First Post! 2 questions

[David Huston]

First of all just want to say that I have been reading these forums for a few months since I got bit by the woodworking bug and I have sure learned a lot!

#1
I am trying to design a entertainment center that will consist of one 52 inch cabinet in the center, 21 inches deep, flanked by 24 inch wide by 15 inch deep cabinets on each side. All will be paint grade. I am thinking about doing a plywood top with paint grade stock to trim out the edge. My questions is what to do about the joints since the top will be 8 1/2 feet long.

#2
Is there any free or low cost software out there that will help me with genereating cut lists? I have access to some CAD software that will give me 3D views but it would be really nice to have a cutlist.

Any thoughts are greatly aprreciated!

[Larry Browning]

First of all just want to say that I have been reading these forums for a few months since I got bit by the woodworking bug and I have sure learned a lot!

#1
I am trying to design a entertainment center that will consist of one 52 inch cabinet in the center, 21 inches deep, flanked by 24 inch wide by 15 inch deep cabinets on each side. All will be paint grade. I am thinking about doing a plywood top with paint grade stock to trim out the edge. My questions is what to do about the joints since the top will be 8 1/2 feet long.

#2
Is there any free or low cost software out there that will help me with genereating cut lists? I have access to some CAD software that will give me 3D views but it would be really nice to have a cutlist.

Any thoughts are greatly aprreciated!

Welcome to the creek David! So glad to have you!

#1) I am a little confused (very common occurrence) why do you have top that is 102"? Seems to me that you would want 1 52" and 2 24" pieces for the tops of you cabinet. (well, actually 51 1/4 and 23 1/4) you wouldn't want the ends of the plywood tops to be exposed.

#2) Sketchup is the go to design software around here. It has a cutlist plugin, that is the bee's knees. Plus, it is Free.(best feature!) And there is lots and lots of help available here and on the web. So how can you go wrong with that? Also, I think there is a program called Cutlist Plus that will interface with other CAD software, but I know nothing about it, other than it is NOT free.

[John Fabre]

Welcome to SMC David, great bunch of people.

[Dan Hintz]

My questions is what to do about the joints since the top will be 8 1/2 feet long.

When it comes to stuff like that, I try to hide the seams behind another feature. For example, put little corbels or some such feature 1/4 of the way in from each side. You'd have no problem finding a piece long enough to stretch between the two corbels without a seam.

[Dave Richards]

I'm confused with Larry. It seems to me you would make the top out of three pieces and put the trim around them. Something like this:



Or, maybe your entertainment center will only be 3 feet or so tall and the top would be more of a counter top? If that is the case, I could see that you'd have to have a seam someplace across the counter. I guess Dan's sort of on it, then. Hide the seam line(s) with a feature. Perhaps you would divide the top into three as above but put a strip of solid wood in between the panels.

And as Larry says, if you do you drawing work in SketchUp, you can use the cut list plugin to get your cut list and materials.

[George Gyulatyan]

I am with Dave and Larry... however, there are two other options:

1. Most places that specialize in sheet goods (not the BORG), carry 10' panels, so you can get a top out of that with no seams.
2. Since this is paint grade, you can use drywall compound (joint compound) or Bondo to cover the seam. Sand it smooth and you're GTG.

[Larry Browning]

Ah. I'll bet these cabinets are short, maybe 30" or so. I had envisioned a tall cabinet. Maybe the top is as Dave suggests, more of a counter top that will be visible. How about altering the height of either the center cabinet or the 2 end cabinets by about 4" or so. It would solve your seam problem and add an interesting design feature. I think I would make the center taller than the the end cabinets and add a bit of over hang to the top on each cabinet. Or you could always make the top from solid wood. Poplar is a good choice for paint grade wood. Probably won't cost too much more than cabinet grade plywood.

[David Huston]

Thank you so much for all the input!

I never new sketchup had a cutlist plugin. So excited to learn how to use it. Is it, cutlist, hard to use?

As far as the top goes, I plan on putting some book shelves on top of the two 24" sides and will probably just hide the seems underneath them. Just wanted to get some ideas of how to cover the seems in case i don't get around to the bookshelves at the same time.

Here is a picture of what I am looking to build.

2.jpg

[Dave Richards]

So the top you were referring to is on top of the lower section. That would make a difference.

As to the cutlist plugin, no, it isn't difficult to use.See this for a link to the current version and this for some info on using it. The results you get out of the plugin are of course dependent upon the quality and precision of your modeling in SketchUp.

Is that a SketchUp model you are showing us?

[David Huston]

Thank you for the links to cutlist. Hopefully will have some time this holiday weekend to play with it.

No, it is a rendering from Chief Architect. I have a friend that draws house plans and he let me play around with it, pretty powerful software with a price to match!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Dave Richards]

Yes. It is pretty powerful but it doesn't seem like the right tool for designing furniture and creating plans for building it. That's just me, though.

Happy Thanksgiving.

[David Huston]

oh, I completely agree. CA is NOT the software for woodworking!

Got a chance to play around with Sketchup this weekend and I love it. Took a awhile to figure out the cutlist plugin but now I got a pretty good idea.

Will Sketchup do renderings like I had posted?

[Dave Richards]

Good deal.

SketchUp doesn't do renderings natively although there are a few commercial rendering plugins. I have success with an external renderer called Kerkythea which is free. there's an exporter plugin to export from SketchUp to Kerkythea. I get decent results from it although I've seen much better by people who are into doing rendering more than I am.






These are basic renders that I made from a SketchUp model. My preference, though is for more of a hand drawn look like this:



Or maybe something in between like this:

[Dan Hintz]

You shouldn't have too much of a problem finding a plug-in that will take a nice image and make it look hand drawn... I have come across several, and they're usually quite adjustable, like how far the lines can randomly extend beyond the end of an object, variability of linearity (squigglieness), etc.

[Dave Richards]

You don't need a plugin to do that, Tom. That's available natively. SketchUp comes with some sketchy styles and there are a bunch of mine as well as some others available to download if anyone wants them.