I have e-mailed the guy asking if I could have plans to make models from them.

No reply as yet.

@unknownuser said:

"makes it a bit hard to swing the end like that"
No need to get "funny"

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend, I knew you were trying to help.

@unknownuser said:

.....would possibly require at least one leg/support of the workbench to swing away......maybe not?

The end sections are attached / bolted right up against and into the wall..... makes it a bit hard to swing the end like that, even if it swings inward it would only provide and extra 2 inches of room, not worth the extra engineering.

A work mate of mine asked me if I could design a fold up work bench for his single car garage. The design brief was that he wanted a bench at the end of his garage he could fold up and place his motorbike in the space. This is what I came up with:

1. The 2 end sections are designed to be bolted to the wall, that's why there is no cross bracing between them.
2. The length of the bench is nominal and will be adjusted to suit the width of his garage.
3. The back section will be pegboard where he will hang his tools.
4. It has a cross piece that fits into a recess at the front that can be moved to the back when the top is folded up.
5. The size of the timber is also nominal, he will probably use 4x2.
6. To lock it down and lock it up it will have those .... ahhhhh..... bolt thingys with a spring... had brain fart.... can't think of it's proper name right now.

He thinks it is great but I would like to hear from you guys, does anyone have any suggestions on improvement?

Ha, I worked it out, I have SU7 on my laptop in my room but I am not allowed to connect it to the work network. I just saved the model as a SU6 file and then ran SU6 from my external HDD and uploaded it here:

That is a SU7 file, I only have SU6 so I can't comment. If you want a wider audience then upload it to the 3DWH, they will create the SU6 (and SU5) automagically. The just post the link to the 3DWH page, people will download the version they have.

I just received an e-mail that says:

@unknownuser said:

hey i'm in the tenth grade and for a project in carpentry i'm making another picnic table I've already made one with a friend but it was an eight foot table. now i was wonting to make one and looked on the internet and found you. and it seemed like you could help i looked and looked but could not find a picnic table big enough. i was thinking about 10 to 12 ft long and 3 1/2 feet wide do you think you can help me with some plans??

I did help them out. Since it was soooo dam long I added a support structure in the middle. Here is the 12 foot long version of the table:

So in the absence of being able to find good woodworking plans on the net I have borrowed a few woodworking books from the local library. One of them is "Build your own contemporary furniture" (ISBN number 1-55870-610-0) from plans published in the Popular Woodworking magazine.

I have made one model from the plans already:

The next plan I did was the Modern Console from that same book and it would not work, the measurements would not line up. I followed the directions and the cutlist but some pieces were too small and others were too large. I double checked all the measurements but I had to adjust quite a few pieces.

Now when making a SU model it is just a matter of a few clicks and hey presto the piece is bigger and actually reaches. In real life if you followed the cutlist you would have trim some pieces and to go get a new piece of timber because some pieces were too short.

I just goes to show that plans even from the pros like Popular Woodworking are not always perfect.

I see the answers to my question falling into 2 category's:

1. I don't have SU Pro and don't think I need it.
2. I do have SU Pro but the effort to setup dynamic components is not worth it.

It was a question I asked out of curiosity. I wasn't planning to buying Pro and I don't think I need to create Dynamic components, I just wanted to know if anyone was using DC's in woodworking models.

@gaieus said:

When I am making a website, I generally check it in all major browsers - mostly IE, FF, Opera and lately Safari (for Windows), too.

The best way to do that is use Firefox with the IETab plugin. You have the site open in two seperate tabs. Then just use the IETab switcher so that it uses the IE engine in one of the tabs.