i did it and it worked great. thank you. -shawn

I am trying to intersect a model at .75" intervals. I need to seperate it so i can machine the pieces out of a .75" piece of wood. So I basically just want to slice the model, but I cannot get it split. Any help would definitely be helpful. I know the model doesnt look the best, but its the best I could do so far.

neck intersect.skp

thanks greyhead for the input. i went ahead and redid the neck portion again. i didnt even think about bending the neck at the same angle as the headstock. i need to open my mind about sketchup and realize that anything can be done. i tend to rush and get a sloppy model and then just try to keep working with it when problems arise. i will post pics if i can get the volute just right. till then i will keep the back of the neck the same. thanks again.

well. i guess i figured out most of my problems. the only one left is trying to figure out how to do the volute. attached is an updated file.

headstock 1h.skp

Some of you may remember my previous post months ago about me trying to do this. I have gotten a little bit better since then. My models are not AS sloppy. But I still need some help.

I am trying to model an ukulele neck so that I can carve it out on my CNC router machine. I am kind of dissapointed because there is some detail that I am unable to do only because of my lack of experience with sketchup. What I really want the back of the neck to look like is this

(the scoopy part that is under the tuners, its called a volute) it would require that portion of my headstock to be a little thicker. Its hard (for me) to make the curved raised and rounded portion without making it look really messy and then faces start dissappearing.

on to my second problem.

I did my neck in three parts 1) the headstock 2) the neck shaft 3) the heel (the tall thing). Where I had the biggest issue is where my headstock meets with the neck, I had to make the neck shaft go through the headstock so the back of the headstock wouldnt have any gaps. I have tried and tried to remove the part of the neck that is protruding from the face of the headstock but cannot do it without getting the neck all messed up.

My last issue is that I cannot get a face onto the back of the heel.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

headstock 1g.skp

I want so bad for Sketchup to be the one program that I use when it comes to part making. I get discouraged because I want to find tutorials on how to sculpt and model but instead I find tutorials on building tractors and putting textures on a birdhouse. Before I get blasted for that I want to say that I love sketchup and I know that probably 98% of its intended use is for architecture so I think that the tuts are definitely needed and useful.

I know just enough about sketchup to make some very screwed up models.

I have a CNC router that I use to take my exported designs and then cut them out of wood. I am currently building ukeleles and I can really only cut a few things out on the CNC for it. One of the things being the neck. Since I only have a Z depth of 1 inch on my machine I am just going to slice (is that the correct term?) the model into three sections before machining. NOW! ON WITH THE QUESTIONS!

I have included my ghetto model for someone to glance at. I have to issues and both of them deal with blending to objects together. The first is how to blend the headstock with the neck and the second is how to blend the heel cap (the pointy thing) to the neck. I have tried a thousand different ways. Seems every time that I think I found a solution, it doesnt pan out. Sandbox seems like a great solution but when I use it half of the surface looks good and the other half is all mangled. I want to use sketchup, but I dont know if I would just be better off going with something like rhino. sorry for the crazy long post.

PS the smaller model is actually to scale. i just find it easier to work bigger then scale it down.

uke work.skp

I am wanting to use Sketchup as a modeling tool to export as DXF or DWG to my CNC software. Right now I am trying to make a concave radiused dish for ukulele making. I want to make a variety of radii but I just started with 12'. So I made a profile in corel draw of a 12' radius then exported it as a dwg. It looked good when I imported into sketchup but when I drew the circle (which looked blocky) and used the follow me tool to make the dish complete. the exported file is just too blocky (the polygon count is too low?) I know that is part of the sketchup charm but is there any way to make this look better? Here is an idea of the type of dish I am trying to make. I will also attach the sketchup file.

12 foot.skp