FSUT Dovetails

[SketchUp Guru]

Here's a little video showing one way to draw dovetails. By working with components and the mirror function of the scale tool, I was draw the joints for all four corners even though I only drew the joint on one corner. In this example I only have two tails so the joinery wouldn't be that laborious to draw completely using the Pencil tool and Push/Pull. But it comes in handy for other situations where the joinery would be more involved; large cases with multiple DTs, box joints or other complex shapes.

I hope this is useful.

http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=855969571

 

[Jean-Franco]

That's great Dave !
Thanks to share your knowledge with us.
I like your videos so it looks so easy ...
Jean-Franco

 

[John McM]

Wicked once again Dave. Thanks very much for sharing.
Cheers

 

[mailee]

Well I'll be! Thanks for that Dave. I have been making my dovetails the same as that but I have just learned from you about making it a component and editing it, great stuff! In the past I have been drawing each end dovetails one by one! What a time saver. Keep em coming Dave.

 

[RobertMP]

I've looked at loads of tutorials trying to get my head around the workflow to have a model with joints on mating components that can then be moved (copied) apart to use the detail.

I should have looked here first! I'm not making dovetails but the concepts have been very useful. The bit I've been missing is to create the component straight off then edit them to shape. I started off trying to do it with layers then after watching some layers tutorials realised that they don't work like CAD. Components seem to be equivalent to layers and blocks all in one with layers in sketchup just controlling visibility.

Now I need to find out more about the guide lines that were used during the construction.

Thanks for putting in the effort to make the tutorial. Last time I tried sketchup I gave up and went back to Autocad. Think I might get there this time!

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Glad this has been useful.

Robert, think of guides as pencil or marking knife marks on your wood. Guide lines drawn with the tape measure tool are either drawn parallel to some other line, i.e axis, line segment or another guide line, or as the connector between a point and a guide point, i.e. origin, endpoint or another guide point.

They can also be drawn with the Protrator tool at an angle to a reference line. In that case you click to set the intersection of the guide, a point along the reference line and then drag out to the desired angle.

I set up a shortcut (Window>Preferences>Shortcuts) to allow me to quickly erase all guides. I use E for that. A drawing can quickly become cluttered with them if you don't delete them periodically.

 

[RobertMP]

Guide lines seemed to be appearing at random when I clicked the ruler down! Then I re read your post and I think I've got them appearing where i want them now

I have made a couple accidentally whilst I was drawing/checking measurements and wondered what they were Don't think I've seen them mentioned in the tutorials I've viewed either. Like the fact they can extend way beyond the object and are easy to delete. Putting them on their own layer means I can hide them easy too... getting better all the time.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Remember you can set the location of the guides by typing the distance in the VCB.

The fact that they run off to infinity is certainly handy when you need to locate a point in space. You can also use them to guide the Move tool when you need to move something in a direction other than parallel to one of the axes.

Don't keep too many of the guides. They just bloat your file size so delete them when you're finished with them.

And a note about layers. Keep Layer 0 active and move geometry to other layers as needed. Do not get into the habit of changing the active layer. It is too easy to get started drawing geometry on the wrong layer and that ends up being difficult to fix.

I have harped on that before and had folks tell me I'm nuts. After they work with SketchUp for a little while, though, they come back and tell me I was right. I spent several hours correcting a model for a fellow who was convinced I was wrong. I was surprised that he would admit I was right and then send me his model to fix after he gave up

Make your life easy. Draw everything on Layer 0 and then move it to other layers if you like.

 

[RobertMP]

Well there are still a few questions I could ask but I'll try and work them out myself

Just wanted to say the guide lines are already making some of the things I wanted to do a lot easier!

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Glad to hear they are helping. Go ahead and ask. Maybe I can make a tutorial of it.

 

[Slim]

Dave, could you do a tutorial of how to draw my design for the competition. If you could add textures and reder it in podium for me that would be great. Oh and I need it for then end of the month.

Thanks
:wink:

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Sorry slimjim. I'd love to help but I don't use Podium anymore. Kerkythea is my renderer of choice. :wink:

 

[Nick W]

Now Dave, you're just going to have to give your reasons for that change.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Nick, Kerkythea is free, Podium ain't. Kerkythea is easy to use and has more features, too.

 

[RobertMP]

I'll pose this question in here as I'm trying to do something similar to the demo.

I think I've been making things hard for myself by using layers. I've drawn the tenon on the end of one component. Then I put it on a layer so I can hide it with the layers visiblity easily.

Next I edit the mating component in wireframe view and draw round the tenon to create the mortice. Somehow it is never straight forward and i end up drawing more lines than I expected to break the surface for the mortice. Anyway I end up with the desired appearance.

Got a feeling I'm losing track of what layer things are on and surfaces start dissappearing on other components when I hide an unrelated layer!

I go back to edit the problem component and find I can't draw the line to remake the surface (whilst the problem layer is still hidden). Cursor message is :-

Edge is on hidden layer Framing
Edge is used by a face that is on hidden layer framing.

Maybe easier with some pictures.

The view with all layer on

Then I turn off layers that have components that touch this one... and it breaks.

If I select everything in the componennt,make sure it is all on the same layer, deselect (but stay in component edit) and try to draw in the missing lines I get the error message on the cursor.

I've got the detail I need so it is not the end of the world but I'd love to know what I'm doing wrong! Probably plenty

 

[SketchUp Guru]

I think you are making it too difficult on yourself. Forget the layers thing for awhile. Just draw each piece of wood as it will be made. Make it a component before you move on to the next piece. Draw what you know of it but don't worry too much about the joinery. Draw the other parts and make them components. Make sure you keep each piece of "wood" as a separate component. Edit the components as needed to add the joinery. Use the x-ray or wireframe view if you need to see hidden parts of a component. Or use guides to layout where you need to draw. You can can layout the guides in reference to one component and then hide that component (right click, Hide.) if need be.

If you are going to use layers, adhere to this one very specific rule. Never, ever, ever make any layer other than Layer 0 the active layer. Do all of your drawing on Layer 0. Create new layers as needed and move components to those layers via the Entity Info box.

Do not make a new layer active and then start drawing. It is too easy to get things confused as you have already found. Layer assignments do not keep geometry separated. You can only keep geometry separated by put it in separate groups or components.

I hope that helps.

Send me your model if you want help fixing it.

Dave

 

[RobertMP]

Thanks as always for the help.

Layer is a cad habit. Make the layers then make the parts on the layers. Habit about to be broken

I can right click a component and hide it. Solves my viewing problem so I don't need layers any more if I only ever draw components.

So far I have not worked out how to unhide! It would be nice if there was a components list with hide/show switches. I have the components window but that just lets me add more parts (or does it do more?).

Assuming I get it visible again can I move everything back to layer0 and delete the rest?

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Unhide is found under the Edit menu so that should take care of that.

In the Layers dialog box, make sure the round radio button for Layer 0 is selected. Then select all of the other layers--click the first, hold Shift and click the last. Click on the - in the circle at the top. When prompted, choose the option to move the geometry to the active layer.

 

[RobertMP]

With the new way of working and no layers things have suddenly got a lot easier Thanks yet again.