I need to model a handrail for the spiral stairs shown in the attached. I thought I needed the Bezier Curve and CurviLoft plugins to do so, but a forum member has said that all I need to do is "make a spring, adjust it to the rise needed, and then use the Follow Me tool to extrude the handrail shape up the spiral."

Sounds easy, but I need help doing the "make the spring" thing.

The image shown here is snipped from my Chief Architect model. Chief permits me to drag and drop SU models into my models.

Well, that sounds easier, but how does one make a spring?

Which plugins and which methods would permit me to model a simple handrail for the spiral stairs shown attached here. I use both Google Sketchup and Chief Architect software. Chief permits me to import a Google SU model into it directly.

The model seen was done using Chief Architect.

I am thinking that Fredo's excellent Bezier Spline and Curviloft plugins may be the ticket. I saw a reference to a plugin named "Grow" in the thread about CurviLoft, but cannot find a plugin named "Grow."

Can someone give me a little push?

Veddie nice.

As to location, to use a line from a Counting Crows song, would those shots be "somewhere in the middle America?"

Very nice.

The wall graphic looks like downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with one of the three bridges, 6th Street, 7th, or 9th Street, in the foreground. Is it? If so, which bridge? I lived there long ago and walked across the 9th Street every day, going to and from work.

Edit: Yes! I'm sure that is Pittsburgh. Just looked at the same scene using Google Earth. I believe it is from the middle bridge, the one they re-named for Andy Warhol.

Very nice. I am an admirer of your work. You are fortunate to be in a market where fine homes get built, in a variety of styles.

What software is used to produce the working drawings for these projects? Are you using Sketchup for the interior design?

What I want is a type of clapboard siding that is sawn from a blank out of a large pine log, the blank still having the log's natural face, and each clapboard's bottom edge thus has the natural curves, jiggles, knot "poke outs," and general irregularities of the tree's trunk.

A photo of such siding is attached, but what I want to do is sort of "non-photo-realistic," in that I want the look of this stuff, painted in a solid color, but with that "waney" or "live" edge look.

A second clip, attached, shows a method for doing a texture of new painted clapboard siding. Imagine a single layer of a solid color, overlaid with a clear mask, on on that clear mask is done an array of parallel horizontal lines, the lines all being "shaded" to emulate the shadow look of clapboard edges on a wall, in outdoor sunlight.

What I wonder is what techniques might be used to create that mask of lines, so that they had the "natural" wiggles and curves of the siding look I am after. Such a mask would need to be large enough so as to not have repeats. I envision a mask 4' h x 8' w, maybe, then tileable.

Very nice work. Fast building, too, if trusses were being set on March 5, and two work days later the has all its subfascia and sheathing on.

What is being used for construction documents, software-wise? I use Chief Architect and Sketchup, and as I've become more skilled with Chief, Sketchup takes on the role of a modeler for the accessories and furnishings that Chief does not have.

What is the source of your SU trees and plants?

I cannot seem to figure what this is all about.

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My Chief Architect software is able to use Sketchup 6 models via a simple drag and drop.

My problem is that I have a new computer, and only have SU 7 on it. SU 6 is on my old machine, in storage.

Does Google make available previous versions as free downloads?

Can this be done? I have some highly detailed V6 (free, not pro) files I would like to be able to share with someone that has V7.

I tried uploading one of the V6 models to the 3D Warehouse, then closed V6 and opened up a new blank file in (free) V7. Went to the 3D Whse and downloaded the model, but nothing came in.

Suggestions?

Here are a couple screencaps of a house framing study I did.

The frame is complex because of how the roof bears on the mainfloor walls, and how a system of beams and posts creates a rectilinear bearing arrangement so the second half-story with its roof, sits nicely atop the angular wall scheme of the first story.

SU V.6 models can be dragged and dropped into Chief Architect V.X1 and V.X2 models. It is a great relationship.

Until an updated API is released by Sketchup, V.7 models cannot be handled by Chief.

Will Google do this? Soon?

Neal Barrett did this design for Popular Mechanics magazine a while back, and I did it in Sketchup to proof the design before making one. Made for my grandson, Vannie, thus the file name.

Whitechapel, a hardware source in Jackson, WY, has the knobs, hinges, and keyed latch you'll need to finish it. Line the drawers in green felt if you want to give it the authentic machinist chest look.

Vannie chest.skp

In the combined styles of Thomas and Gustav, this table is a big one.

Joinery details are in the model.

If you build it in QS white oak, be sure to do the legs correctly.

Moser-Stickley Table.skp

For your viewing enjoyment, a model of James Krenov's 1977 music stand for two.

Original work in Swiss pearwood and maple, I plan to do it in cherry, birdseye maple for the slats, wenge drawer runners, and maybe rosewood for the carved pull grab inserts.

The two drawers go all the way through, and have identical ends with pulls. The slatted backboards are hinged together, with one hinged at one side. Three upright positions have stops in the slideboard parts in the recessed top, and the backboards fold down flat when not in use.

The model is not yet complete with joinery details, but pretty complete otherwise.

Krenov music stand.skp

Thanks for the share, Tom.

I use Sketchup to figure and model arrangements of cabinets and appliances and fixtures in new and remodeled kitchens, then I take my finished work, which has resolved the sizes of all the cabinets, and use a freeware program, eCabinets, to load all the cabinets as a batch into a jobfile. There is no direct interface like your use of a .dxf export . . . I plug the width and height parameters into the eCabs program using my fingers. A 20-box kitchen takes me about a minute per cab to load.

I then email the jobfile to a CNC shop that cuts all the parts for me, charging me a flat rate per sheet, depending on whether the job is cut from 48x96 or 60x120 (inches) sheets. The parts are all edgebanded per the label instructions eCabinets prints, then stacked and banded to pallets, and motor-freighted to me. It is a 12- to 18-hour ride by interstate highways, something like your M4, as an example.

It is great for me to see how someone else uses Sketchup in much the same way, as the first means of getting to the CNC production step.

Now, please, show me your alternate solution to the Kelly Davis open-tread stairs.

Tom, here is a photo of the finished stairs, but I must credit architect Kelly Davis of SALA Architects, Stillwater, Minnesota, for the work and design. I clipped the pic from SALA's website.

I saw the house photos and the interior shots and thought the stairs such a cool item, I modeled a concept in SU for possible future use. I am involved in housebuilding and remodeling.

The stairs have carpet faces on top and bottom sides, and to keep the whole tread assembly as slim as possible, I considered the steel angle core to be a reasonable structural solution. The Davis house has a lot of elements borrowed from those seen in Frank Lloyd Wright's "Fallingwater" masterpiece, and my guess is that steel was used in lots of places in the structure, so to use a little steel in the steps was a natural extension. Structural steel fabricators are doing steel pan steps for stairs built for commercial buildings all the time, and Davis may have seen something and gotten an idea.

My concept has the top of the tread done with carpet and an underlayment upholstered to a 19mm thick piece of plywood, laid into the steel cradle with shims underneath. The bottom carpet face is glued to a piece of 9.5mm plywood, which goes in first before the top insert, and is fixed to the steel with short screws driven from topside, through the angle leg and into the ply.

A pic of the finished stairs in the Davis design is attached, as is a render I did in Kerky of a quick massing study I did for the whole house, using SU.

As for permissibility of open-riser stairs, many parts of the U.S. have little or no building code enforcement when it comes to this detail, and my locale, plus the location of this Davis house, are the same.

If you don't mind, Tom, I would like to see some snaps of whatever intermediate Sketchup images you use for the actual making of parts.

Or instead, do you export files to a CAD program for use in making part drawings?

I am an enthusiastic SU modeler, and use it to create and build houses, site-built staircases, and in many aspects of cabinet and furniture making.

Attached is a model I did to develop the method for doing an open-riser staircase, where the treads have upholstered carpet inlays at top and bottom, and finished hardwood nosing and back pieces. Because the desired look was for treads not too thick, a welded steel angle frame is buried inside. Stringers are visible, and are in the same species and finish as the tread edges.

Open riser carpeted treads.skp

I like it. Thanks a lot.

But I don't have the photo software to tweak the image so that it tiles smoothly. Can you do it for me, please?