Didnt read the entire thread but if you have some minor electronics experience you can purchase individual cells and rebuild your battery pack. Most often this is FAR cheaper than purchasing a new pack or drill. If you have moderate to good experience in it, you can find cells with a much higher capacity than the originals and extend the battery life by a large amount. This is something I have done with laptop batteries in the past. What was a 150 dollar battery pack cost a friend of mine 45 dollars and about an hour of my time.

I think that thing in the middle of the scrollwork is more a medallion than a knob. I think you would normally use the key to pull the door open. We have buffet that, although there's no ornamentation on the door, it has no knobs or pulls. As to drawing the scrollwork, I think I would start drawing the perimeter and then use a method similar to the one that Marcus linked to. I would simplify it a great deal, though. By the time you get all the ornamentation drawn the model will be huge even by your standards. I expect the upper and lower scrollwork on that applique are the same just rotated 180° I would make a component of just one and use that.

Hey, Jerry. No one else has mentioned that they haven't been able to open it. Are you getting the error message when you open the zip file, or when opening the skp from there. I just tried it and opened the skp file from the zip file without even extracting, and it opened right up. It was done in SU8 and I understand some folks are staying away from that for now.

Thank you for sharing!

Luca, you are right. I'll look for you on Sunday.

@dave r said: I've read through your list and looked at your latest version of the model. I think I have some ideas for you for the list and I'll write them down as soon as I can. Cool. Take your time. @dave r said: Since you've removed the materials from most of the model, you could delete at least the MDF texture to reduce the file size. Then you could post it here if you wish. SketchUp told me it was still in use, but I couldn't see where. No matter. I deleted it anyway - huge difference! That's a pretty big texture file, no wonder my puny little laptop was chugging! LOL! @dave r said: What format do you intend to use for the plans for this thing? How do you mean? Like PDF file format, or do you mean like A3, or ArchD, etc.? I was going to output to PDF in a hybrid magazine article/shop drawing kinda thing, if that makes sense. Basically a letter size portrait layout for the "Article" portion (the assembly procedure), with an "Appendix" of shop drawings, also letter sized but landscape oriented, if they are needed. Just so the average Joe can print the plans out on a regular desktop printer. If you've got other ideas, I'm all ears - this is my first time, so I'm just wingin' it! Workflow: SketchUp->LayOut->PDF->(maybe)InDesign, if it needs a polish. Thanks for looking -Duncan

there is a pluggin called CutList to do cutlist... it's great I use it everyday !

Thanks Bob, I learn a little bit more each time I use SU.

Thanks for the router drawing that was just what I was looking for. I will post the model again when more details are complete. Keith

As with any thing that would appear in the Context menu, in order to see it in the Shortcuts list, the state of the drawing must be such that it would show in the context menu. Select a component (single click) and then open Window>Preferences>Shortcuts. in the Filter line, type Flip and you should see the three Flip options. Set the shortcuts as desired. Click OK. After you've set those, either open the component for editing and select the geometry or select two components and repeat the process. I use F2, F3 and F4 for Flip along Component's Red, Green and Blue and Shit+F2, Shift+F3 and Shift+F4 for Flip along Red Direction, etc.

Hey, I do stairs all the time, heres a link to one of mine, no joinery modeled though, just the overview of the staircase http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=68a08cfb4f8f8391f04495c8942f82d7

Or, how about some Dovetail Splines in a mitered corner? [image: VaoR_DovetailSplines.jpg] Done pretty much like Dave said, drew the DT sockets on the joined panels, connected associated corners with lines, then drew my DT spline to fill the socket. Copied the sockets down one side using a copy/array, then moved them to the other corners by scaling the copied socket from the first corner.

I was making it more complicated. Just applying a material to the components gets that info into Cut List. Had to create some sheet good materials into a personal materials folder and its now cookin with gas.

Hi Tom, the only free raster-to-vector application I've used is called WinTopo Standard which seems to work pretty well. If the image you are starting with is colored (a photo) or very complex, it may be worth spending some time in an image editor adjusting contrast and otherwise simplifying the image before converting it to vector. Keep in mind that the conversion may not make perfectly smooth lines so you may still need to do some work in SketchUp to clean things up. Dave

Thanks, Dave. I had thought that copy/rotate should do that and went back and fiddled with it, and finally figured it out.

@purplev said: Hmm... the error you are referring to makes me feel a 2nd extension.rb file is loaded from one of the plugins. If you don't mind trying it out - you could temporarily move out all the other plugins out of the plugins folder, leaving only Boardmaker files there, and see if it'll load. at least this will tell you if the clash is with another plugin - or with the SU install. if it works - start bringing back the plugins one at a time, until you find the one that makes the error reappear - I would be interested to see what's causing this. PM me with Q, or what you find. I guess I should have probably just forgo the 'extension' concept and just have the plugins automatically load up. food for thought for me. Thanks Sharon, A big task for me to do so; bit busy right now so I might try when i get a chance....

@dave r said: Are you seeing this with Dynamic Components? Yes. both dynamic and static.

I found it in one of the help forums (fora?). In the model, click on the "G" on the bottom left of the screen, log out, and log back in. Go figure.

Matthew, I responded to you on the Plugins forum.

There is one script that I use very often when working on a component or group is "fr_hideall.rb" It hides all what is not selected. To use it, I select the group or component or geometrie that I want to edit and then right click "Hide all unselected" When I am finish editing that component I have a shorcut key to unhide all