I have nowhere near your mastery in woodworking, but I second what you've said. I use SU the same way in my intermediate hobby shop, and it has revolutionized how I work in much the same way. It's just part of my workflow now.

In the table design here, somehow the apron board's origin seems to have ended up 3" from the end of the board. All this means so far is that the texture is uneven (short dark section followed by long lighter section -- the texture is a photograph of oiled wood that is darker at one end). How can I realign the board's origin?

The helpful replies got me started. Now I'm blogging my crawl up the Sketchup Woodworking curve in http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=183&t=27728 for those who might be interested.

(Hope nobody minds me this turning into a bit of a newbie's experience blog as I crawl up the learning curve.)

All the tips and tutorials are very helpful. Like playing the piano, there is no substitute for practice. As my repetoire of tools and workflows slowly expands, I'm beginning to spend more time designing.

The key for me is to "make component" after drawing a piece of wood, and then "group" components that make up an element like a drawer. If there is a complementary component in mirror image on the other side of the table, then I can copy-drag along a construction line (guideline) or precise measurement to create the sister piece, then flip it so that when I get to the joinery, changes in one sister reflect symmetrically in both.

That Outliner panel in Window\Outliner is essential: shift-click to create a group, or highlight a group to explode (ungroup) it temporarily, or highlight a component to delete it.

I'm getting handier with dropping in construction lines ("guidelines"; in navigation, I'm used to moving lines of position along "construction lines"), so it only takes seconds now for me to make a couple of intersecting construction lines before dragging obstructing components out of the way to work on something inside. In the photo below, I've moved the top group out of the way to work on the case components around the drawer, and moved the drawer group out to work on its componenets separately too. When I'm done, I can simply grab a point on the group corresponding to the intersection point of the relevant pair of guidelines to drag the group back into position.

Or, I can make a copy of the whole table, and work on the components there, because changes in a component in the copy will reflect in the original component in the original. Both techniques have their utility.

Slick stuff. I have lots to learn about basic cabinet design and joinery elements. Sketchup is now letting me build virtual furniture and discover my mistakes before I wreck real wood. I had not anticipated this bonus. I can try a designing feature and look at it 3-D to discover why I need to learn more, then go look up options on the Internet or the classic woodworking books.

@gaieus said:

@dadoing said:

I still can't find a Drafts folder...
Did you click on the link I posted above?That's your draft folder!

Yup, and that's what made me realize I had overlooked "Manage Drafts". Thanks.

@dave r said:

The reason you ended up deleting both copies of the component is that you didn't close the copy after editing it.

Aha - my problem is that I was clicking 3 times to select the copied component for deletion, not once. Got it now.

@dave r said:

5. Select the component instance that you just edited. Solid blue line bounding box. Hit Delete.

When I tried that on my own yesterday, Selecting and deleting the copied component deleted both the copied component and the original one that had just been changed by working on the copied component. That's when I stumbled into the more complex process for erasing the copied component. Must have been doing something wrong. Perhaps make the copied component unique first?

The videos at these two links were suggested to me by a forum member in the thread http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=183&t=27578. They were a big help at this point in my Sketchup learning curve:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/22911/a-fern-stand-demonstrating-my-drawing-process
http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/24328/jeffersons-bookstand-another-workflow-example

@jim said:

I'm not sure why Dave didn't mention it, but he and Tim Killen have written some excellent articles and videos about SketchUp work-flow and furniture.
In particular, these 2 videos I thought were pretty good:
http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/22911/a-fern-stand-demonstrating-my-drawing-process
http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/24328/jeffersons-bookstand-another-workflow-example

Awesome, thanks. I really like Dave's workflow for furniture. Makes a lot of good sense. Now, I mustget on to doing the family bookkeeping this morning! This Sketchup is a wonderful hobby in its own right, to expand my woodworking hobby. You folks are great help.

I still can't find a Drafts folder, and I can't figure out the tip about being saved in the post, but I did overlook Manage Drafts in UCP the first time I searched through it, so all is well. I am also getting used to this board's Save Preview Submit button arrangement.

@dave r said:

In some cases I Copy/Move the component that I need to work on out away from the model and edit that component. When I've finished with it, I simply delete that instance of the component. There's no need to move it back. Of course that doesn't work if you are using groups instead of components.

This is really powerful for working on a deep component, once all the faces and edges of the table have been gathered into separate components.

The process I worked out from this valuable pointer:

1. Select the whole table, then Move-Ctrl to copy and drag a copy over to the right.
   On the copy:
2. Double-click on a copy's component to highlight it.
3. Move it out of the way.
4. Repeat with other obstructing components.
5. Work on the deep component that needs attention: changes made to the component in the copy will be reflected on the sister component in the original.
   When finished:
6. Open the Outliner.
7. Double-click on a component in the copy. That highlights the copied component's name in the Outliner.
8. Left-click on the highlighted component in Outliner and select Erase. That deletes the copied component, leaving the original.
9. Repeat with the other copied components.
10. DON'T TAKE MY WORD ON THIS -- still a newbie.

@jllmarks said:

Rather than using the tedious method of moving a component and then attempting to get it back into the same place later, I just hide it. Single click on the component to hide then right click and choose Hide. When you want to retrieve it go to Edit and Unhide.

This is the tip that allowed me to fix faces and edges deep in the table that had not been gathered properly into components.

To get at those buried elements I did this:

1. Double-click to highlight an obstructing component.
2. Left-click on the component and select Hide.
3. Repeat with other obstructing components, to reveal the problem edges and faces. Fix them.
   To Unhide the hidden components:
4. In View, turn on Hidden Geometry.
5. Double-click on a hidden component to highlight it.
6. Left-click on the hidden component to Unhide it.
7. Repeat on the other hidden components.
8. Warning: I'm a newbie, so don't trust my guidance.

I was unable to figure out how to Unhide all the hidden components at once. The "All" option did not work when I selected all the hidden components at once.

Very helpful, folks. Still a long way down the learning curve, but getting there.

I keep hitting "save" after composing posts instead of "submit", but then I can't figure out where they are saved, so I end up having to retype the post. Where are saved messages saved?

As the model gets more complicated, it is harder for me to draw new edges in place and then gather them to define them as new component. I could move existing components out of the way, but then I would have to move them back precisely. Maybe moving them back into place not as hard as it seems, but is there better way to deal with this issue?

@martinrinehart said:

I struggled up it and then wrote a tutorial so the next person wouldn't have a struggle.
http://www.MartinRinehart.com/models/tutorial/index.html
In the future I'll be adding a "send-me-money" feature, but that's not happened yet.

Awewsome - thank you. I bookmarked it and plan to work through it carefully.

I am on the learning curve with Sketchup to support my hobby woodworking. This SU software is a whole new world. Being a newbie, I find MS OneNote extremely helpful as I develop my SU workflow and learn the SU tools by reading websites. Not only can I type notes, but in MS Internet Explorer I can click Tools/Send to OneNote to capture a webpage for later reading or grab a screenshot as I wander online. Just a thought that someone else might find useful.

@mac1 said:

The chiefwoodworker posted a TUT in 2008 on bed side table. Maybe this will help you in the learning process. It is an 8 part series http://www.srww.com/blog/?m=200803

Well, how wonderful is that?! I downloaded all 8 parts into a personal PDF and will study it carefully. Just great.

1. If you use Microsoft Office, check out MS OneNote for collecting and organizing notes about SU.

2. First time you open Sketchup to see what it's all about, consider setting it up to look like the attached image. Check out View/Toolbars.

I'm slowly getting there with (1) learning Sketchup and (2) designing the bedside table. After 15 years of poking away learning woodworking and setting up my shop, it's time I tackled a proper bit of furniture with mortice and tenon joinery in the case, dovetails in the drawers, solid wood and some decent design elements. I am on no time frame with this project.

Here is a jpg so far. I might post here from time to time as I go along. I've figured out the beginnings of a workflow, components and more or less got precise dimenionsing down, but still lots to learn. No where near tackling the joinery and details yet. Still learning the basic tools. I have no specific questions so far, but they're coming.