That's my problem then, I'm working with curved surfaces, like threads on a screw. Definitely not coplanar.

I've been playing around designing things, and now I have a wireframe of what I want, but now I need force sketchup to make surfaces solid. I figure there is something like I select the 4 sides and then say connect or something like that. Thanks

I'm sure there is a plugin out there that lets you set the pitch, width, and depth. Can I get a point in the right direction at where you could find such things?

Its kind of backwards, if I want a negative push and want to use the keypad, I either push in and type a positive number to get a push in, if I type a negative number here it will do a pull. The opposite happens as well, if I do a pull to start with, then negative numbers will do a push and positive numbers will do a pull.

Thats pretty neat, thanks. It also reminded me of my next problem. When I'm doing a negative push/pull, I can never type in a negative number. No matter what I type with or without the - my result is always a positive. Is there something I'm missing?

I'm sure there are quicker ways so I'll ask. I made a 1/4 of the gear, copy/paste/flip, then copy/paste/flip both for the full gear. I had to make each tooth for the first quarter though. Is there a way to make 1 or 2 teeth, then copy/paste them, but they follow the curve of the circle?

SketchUp Pro and Solid Works? I've been teaching myself some basics with the free version of sketch till the man with Solid Works gets back from vacation. Wondered if there were any formats to move saves between the two.

And with that I could finish my first major attempt with sketchup, I present to you, a camera base.

Thank you so much Jean, that worked great and with nice illustrations. I was so close to doing it that way, but not close enough. I was using the eraser, instead of right click - erase, so it wouldn't remove the face for me.

Well the first box doesn't work fine, but I found how to get that one to work right. Once I cleaned it up, I click on the face that is still there and then click Hide and now I can see through it. I'll play with the other one over the weekend and see if I can get it working. Thanks.

Well when I try to do that, I can't get the second hole to appear, or in the case of the second box, the hole doesn't appear, and the cube turns hollow underneath.

File shows my two cubes.

Thanks again.

interactions part 2.skp

Picture is you have a solid block and cut out a circle on the face and push/pull it 2/3 of the way through the block. Then you go to one of the edges and draw another circle and want to push/pull it to interact with the circle so that there is an opening remaining. Picture the door when you cut a circle for the doorknob, and then you cut an intersecting circle for the latch. I can't get the intersecting circle to disappear, it just starts appearing on the other side of the hole.

If there is a way to do this on the free version, is it all possible to do something similar where the initial circle depth is only 1/2 way through the block, and the intersecting circle is cutting into the bottom of the first circle.

Attached file shows the two, just want the edge cylinders to be voids.

Thanks much.

interactions.skp