have tried several of the cheap CAD packages, but the learning curve on them was too long and steep for me. With SketchUp you can start getting decent results in straight line and simple curve stuff pretty quickly, and when you start learning a few "tricks" you get much quicker. I do quite detailed drawings with all of the joinery included, but others do quicker stuff to get perspectives of sizes and such, then work out the joinery in the shop.

The rocker is my work from the Hal Taylor rocking chair plan. That was my first one. I've got wood for two more waiting on me to get a couple of other projects out of the way. The plans come with pretty in depth instructions on how he makes them, but I'm not real good at following instructions so converted most of the elaborate machine stuff to hand work.

Toni,
One of the great things about SketchUp is all of the user support by users out there. I think Google pulled off a great coup by releasing the free version. The user base is enormous and there are just all sorts of sites out there and people on forums and blogs and stuff helping people to learn. Like I mentioned above, simpler stuff with straighter lines and simple curves can be done after a minimum amount of learning time. Seing the complexity of the stuff you're doing, though, it could take a little longer to get to that level of drawing. I've looked at some of the drawings of stuff you're working on and tried to imagine how I would draw them in SketchUp to the accuracy needed for shop drawings and I think it might be a while yet before I'd be able to tackle those.
 
Kudos on both the drawing and the finished project. :thumb: I still consider myself a rookie when it comes to SketchUp, but it is still a very useful tool in my arsenal. I've done rough drawings, and I've also done detailed stuff to calculate dimensions and such.
 
Jerry,

That really looks great. Nice work!

You mentioned "cut list". Are you good enough with sketch up now to have it give you form and dimension of the individual pieces?

Remember all those books that told us to make cardboard mockups before we made an actual piece? ;) Seems like ancient history now... ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
Clark,
Toni,
One of the great things about SketchUp is all of the user support by users out there. I think Google pulled off a great coup by releasing the free version. The user base is enormous and there are just all sorts of sites out there and people on forums and blogs and stuff helping people to learn. Like I mentioned above, simpler stuff with straighter lines and simple curves can be done after a minimum amount of learning time. Seing the complexity of the stuff you're doing, though, it could take a little longer to get to that level of drawing. I've looked at some of the drawings of stuff you're working on and tried to imagine how I would draw them in SketchUp to the accuracy needed for shop drawings and I think it might be a while yet before I'd be able to tackle those.

Hi Jerry, I completely agree with you, I've tried to draw some of my own desings, using a NURBS based software which I know and due to my lack of experience in it using compound curves and surfaces the whole process has been really painstaking.

Other simpler desings pose no problems, I've got SkechtUp and started to work with it, I found it rather straigtht forward, and easy to tackle, but I'm not in the right mood to learn to use another CAD package. I'll give it a try some time in the near future but it is not one of my priorities.
Due to my job each time I've changed of company I had to learn a new one, and were I work now they've changed of CAD software three times in 10 years, so as far as my woodworking projects are concerned, I only use CAD sofware when I want to make sure that all pieces fit together, and to know how much wood will I need.

For the initial creative step, I find easier just making rough sketches, and modify them following the flow of my mind, I've drawn most of them while flying from one place to another or in long waiting hours at airports.

For those who are more 2d and orthographic oriented people, and find free hand drawing difficult CAD systems like SU are a real help to visualize their ideas in 3D.

I stop here, because I think I'm hijacking this thread.
 
Toni,
Don't worry about hijacking the thread. Good to see some activity in this forum.

Bill,
The cutlist program works quite well IF I remember to keep all of the individual pieces as separate components, and go into the Components Window and purge all of the unused components. I tend at times to create a component, then need to explode it to intersect it with something and then create a new component from the intersected pieces. The original component is kept in the component library, even though it is no longer being used, until you purge it.
 
Top