Posts made by Sawduster

Seems this one doesn't work for us cheapskate Google SU folks due to lack of the proper 3D exporter.

And I thought that the "Vaccuuform" that came out when I was kid was cool for making model parts.

Just a WAG, but a couple nights ago I lost my USB keyboard on the laptop I use at home. Unplugging and plugging it back in got it back, but a few minutes later it went south again. I hadn't rebooted in days and had done some stuff in SU as well as a couple other memory intense programs, so I rebooted and all was well. I think the thing gets confused after a while.

You want to fill the screen as much as possible with the area you want to print. Click on "Parallel Project" and the view you want from the Camera menu. Then go to Print Preview. Unclick "Fit to Page" and "Use Model Extents" and Scale boxes should be lit up. Enter 1 in both of them.

Only problem I've had with it is that it wants to print the entire screen so if something is real long or real wide in ratio to the other dimension, it prints out some unneeded blank pages.

Welcome, Francois. Another sawdust maker and recent convert, not only to SketchUp, but to the idea of actually designing something before I begin building it.

This side of the pond we are collectively called "woodworkers" by others involved in the hobby/trade. Some of us subdivide into cabinet making and furniture making, calling ourselves "cabinet makers" or "furniture makers". But the differences sort of blend in the middle.

I've posted a few SketchUp furniture plans I have drawn on my website here. http://www.sawdustersplace.com/Sketchup%20files/SketchupPlans.htm You're welcome to download them and take a look to get ideas on drawing your own designs, or to actually make something from the plans. They do show some evolution in my abilities with SketchUp so plans done earlier will not have as much detail as later ones.

Coen,
Fantastic tut. Just recently started using layers to allow me to work on details of furniture in places covered by other stuff like drawers and panels and the like. I'd been trying to move stuff to different layers using the active/visible layer window under the "Window" drop down list. Never failed but that I would end up with components in the wrong layer and didn't know how to go about moving them to the right one.

TIG,
Thanks for that. Another weapon added to my arsenal.

Richard,
I've looked around my pics and such and I can't find any of pictures of spalted hackberry in large enough pieces to make a decent material that won't get all blurry.

Richard,
I'll see what I can find.

This may be a real DUH tip for many, but . . .

I detailed furniture modeling I often find myself having to make modifications to component parts after they are installed into the piece. Even with layering and the ability to disappear stuff to get to other stuff, it is often a tight squeeze. What works best for me is to do a move/copy of the component and drag it out into the open spaces, open the copy to edit, make the mod which is duplicated on the piece in place, then delete the copy.

Over the weekend I downloaded Wink and played around with it. One of the things I did was another tutorial on drawing DTs in SU. Gotta admit, never thought about using Intersect Model to draw the DTs or pins. One thing I would add is to speed up the drawing of the lines for the DTs. I do the top and bottom half tail lines, dimension the first width line from each of those, then do a copy of each half tail line with a "/#" to do the rest of the lines.

I would not object to a special forum here for woodworking stuff, though I've learned a ton of stuff from the archetectural types and others.

BTW, I believe you have to store pics somewhere on the net, then use the [img]url%20of%20pic[/img] function to link to it from the post. Like this:

That is stored on my website and linked. Saves storeage space here.

Attaching pics limits how and where they show up. There's a work around by atttaching them to others posts then linking to them in the post you want them. PITA.

Funny this should be brought up now. My modeling is of detailed furniture pieces, all the parts and joinery. I'm in the process now of creating a furniture series based upon a basic case component. The basic piece is a nightstand. A pair of the nightstands with the top removed and spread apart with a gap between them becomes a small desk with a couple alerations to the drawers and a top spanning between them. Or the drawers could be left as they are, and used as a dressing table.

The mods are almost limitless, and producing the different pieces in even a small shop would not be difficult.

Thank you ever so much, Alan. Just use your tut to guide me through installing some new wood grain.