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I've used SU to design sewing machine parts and toys, and they all 3-d printed just fine. You'll need one of the plugins that write STL files, and then you're good to go.
One trick: if it's a small part and there's fine detail, design it at 1000x scale, then shrink it down before you generate the STL file. SU doesn't like fine details.
@sdmitch said:
No but I have sent it to you by PM.
Got it. It's awesome. Thanks! It's exactly what I had in mind. I'm going to put this to good use.
@falk said:
@sdmitch said:
Is this what you were looking for.
Yes, exactly. It even healed the faces. Checking out SDM tools now.
I found lots of cool plugins at http://sdmitch.blogspot.com/, but I couldn't find this one. Is it published yet?
@dave r said:
... So the pommels on these columns as well as the tops of the reeds were done essentially the same way.
As were the stopped chamfers on the stretchers for this hayrake table.
And the stopped flutes on this newel post...
.. and the cope joints on the rails of this door.
And you can't do any of those with a section plane.
OK, now you're just showing off 
I've never done anything as nice as those images, but yeah, I've been using this technique for years. I was just looking for something faster for straight cuts.
@sdmitch said:
Is this what you were looking for.
Yes, exactly. It even healed the faces. Checking out SDM tools now.
OK, that was pretty impressive. It's pretty much how I've been doing it; you're just better at it than I am. You should post this under "tutorials"
Oh, I also see how using a cutting rectangle instead of a section plane also automagically healed the faces. Very nice.
@dave r said:
Understood. I'll put my tutorial
on hold then.
Don't do that. It will probably help me and it will definitely help other people.
OK, just as an experiment, I tried my example using this technique. With a horizontal section plane, it took me 45 seconds to split my model in two. With a section plane at 45 degrees, it took 90 seconds. I'm sure with practice I could bring those times down.
I use SU for woodworking mainly. My design process is to design the object I want to build, then slice it into boards I could cut on a table saw. This involves a lot of slicing, so if I could automate the process that would be a win. I'm definitely going to put a little bit of time into tinkering with Zorro2.
@box said:
You are missing the simple step of right click on the section plane and Create Group from Slice.
This gives you the intersection that can then be easily exploded in place cutting your model. Then using a selection fence you can easily separate the two halves.
Yes, I've considered that technique, and plan to try it next time I need to slice something. And I agree that it's simple enough to do a mass-delete provided that the cutting plane was aligned with an axis, or the model can be reasonably rotated so that the cutting plane is vertical or horizontal on the screen, but in my experience, there's always a little bit of clean-up to be done.
Look, I get that this isn't hard, I'm just saying it isn't easy, and I was hoping that there would be a plugin because I do this so frequently.
For now, I've downloaded the Zorro2 plugin and am looking at the source code. I think this will be easy to modify to add the feature I want, and will get back to the forum when I've completed it.
The cutting-plane workflow (without a plugin) looks something like this:
See http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15%26amp;t=43266
The labor nearly doubles if you want to keep both halves.
I call this slow and tedious compared to the workflow I would rather have: