This discussion is getting more and more interesting

I found Jeff and Charlie's approaches very clever, even if I still haven't tried Charlie's at the top of the door, where the molding should also be curved.

I knew about TIG's Extrusion Tools but never found an application for me with the Lathe tool. So I spent some time in getting to grips with it. I think it is a very good tool but I'm experiencing some troubles with the angles of the curved top molding. After having extruded the two corners at about 79,371° ( )I found the centre of rotation of the arc (Point a centre) and tried to extrude every section corresponding to each segment of the arc. The arc angle is about 21.258°, there are 12 segments for the arc, so every extrusion should measure 1.7715°. But I can only write 3 values after comma, this means adding some more imprecision to the angle. After three extrusions I notice that the segment of the extruded profile is not following the segment of the arc. The difference is very small but, after 12 extrusions the difference increases and this causes (at least to me) problems when intersecting geometries to clean up the molding.

Where am I wrong?

Jean (Lemire), thank you for your hints, but as far as I can see, your example ends up with rounded corners also internally, where they should be squared instead. Unless I didn't go deep enough in your example, I don't think it's the right solution.

Luca

First, thanks to everybody for taking the time to get inside the problem and answer me.

I'll try to answer you in order of appearance

Charlie: I only have the pro for v7. My v8 is free so I don't have Solid Tools. Anyway I took a look to your file and the path you used for the molding is not the same I used. Look at the corners, I have a curve and you just used two segments. Try with my curve and I suppose you will have my results, since ST are an evoluted way of telling SketchUp to intersect geometries. The problem lies in THAT curve because SU tries to perform that curve also on the internal side of the molding but has to create extra geometry that is partially compensated by very short segment when you scale up the model by 1000 times.

Mac1: I think you really got the point of what I mean. SU creates sequential vectors following the path, that's why I'm experiencing the problem. I didn't try to resize with the tape tool, I'll do it soon. The measures are 568mm by 328mm. Where did you find .568? It's not a micro door...

Eliminating the arc and drawing two segments at the corners would be an alternative but I wanted to draw that door as it was routed in the shop. And then, another question is still open: why I can accomplish the task I want, scaling up the model, doing the Follow Me and scaling back with no problems BUT when I save the model or the components SU looses some faces? If SU can't handle very short segments it should start loosing faces just after the scale down.

Should I think of it as a limit of SketchUp and change the molding path?

Luca

Hi Dave,

this is exactly what I did and the match is fine on the external path, but not internally. I also tried to run the follow me on the complete loop and paste it in place separately in every component but the result is the same.

Luca

Hi everybody,

I'm experiencing a strange behaviour of SketchUp. I made up my mind to a possible reason for that but I'd like to submit the question to your experience, to see if I'm wrong or not.

I'm trying to mold the internal side of a door. This door is made of four components and I want the molding to run seamlessly all around the internal path.

What I did was to run the Follow Me tool inside every component, scaled up by 100 times. I did several samples, trying different arc segments. With low segment arcs the molding doesn't match internally, with high segment arcs the molding match gets better.

But here's the main issue: when I scale down the component to normal size, everything runs well, I mean the component maintains its geometry intact and the unmatching is almost invisible. When I save the file, SketchUp seems to be unable to preserve that scaled down geometry and shows me the compoment with missing faces. Obviously, the more segments the arc has, the more are the missing faces.

I suppose that in this case SketchUp is unable to save all those tiny segments in its memory as he was able to do after the initial scale down. I also suppose that the problem is that externally the Follow Me tool "follows" a curve, but internally there is a 90° angle and that causes the mismatch that is partially cured incresing the segments of the arc.

What do you suggest? Do I have to accept a mismatch staying with low segments arcs or is there a better method to accomplish the task?

Luca

Sportello.skp

I prepare my woodworking plans before going down to the workshop. It saves me soooo much time!

Good work Goonster

I agree with Dave's suggestion, follow them and you'll be ready to step up to the next level

Luca

Using groups instead of components could help you with textures but you'd loose all the components properties and, finally, you'd had problems if you ever decided to use the Cutlist plugin.

I think that Dave is referring to the fact that slats are symmetrical, so you can flip them, thus flipping the applied texture and making them less obvious. Am I wrong Dave?

Hi Goonster,

It's good when you try to make some movements on the texture on single components. Sometimes it's not possible, or at least would be a too much time consuming process, as in the case of slats. I think that it becomes almost unnoticeable when you use straigth grain textures, thus avoiding evident knots or highly figured woods.

Luca

This is the table finished. It serves well in my kitchen

You're doing a good job Goonster

Did you intentionally left out the molding on the legs?

Hi Goonster,

nothing to add to the advice you were given. Just to say Thank You for downloading a model from my blog, hope you like it.

Cheers

Luca

Very nice piece! I like the figured wood on the front drawers

No, Aha, The Sun Always Shines on TV!

Aaaaaah!, Triple A is not international as I thought!!!!

Maybe it's only the "italian way" of starting with announcements.

Hi all,

as mentioned in the title, I'm looking for contributors to write posts related to SketchUp and woodworking on my blog http://www.sketchupwoodplans.com

SWP is now 5 months old and ranks about 325.000 by Alexa. It offers free SketchUp tutorials and free woodworking plans. It's the very beginning and there's a lot to do, so improving margins are good as well as perspectives.

If you are interested in writing some tutorials you find might be interesting and that are related to woodworking, just drop me an email or a pm.

Luca

Hi David,

all the above are wise suggestions. I'd like to add just this: it's normal to feel awkward at the beginning. You read all those people that continuously say that SketchUp is easy, the learning curve is shallow...
Actually is not that difficult, you just need time and discipline in learning it, as everyone of us did at the beginning.

Don't give up, just start from the basics and step by step you'll grow up. It's like building a house, if you start from the foundations, that should be solid, you'll go on and learn more easily.

And when you have any doubts, just ask, here or by private mail.

Luca

@dale said:

@gaieus said:

Me???

It's wikii

Ah yes, but what would we do without your vast repository of knowledge.
Thanks for this, somehow I let this great rb slip past.

Definitely agree

I don't make these kind of drawings, but I like them!!

Hi John, as Dave correctly said, you can find all sort of stuff out there.

Luca

Thank you Chris, I forwarded the message but seems it doesn't work that way.

Luca