Anybody use Sketchup much?

[mike holden]

Bob,
Thanks for the info, bought the disc from your website and find it very useful. Best description of groups and components I have seen or read about.
Thanks again,
Mike

[Bob Lang]

Thanks Mike, glad to hear you like it.

Bob Lang

[mreza Salav]

I have never built things from a FIXED detailed plans.

I have a rough sketch of what I want to build with important measurements but I change them as I go if:
a) I feel it will look better or
b) depending on the material on hand.

For example, if I need two piece to be 5'x3" and I have a nice board that gives me two pieces of 4'11"x2.75" I just re-adjust my measurements to use this board instead.

You might laugh at me but I have built many things this way and I have made only one mistake in one piece (and to re-do that piece); so it works for me.

[Brian Tymchak]

The two videos on the Popular Woodworking site are just video. It's screen capture of the program with me explaining what is going on with narration. It's a lot like what you would see in one of my presentations at Woodworking in America. There's a lot of good information, but it moves pretty quickly.

I recently bought these 2 videos from PWW and I highly recommend them to others. I too started trying to learn sketchup on my own, then again with a book. I was pretty much lost until I was able to see Bob use the tools to accomplish tasks I could identify with. I worked through a couple chapters each day during my lunch hour. I loved being able to rewind/replay when my mind wandered, or pause and try it for myself in Sketchup. Bob's videos provided me the context I needed to learn the tool, and the different functions are presented in a very logical and practical order. Well worth the money IMHO. Having the drawings provide the measurements of detailed pieces will easily pay for the cost of the videos many times over. ...Only thing I need to better understand is which axis to flip things on... Still gives me trouble, but hopefully it will get to be 2nd nature through practice.

I think the OP mentioned not being able to do detailed drawings. Bob does a great job illustrating how to create detailed joinery with sketchup. And quickly.

Brian

[Mark Woodmark]

I do my drawing in AutoCad. I create a 3D solid model of all my projects

[Paul Halpern]

I use Sketchup for my projects. Once the basic tools and concepts were learned, I found it to be quick and painless. I've spent decades around enough software tools of one sort or another to be able to say that I think it's a great one. Not perfect, certainly, but then, check the price, eh?

I do my drawings right down to the details, whatever they are. Even things like dovetails. I might start with an overall look of the piece I am designing, but once that's done, I detail it as precisely as I can.

The component feature is great -- make a part once and use it several. Change one, they all change. Or, break one out, and make it unique. I love it.

Took a while to get a feel for how best to use layers. I don't know if I yet do the best I could, but basically, I use a layer for a particular sub-assembly. Or even a single part, if it warrants it.

I also dimension everything on Sketchup using separate layers. That way, I can turn them off and not be looking at a mashup of dimensional info. For each part that I need to fabricate, I have a dimension layer. When I'm ready, I just print it out, maybe in a couple views to get all the detail.

Anyway, just another vote for Sketchup.

[Brian D Anderson]

Add me to the list of people who use it religiously. At first I did just basic models while learning. Now I get into more joinery detail.

I pretty much started learning Sketchup at the same time I started woodworking. I like to think I've gotten better at both.

I really like the fine woodworking blog: http://www.finewoodworking.com//blog/design-click-build

I'm also a fan of the cutlist plugin: http://lumberjocks.com/daltxguy/blog/5143

-Brian

[Alan Schaffter]

I use it all the time. Once Ernie Miller got me over some of the rough areas, it has been no looking back. I do woodworking and some mechanical design work with it. American Woodworker Magazine even used the jpeg I sent of my SU drawing in my recent blast gate article rather than redraw it like they normally do- they did the part labeling with another program, however.

I even used it to do a lot of drawing for the design that I recently licensed. It is not good enough for manufacturing but allowed me to easily exchange ideas with the manufacturer. He ultimately used Solid Edge, a high end and VERY expensive (thousands $) CAD program, to check tolerances and do the engineering drawings for tooling.

[Stephen Saar]

Sorry to take this off topic, but how do you guys get the wood textures on the SU models? I've tried some of the wood textures that come with it, but they never look correct, and I realize that it's not going to look like real wood, but some of your models look at least pretty close. Am I just missing something obvious in the program, or did you have to add the textures in yourself?

Thanks.

-Stephen

[Ernie Miller]

Sorry to take this off topic, but how do you guys get the wood textures on the SU models? I've tried some of the wood textures that come with it, but they never look correct, and I realize that it's not going to look like real wood, but some of your models look at least pretty close. Am I just missing something obvious in the program, or did you have to add the textures in yourself?

Thanks.

-Stephen

Do an image search on Google for the wood you want. Download the image onto your hard drive. In Sketchup, select the surface you want covered with the wood sample. Click File/Import. Click "use as texture" in the box that appears. Click on the surface and the sample will be applied to it.

Hope that helps,
Ernie

[Todd Hoppe]

I use it in every project, and for some parts, will print full size drawings to use as a template. For my recent crib project, I used it to layout all of the mortises. It was a huge help.

[Lit Jones]

Brian,

That piano bench is a cool design. Is that your's?

[Jamie Buxton]

Sorry to take this off topic, but how do you guys get the wood textures on the SU models? I've tried some of the wood textures that come with it, but they never look correct, and I realize that it's not going to look like real wood, but some of your models look at least pretty close. Am I just missing something obvious in the program, or did you have to add the textures in yourself?

Thanks.

-Stephen

Here's a thread on that....http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...light=textures