SU Project for Beginners

[SketchUp Guru]

24 January, 2007 The following tutorial was written prior to the release of SketchUp V6. With the most current version of SketchUp a few detail things have changed. Rather than edit the entire thread, I will make note of a few of those things here. I'm doing this based on memory so pardon my if I miss something.

In SU5Pro/GSU--Construction Geometry (Lines and points). In GS6/GSU6Pro--Guides.

In SU5Pro/Early versions of GSU--Hold Ctrl with Move or Rotate tool to copy. Later versions of GSU/GSU6/GSU6Pro--Press and release Ctrl with Move or Rotate tool to copy. It's a toggle function now. This applies to several other tools including the Tape Measure and Protractor tools.



John McM made a suggestion the other day for a step by step demo of sorts. I've come up with a fairly simple armoire design that we'll "build". Attached is a drawing I made of the whole thing. This drawing would be the sort of quick thing you'd make to use for communicating with a client (" 'Er indoors"). There are no groups or components and the thing is entirely hollow. No internal details have been drawn yet. At this point it would be simple enough to make changes. Does she want it wider or taller, 3 drawers instead of one. That sort of thing. Once we have approval from the client, it is time to move on to a detailed version to use for shop drawings. When we're finished it sould be possible to head out to the shop and start making saw dust.

The benefit to starting this way is that you have little time invested in something that might get changed dramatically before the project is really under way. Who knows, she might decide that it should be a tire swing instead of an armoire. :roll:

The next installment will cover construction of a single part of the armoire. We'll get that part finished before we move on to the next part.

Does this sound like what you had in mind John?

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Right. Here's the finished base assembly for the armoire. Here's how I got there.

Note: terms in bold face can be searched in the SU Help files. If you don't know how to use the feature, please review the Help files for information

I started by drawing a vertical rectangle to the dimensions of the front rail. The length is drawn without including the tenons. I knew how high the base would be so I drew the top of this rectangle at that height. I used construction geometry to lay out the location for this rectangle.

After drawing the rectangle, I used construction geometry to identify the height of the arc and the centerline of the rectangle. I'll use these to guide the next step of creating the arc for the bottom of the rail. I chose the Bezier tool to draw the arc. I set Degrees to 2. This is the number of spaces between editable points.

I set a point at each end of the rectangle and then set the center point along the vertical center line moving up until the curve met the horizontal guide line.

I erased the bottom edge of the rectangle--it is waste after all. Then I used the Push/Pull tool to give the rail some thickness.

The Offset tool makes quick work of defining the tenon on the end of the rail. I used 1/4" got the offset.

Push/Pull makes the tenon.

I repeated those steps for the other end. Since the tenons are both the same length, the second tenon is created by choosing the Push/Pull tool and double clicking on the face that becomes the end of that tenon.

The last step for the rail is to put a chamfer on the top front edge. I used construction lines to locate the ends of the 1/16" chamfer. A diagonal line and Push/Pull are all we need.

This rail is now complete. We'll make it a component so nothing else sticks to it. Making it a component allows us to give it a name and if we copy it later, it doesn't inflate the file size and if one copy gets edited, the copy(ies) get edited too.

The legs are next but it's time for bed. We'll pick this up later.

 

[JFC]

Thanks Dave . Now lets see if i can do this :shock:

 

[John McM]

Brilliant Dave, just what I had in mind. Doing installments is a much better idea too, much more manageable. Cheers
John McM

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Thank you, thank you. Since this appears to work, let's move on to the legs.

Actually, before we get started on the legs I'd like to make a suggestion. You'll notice that I use a lot of construction geometry for laying out my work. If I didn't erase thes lines periodically the drawing would get very cluttered. I have set up a hot key shortcut to erase all construction geometry. I use E as that shortcut. It is set under Window>Preferences>Shortcuts. You might want to do the same.

I used construction lines to locate the bottom of the leg relative to the shoulder at one end of the rail. I used the rectangle tool to draw the bottom of the leg.. This got pulled up to the top of the rail with P/P. I used inferencing to set the leg height. After starting the P/P, I put the cursor on the top of the rail and clicked.

Once I got the leg in place, I orbited around to the inside corner. I hid the front rail to get it out of my way for the moment.

I laid out the location of the mortises for the front and side rails using construction geometry. Then I drew the mortise by using the Rectangle tool and then P/P

Then I Unhid the rail.

I also put in the chamfer on the top outer edges. I strated the chamfer as I did on the rail but since it continues around the corner, I used Follow Me to make it. there are a couple of ways to handle the Follow Me operation. I like to select the path before selecting the tool.

Then select the Follow Me tool (I have F set as a shortcut for that) and click on the triangular face. Presto! Chamfers.

I repeated that for the chamfer on the bottom of the leg. In this case I wanted the chamfer to go all the way round the leg. I selected all of the perimeter edges and continued as above. I could have selected the tool, clicked on the triangle and dragged the chamfer all the way round.

After that chamfer was completed, I made the leg a component. Then I copied the leg to the other end of the rail. Placement isn't critical at this point.

Next, using the Scale tool, I mirrored the leg. Note the -1 in the VCB.

And moved it into place.

That completes the first two legs. The side rails will be done in the next installment.

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

Wow! You wouldn't like to repeat this with a wall-hung tool cabinet would you?

Seriously I'm tempted to scrap my current SU model and start again when you've finished this basic tutorial. I'm sure I'm doing things arse-about-face.

Phil

 

[Roger]

Thanks Dave. Following this with great interest ....... beats a manual and an indecipherable sketch any time

 

[Jake]

I'd change the thread title from "..for beginners" to ".. for all".

Loads of useful stuff as ever, Dave. Your threads always make me realise just how little I've scraped off the surface of this program, and how much better I could be doing things.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Thank you guys.

Phil, hopefully you'll be able to make that wall cabinet using essentially the same methods. I am still going to look at your cabinet drawing.

Jake, thanks. I just don't want the experts to think I'm telling them how to do it. It really is just the way I do it.

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

Dave,

I cannot see a Bezier curve tool. Could it be that humble users of the freebie SU version like me do not have access to this tool?

Phil

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Phil, it could be that it is not included. Do you have a menu heading called Plugins? If not, open Windows Explorer and navigate to Google\SketchUp\Plugins. There should be a folder called Examples. In that folder you should find a file called sketchup.rb. Copy that to the Plugins folder. There may also be a file called bezier.rb if so, copy that to the Plugins folder, too.

If bezier.rb isn't there, click on this link. Download the file to the Plugins folder. Bezier.rb

After that open SU again. this makes the Ruby scripts load. You should find Bezier as an entry in the Draw menu.

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

Dave,

Thanks. I'll try that.

I've just followed your instructions using a basic arc. Great stuff.

But I have one question and that's about the way you did the second tenon. You mention a double click. I'm not sure I follow you. I just did the same process on both ends. Offset and then Push/pull. Are you saying that the double click somehow repeats the function on the other end of the rail?

thanks

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Phil, the double click only applies to the Push/Pull tool in this case. After you Push/Pull the first tenon to 1" (at least that's the length in the example) the next time you simply double click while the P/P tool is active and the surface you click on will get P/P'ed to the same length.

This works nicely when you have a whole lot of repetitious push/pull work to do. Those dovetails are a great example of that. You push the waste for one of the sockets and then double click on each of the remaining sockets. All of the sockets then get the same treatment as the first.

 

[John McM]

Dave this really is cracking stuff. It is much much easier to see you carry out an operation and feel "I can actually follow that". It's great to see I'm not alone either. There are a lot of folk who'll get loads out of this. And, if that's not enough, your throwing in loads of tips as well. Top man.

John McM

 

[SketchUp Guru]

John, did you see my last post in the FSUT Request thread?

I'm glad you're finding it useful.

I'll get the next part up as soon as I can.

 

[Alf]

Very helpful, Dave. No danger of me having to wait for the next installment though - took me a while to find the Plug-in folder never mind draw anything... :lol:

Cheers, Alf

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Now we'll do the side rails. I'm starting at the back of the right front leg. A few construction lines for the lay out of the rail end.

Push/Pull to length and draw the Bezier curve as we did for the front rail.

Push/Pull to eliminate the waste.

Offset for the tenon.

Hide the front leg for a moment and make the tenon on the front end of the side rail. Chamfer the top edge. Select the entire side rail and make it a component. Unhide the front leg.

Copy the side rail, mirror the copy and move it into place as we did for the second leg. We could rotate the second side rail component to get its outer face outside but then if we edit one of them later the editing will occur on the wrong end of the other one.

Select both legs and copy the pair. Move them toward the back ends of the side rails.

Mirror both legs with the Scale tool.

Move the legs into place at the rear end of the side rails.

Draw the rear rail in between the rear legs. this is done exactly as the other rails but there's no curve and no chamfer. Just remember to make it a component, too.

[/img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/weekender410/SketchUp%20Demos/BaseAssembly48.jpg[/img]

Draw in a corner bracket, make it a component, copy and mirror to the opposite side. Select both of those corner brackets, copy, mirror and move into place.

Open the Layer window, click Add and make a new layer. Give it a name.

I selected all of the components for the base and made the bunch a component. Edit the Base Assembly component and select all the parts. Open the Entity Info box and move the components to the Base Assembly layer.

Click outside the Base Assembly component bounds to deselect it. Then select the component again--you'll see a colored bounding box around the whole thing. Move that component to the Base Assembly layer too.

And here we have the completed base.

 

[Chris Knight]

Dave,
Smashing stuff - many thanks!

 

[Fecn]

Excellent turorial Dave.. Thanks. - Keep it coming.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Thank you again for the nice comments.

I'll have the next installment perhaps later today. I should probably do some work, too. :roll: