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Thread: Anyone Use Sketchup For Woodworkers?

  1. #16
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Seattle, WA
    Posts
    1,495
    I've spent many hours with sketchup. I'm 34 years old and grew up with a computer in the house, so I imagine that helps.

    My experience has been that it can be really frustrating to use at first. Youtube is a huge huge help. My advice for learning it is to watch a few beginners videos first, try to design something and let yourself get frustrated, then go back to youtube for some intermediate videos. Then play with it. You'll get over a hump and it will become second nature. Just plan to spend 10 hours or so messing with it before you get over that hump.

    I use it for projects where precision is important. For example, when designing built-ins and kitchen cabinetry. So far I've built a few built-ins based on designs I did in sketchup. It really helped clarify things that would've otherwise required trial and error. I've also designed our kitchen, but I have yet to embark on that project.

    I find sketchup less useful for pieces of free-standing furniture where the outer dimensions of the piece are more flexible. My approach to such pieces is to use pen and graph paper, and tweak dimensions as I build it. This also gives you the freedom to play with your design to work around your material (grain patterns, blemishes, etc). It's my personal view that working off of very precise plans actually makes woodworking less fun.

    A middle ground is to do as Jim stated above- don't worry about planning your joinery in sketchup or doing exploded diagrams of every piece- just use it to mess with proportions. That makes a whole lot of sense to me.

    To each his own, but it's very much worth giving it a good try and pushing through some of the frustrations to at least learn whether you enjoy it!

  2. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Larry Browning View Post
    Really? This just supports my theory about learning how to use Sketchup being more of a God given talent like playing a musical instrument of playing sports. Either you can do it or you can't. Unfortunately I fall into the can't category. I have seriously tried to learn how to use Sketchup at least twice and have failed both times. A pencil, ruler, and graph paper have always proved to be MUCH faster (like about 5-10 times!) than Sketchup for me.
    Actually, I am planning on giving it another try after I retire in 2 years.
    I've been using various drawing and cad programs for more than 30 years. Used CorelDraw well before version 1.0 shipped and DOS based versions of AutoCAD (talk about user hostile...). The concepts are pretty straightforward and SU is pretty good in that regard. Though, the mapping of 3D onto a 2D screen takes a little getting used to. I'd go look for SU beginner tutorials. Once you "get" how to make solids, it should start to click.

  3. #18
    I've used pretty much every professional CAD program out there, from Autocad up to CATIA, and everything in between. I find Sketchup good for, as the name implies, doing sketches. For doing anything really detailed though, I find it very lacking. For that I tend to use Solidworks. I'l sketch something up quickly in Sketchup, and then make a full detailed set of drawings in Solidworks.

  4. #19
    To all those who who made compliments, thank you. I'm happy that I've been able to help you learn to use SketchUp.

    To those who say SketchUp isn't good for the details, I suppose you are right. But for simple projects like Phillip Lowe's Low Boy, Steve Latta's Federal-style Serpentine Sideboard and Michael Fortune's Garden Chair I think it is adequate. It's good enough enough to get all the details a woodworker needs to make images to communicate with a client as well as the shop drawings to work from.

    I'm guessing there aren't many of us who could afford a seat of Solidworks to use in our home shop. When I checked on the price back in July I was told the least expensive version was $5000 and there's a $1500 annual subscription fee. A guy could buy some pretty nice machines for the shop for that.
    Last edited by Dave Richards; 12-02-2014 at 6:31 PM.

  5. #20
    I dunno, it's not hard to draw complex profiles and such in SU. It's kind of a stretch to call the projects that Dave linked above "simple".

    I also have used it to design model airplanes and that is far more exacting than any woodworking project.

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Eagle River, Alaska
    Posts
    731
    Confused. I just downloaded SketchUP Make. It says it's a 30 day free trial. Is this not the free version? Did I download the wrong one?
    Rich
    ALASKANS FOR GLOBAL WARMING

    Eagle River Alaska

  7. #22
    You got the pro version which, starting with SU2015 has a 30 day trial period. You could get the free version instead or if you've installed the pro version, you might as well use the trial period up and then install the free version. Up to you.

  8. #23
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Ottawa, ON Canada
    Posts
    1,467
    If you want to see what Sketchup free is capable of, look to a Youtube video where a team of university profs and students is modelling Rome as it existed when the Roman empire ruled the world. This thing is unbelievable!

    I'll second or third all those who mentioned Dave as the go to guy for woodworkers using Sketchup.
    Grant
    Ottawa ON

  9. #24
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Texas Hill Country
    Posts
    705
    For those with experience using SU, can I create a plywood cut list to show me how to get the most out of my sheets? Does it take grain direction into consideration? I've tried to use it several times. First time, I invested a little more time and felt almost comfortable doing some of the simple things but forgot it all by the second time using it and then got frustrated. Going to give it a third shot. Also wondering how many of you have read the ebook from FWW by Dave Richards SU for Woodworkers - The Basics? Is it worth the $10 (with 25% discount now on FWW.com)?

    Thanks!
    Mike

  10. #25
    Join Date
    Jul 2017
    Location
    Prairie Village, KS
    Posts
    397
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Manning View Post
    For those with experience using SU, can I create a plywood cut list to show me how to get the most out of my sheets? Does it take grain direction into consideration? I've tried to use it several times. First time, I invested a little more time and felt almost comfortable doing some of the simple things but forgot it all by the second time using it and then got frustrated. Going to give it a third shot. Also wondering how many of you have read the ebook from FWW by Dave Richards SU for Woodworkers - The Basics? Is it worth the $10 (with 25% discount now on FWW.com)?

    Thanks!
    Mike
    There is a plugin out there that will generate cut lists but it apparently has quite a few shortcomings. Jay Bates has a lot of good tutorials for SketchUp and walks through making a cut list in a few different videos. His technique is to basically make a copy of the assembly and then break out all of the parts and move them onto sheets/boards. It can be tedious but the results are pretty good. You just have to make sure to allow for the kerf.

  11. #26
    I'm currently reading - well, working through - a book named "Sketchup: A Design Guide for Woodworkers" by Joe Zeh. So far I've finished the initial chapter that introduces and and sets up the software. The very next chapter starts the hands on stuff. I think it was written using a slightly older version of SketchUp Make (the free version), but so far it matches just fine.

    So far the book is taking a slow and careful one-step-at-a-time approach toward learning SketchUp.

    I got tired of using Excel or PowerPoint to try to draw pictures and am hoping I can use SketchUp. What I see people doing with it is really very impressive. Time will tell.

  12. #27
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Lewiston, Idaho
    Posts
    28,504
    I have the FWW CD video by Dave Richards "The Basics". I really like it.

    I purchased "Cut List Plus" to use with Sketchup and it works well. It will not only produce drawings laying out the parts on sheet goods but allows you to indicate parts of importance. The program will layout those designated parts of importance so the grain runs through them in the same direction. Cut List plus will also provide cost lists of a project if you provide your parts and their costs.
    Ken

    So much to learn, so little time.....

  13. #28
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    West Lafayette, IN
    Posts
    6,529
    Well I know one person here on SMC who read Dave Richards book, his name is Dave Richards. If he doesn’t comment on this thread (again, being that it’s a 3’s 3 years old), drop him a PM and I’m sure he’ll be happy to help.

  14. #29
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Lewiston, Idaho
    Posts
    28,504
    Dave is most generous with his time and assistance!
    Ken

    So much to learn, so little time.....

  15. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Manning View Post
    For those with experience using SU, can I create a plywood cut list to show me how to get the most out of my sheets? Does it take grain direction into consideration?
    Thanks!
    Mike
    Mike,

    There are several different extensions that will generate cut lists from your SketchUp model. The one I like is called simply CutList. You can get it from the Extension Warehouse. Access the Warehouse directly in SketchUp and it will automatically install it when you click the button.

    CutList does not have a facility for taking grain direction into account. The longest dimension is always assumed to be the length. At least in my experience, there aren't many parts where that is incorrect. There are some other extensions that can generate cut lists. Joe Zeh has one. I played with it for awhile but found it much too complicated for my liking. It does seem to be good for things like kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Although I do some kitchen design and detail the cabinets for plans, the majority of my SketchUp work is more one off stuff and the much simpler CutList works just fine. If you want to see a little demo of it, I did a video you can access here.

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