Jean-Franco, Thank you for sharing your expertise with us! By the way, I'm one of the newbies that will benefit from your illustrations!

Indeed, 90 percent of a guitar is sculpted for feel. The fingerboard frets and neck length are the only really dimensionally important aspects.

Nice work. Looks like a good job for the Domino.

Dave R., and Bert. Thank you for your input. I plan on using SU for much more than woodworking, and a presentation product is important, so it looks like SU Pro is the way for me to go. Bert, your PDF looks great! Thanks for sharing.

If I had to build it now I'd probably follow your way, but the woodworker who built it was probably in the artistic vein that day! Meet tomorrow on Skype!

Ok, here are the pictures. Cheers. [image: uqoi_A.jpg] [image: Bu8E_B.jpg] [image: aPRJ_C.jpg] [image: n8e6_D.jpg] [image: 3Ey3_E.jpg] [image: w8Fo_F.jpg] [image: AeEz_G.jpg] [image: PDf2_H.jpg] [image: tuxh_I.jpg] [image: 3HW5_J.jpg] [image: jaDq_K.jpg] [image: tIJN_L.jpg] [image: ZC7Y_M.jpg] [image: HMKT_N.jpg] [image: w0Vs_O.jpg] [image: pyFt_P.jpg]

Thanks again. I do like the design on this table better than the one I had. It had turned legs and no shelves. There is a spot in my entry that needs a table like this. I just may make this my next sawdust challenge.

Tom, great work. I am curious are you using Sketchup to layout the stair, to show to the client, to build from etc. or all of the above. Cheers Peter K

Mike, you can stretch a board in SketchUp natively or you could use FredoScale to do it.

Cheers Dave Means alot coming from a talented SU guru like yourself. I have had some success with some models using the materials we discussed but I am busy learning SU the hard way - (making mistakes and trying not to repeat them) as I really want to do good NPR and ultimately PR renders to blow my clients away. I think a 2 year timescale working everyday to improve will get me to where I want to be. Thanks again for the comments. Slainte Dermot

Wooten, I like the idea of using a wood dowel and something like pocket holes. Cool approach, and very pure from a wood working perspective. My brother, who does a lot of fine wood working, suggested something similar. It would involve a lot more work than the joist hanger approach but the result would be elegant and beautiful!

I do exactly as Mut mentioned and it works every time for me, however I did have some issues in the first couple fo times I did it. Graham CNC wood routing

It was probably the image file to begin with. This past spring, one of the woodworking magazines did an article on SketchUp and offered as an "online extra" some wood grain images. They were nice images but way too large to use as is. Use one or two of them in your model and the file size would jump considerably. Glad you got it sorted.

that plugin looks to be just what I'm looking for to make some videos, to walk through how to fit a staircase! Ill post a video when I get round to it! Thanks, Tom.

Thanks again to all who responded. To anyone else who wants to learn about layers and scenes in woodworking design, I recommend Joe Zeh's Beginner's SketchUp Tutorial Series http://www.srww.com/google-sketchup.htm and especially his "Rules for 3D Drawing Using SketchUp," found in Part 1. There's also a good description of converting JPG files to textures, and orienting and aligning them to components properly, in Part 8.

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=17948&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=fredoscale The plugin is an attachment at the bottom of the very first post. Don't forget to read the updated first paragraph of that post and to download the LibFredo6 3.1f files, Fredoscale won't work without them.

Also see (already) mentioned in "The Daily CatchUp" (although of course no additional info added just a direct link to the conference site). Happy woodworking and fun time if meeting each other, guys!

Every now and again you will run across a correction to a plan in a later issue of the magazine. Doesn't help the fella who jumped right in and went to making the project, and I suspect that is how many of the problems are discovered. I've never been very successful at cutting all of the pieces of a project to the cutlist, then assembling the project. Incorrect dimensions in a plan is only one of the problems with that method of building. A bigger problem is that there is some small amount of error in every measurement and cut that you make. Some of this is due to the measuring device being used, and then there is parallax error. Even the thickness of the marks on the measuring device can throw you off sufficiently to cause a visible seam where two parts come together. And, as Murphy would have it, these errors are cumulative rather than canceling each other out. Over my years of wood working I have developed the attitude that dimensions in the plan are no more than suggestions and approximations. When actually building, I use the plan dimensions for the perimeter parts, then more or less toss the measuring devices aside. These perimeter parts are then dry assembled, squared and clamped, and I use a story stick or the actual workpiece held partially in place to mark them for use in setting up for making the final cuts. This is an old hand tool method that lends itself well to machine work.

Thanks Jerry, sorry I wasn't clearer- I was referring mostly to wood to use for external and internal finishes. For most unseen framing I'd tend to specify pine, usually sourced from northern Sweden, Finland or Poland based on cost, availability, sustainability and that it can be sourced relatively nearby. Maybe one day I'll venture into a fully visible timber-framed construction and the complex joinery that entails, but I'm a pretty determined "modernist" so most of my interest in timber is related to roofs, eaves, cladding, door, windows, decks, balustrades and other details. That said, I am very influenced by local traditional wooden construction (I should post some of my photographs of 500-yr-old Swedish timber houses- you woodworkers would probably love them- I know I do), but as I said, I feel like when it comes to actual know-how I am lacking and I'd like to rectify that. I can't believe it taken me this long to realise that all the expertise (and friendliness) of the Woodworker's Forum was the perfect resource for me to begin this process. As a specific example is there a wood or method that springs to mind for flooring which could run from interior to exteriors for a sun room and deck? Of course internal and external boards would be completely separate so the external decking could be eventually be replaced, but I'd love to use a wood (not too expensive) which would look great inside, but which would handle the elements outside. Of course the finish could be different inside and out (and the weather and time would take care of that anyway), but I'd like the wood itself to match through rather than say beech on the inside and ipê on the outside! I visited Japan last year and, even though I have read avidly about Japanese villa, tea house and temple timber construction for years I was absolutely blown away by them in reality. The most striking feature for me was the consistent blurring of the boundary between inside and out where, especially within the larger temples like Kennin-Ji, there were parts where even the idea of "inside" and "outside" seemed superfluous. The use of the same materials throughout the construction played a very important role in creating this feeling, which in turn unites building and the context. Once seen never forgotten.

Structurally, I think you could probably go with wider spacing, even if sheathing and roofing material will be added, but if a snow load is a possibility I might go with 2X8 timbers to span that 8 feet or so. Now, if that is simply for shade and will not have any sort of sheathing etc, then the more important aspect is how it looks, and how many hours of shade it provides given the dimensions of the lumber and the spacing. It's orientation to the path of the sun is a further determinant for that as well. I built this Pergola on the back of my house using 2X8 on 12 inch centers. [image: Pergola.jpg] But that was only due to design purposes and not a structural need. With the spaces between the "rafters", I think you might be able to eliminate the strips on top the run perpendicular to the rafters as they serve the same structural purpose as the spaces. Or you could eliminate the spacers instead if they are not needed for design purposes or for contributing to the shade.