Not to sure what your experience is in the steel industry but there are lots of symbols that are used for showing welds on shop drawings.

I have tried modeling welds in sketchup with rsw's technique and it works well but takes up tonnes of memory and slows my puter down. I think just adding a texture is the easiest way.

Welcome to the board Larry. If you can do a better and faster job on paper then I suggest you do so. If not there are many helpful tutorials on you tube that I suggest you watch.
Here's one to start.

I saw a hand job on craigs list today but it was to small for me.

Something similar to this would be good for Solo's model this threads.

Thanks for the replies guys.

Anyone have any idea how it would look rendered? I am thinking about trying kerkythea soon. Is it better to have more line segments in circles or will it look fine the way I have it now when rendered?

I have heard good things about song bird I will have to check it out.

I have no iphone but I sure dont like itunes. I am thinking about moving from PC to apple and was wondering it there was any alternatives to itunes for a mac.

Just looking for some C & C for my little project.

I am looking for help with a couple of things. One being the follow me tool. I find when I make my shape and then extrude it in a circle the whole shape ends up being made of individual lines segments. Is there a way around that or should I just live with it? Second question is about how blocky the model looks. I guess I should have used more sides on my circles? Any recommendations on that?

Well better late than never. I just hacked together the wooden frame. Not to concerned about any help with that.I basically used the same technique as Dale with the follow me and then intersect with model. I used no plugins. I am just looking for some help with my poly count. And would like some advice with the follow me tool. When I use the follow me tool it seems to leave the rotated solid in pieces and not a circle any more. Is there any way to get around that?

Thanks to Solo for starting the model this threads.
And thanks to all who posted it was interesting how many different ways one could tackle this model.

Holy crap I am still working on the first challenge. Guess I will have to hurry up with the first one.

This one looks to be quite a bit above my head for sure.

Yes looks simple for the architect or modeler but would be a hand full for the steel detailer and fabricator.

Hi Richard. I just came across this thread. Its a shame that I can only see the last couple of pix that you have posted. I have been wanting to model my mountain bike as well. It will be a long time before I can come any where near your quality of work. VERY impressive detail. I am also a welder by trade and was hoping to see what your welds turned out like. My first attempt is ok but I am not sure how I would wrap them around the miters in the tube. I have also tried to model some chain and cogs. The chain isnt to bad but I see where you came across the problem of making the teeth the same distance apart on different size cogs.

If you are ever up in the Vancouver area PM me and we can go for a ride.

S

Thanks for posting rb. file Pilou. I tried it and works great. Thanks also to Wikii.

-S

Hello all. I am new to the forum and have been reading back through the old posts and learning a lot. I have only been on sketchup for a few months but have a couple of years on AutoCad.

I have been trying to get the follow me and keep plugin to work but cant figure it out. I have installed a few plugins before with no problem. I just down load the rb. file and chuck it in the plugin folder. The thing I dont get is that in the very first post by Wikii there is a skp. file and a rar. file. I have down loaded them both. With the FAK.skp file I follow the words saying to highlight all and then run the plugin except there is no follow me in my plugins menu.

Not sure what to do next. Is there an rb. file some where in the skp. file?

-S
ps I am on a mac