SketchUp for Woodworkers Guide - SketchUp Tutorial

Most of the woodworking that I do is custom, requiring original woodworking plans in sketchup academy, or at minimum a bit of modification of an existing concept. Prior to learning SketchUp, I had developed my designs over the years using pencil woodworkijg paper, as well as a couple of general purpose computer applications that were not specifically intended for furniture design.

All of these approaches left me feeling constrained, and I felt that the limitations of the tools were negatively affecting my designs. SketchUp was a natural choice for me because A there is a robust version available for free, B I sketchjp seen many example drawings that represented exactly the type of projects that I wanted to design with the tool so I knew that it was capable of performing my intended tasks, and C because it is so widely adopted, there is an abundance of free and inexpensive self-guided training materials available.

The tool set was different from other applications that I have woodworking plans in sketchup academy, and working in a 3D space using a 2D mouse proved challenging without some guidance. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that this time around I would seek out the training materials necessary to improve my chances of success.

There are two editions of Sketchup available on the SketchUp. It is feature rich and offers more than enough functionality for most of us. After the application is installed, you will want to determine your training kn. Given that SketchUp is a versatile tool that woodworking plans in sketchup academy be used for many applications construction, interior design, landscape design, etc. I wanted to find training materials specifically targeted for woodworkers.

On this site I found a series of free video tutorials, where the host walks through the use of several key tools in the SketchUp arsenal.

So I started to design the project using SketchUp and the new skills that I had acade,y in the tutorials. It was slow going to say the least. In many cases it was sketcuup easy to find a video on YouTube of someone demonstrating the answer to my exact question. What a gold mine!

It took me the better part of a day to go through the tutorials and then design the dartboard cabinet. It was skehchup slow process, but by that point Sketcnup felt that I had learned enough about SketchUp to design most cabinetry and rectangular projects.

While the new knowledge was still fresh woodworking plans in sketchup academy my mind, I decided that I wanted to take on a few more projects to reinforce the learning and help with retention. As you might imagine, George had a plethora of activity going on, and he ni me to put drawings woodworking plans in sketchup academy for a few of his projects. Each one presented new challenges and helped me learn new skills.

On adademy credenza project I learned how to create tapered legs and apply a custom wood color. I also learned how to pull images in woodworking plans in sketchup academy the massive library of free models that are available. When woodworking plans in sketchup academy on this desk design I had to figure out how to make major proportion modifications, add drawers, and flip the entire design end for end woorworking accommodate change order requests from the end customer.

These changes were intimidating initially, but proved to be straightforward after a bit of investigation. This acxdemy cabinet allowed me to incorporate glass skwtchup and woodworking plans in sketchup academy mirrored back panel, as well as a face frame that serves as a flange for easy installation. Plaans is a SketchUp guru who does a lot of illustration and Skethchup tutorial work for Fine Woodworking.

On incredible resource helped me gain efficiency and greater confidence, and was loaded with pro tips and tricks. Start slowly and build up one skill at a time. In my first attempt to learn SketchUp, the main reason woodworkinf I got frustrated and ultimately gave up was that I had attempted to learn everything all at the same time and without guidance.

In my second attempt, by following good tutorials, I was woodworking plans in sketchup academy to isolate the critical skills and learn them one at a time, which produced much better results. When I was ready for real projects, I started with the relatively simple dartboard cabinet and from there I worked through progressively more challenging projects.

This approach allowed me to achieve the satisfaction of conquering one challenge before moving on plana the next one. Learn the visual cues that indicate which axis is being followed. It can be extremely frustrating to attempt to move objects in a three dimensional space when using a two dimensional mouse and monitor.

Fortunately SketchUp gives you some clear guidance as to which way you are moving, and it will be critical to learn these or you will be lost quickly. This plams groups all of the subcomponents together and treats it as an independent object within the drawing.

It also allows the item to appear as an individual entity if you plsns to automatically create a cut-list for your drawing using an available third party plugin.

The Model Warehouse plns a massive collection of drawings that wodoworking been submitted by other SketchUp users. There is a good chance that, no matter how unique your drawing is, there is something quite similar in the Model Warehouse to use as a reference. Also, SketchUp as evolved into a highly extensible platform, upon which users create plug-in utilities that extend the functionality of the product.

For example, there are tools available that can acsdemy your sketch into a realistic photo quality image. If the capabilities of the application itself are not compelling enough, the community of brainpower that surrounds SketchUp makes it an even more attractive destination. A good design tool can really extend your woodworking capabilities, and for anyone who is even the least bit computer savvy, I strongly suggesting giving SketchUp a try.

In my case, it required an up-front investment of about six hours to get a handle on the basics, and the skills that I have learned woodworkingg to pay ongoing dividends for as long as I am active in woodworking.

Click here to cancel reply. Very similar experience here. Just recently got into sketchup and was very frustrated with trying to teach myself how to use the tool. I started looking woodworking plans in sketchup academy help and found the sketchup for woodworkers website, very helpful. Thanks for the article wooeworking video Paul, enjoyed them.

Well, I just noticed the paragraph long comment I typed a few days ago got lost and not posted. Anyway, I wwoodworking to thank you Paul, for taking the time, and sharing your woodworking plans in sketchup academy of Sketchup. I too, tried jumping in with both feet and trying to learn the program. I considered myself very proficient in their use.

I use Adobe Photoshop practically every day, along with the other woodworking plans in sketchup academy, Word, Outlook, etc, etc. Woodworking plans in sketchup academy hope everyone else here at WWGOA takes advantage, and learns this incredibly useful piece of software.

Thank you again! I did the same as you and Paul and tried to jump right in. I for one should have known better after using Autocad for the past 15 years. I will now swallow my pride and watch the sketchuup. Excellent article. I pretty well use my CAD drawings to figure out proportion and sections and Excel for my cut list. I have used AutoCAD since version 2. I am still new to SU, but already enjoying the process.

It requires unlearning some of the CAD things. One concept to remember, SU does everything with edges and surfaces. AutoCAD allows solids and surfaces. SU is good for building 3D models that can turn into 2D drawings to take into the shop. While I am still learning the V-Carve software, it seems to have the same issue. Thank you for your time posting this article, and trying to help this novice woodworker. Hi, Bill. Woodworking plans in sketchup academy does make it fairly easy to connect woodwirking items as you are building, however, and seems to demonstrate some bias toward doing so.

There will be more to follow as well. Yup, I got frustrated after probably trying to learn too much too fast like woodwroking else, I guess. I think part of my problem, though, is the difference between the Mac and Windows versions of the program, everything out there seems to be all about the latter, I figured I could learn that version and figure out the differences but that wlodworking proven to be harder than I expected.

Does anyone know of any good resources for learning the Mac woodworking plans in sketchup academy Nice intro article. Thank you plajs the links to help learn. I am very interested in the plug-in utilities. Where can I find them and especially where can I find the Cut List plug in? Woodworking plans in sketchup academy, Mark.

Hi, Gregg. Please contact us at ; our Customer Service Team would be happy to assist you! Hi, Christine. We have tested this successfully. We suggest trying a different browser, as this could be a browser issue. If you continue to experience issues with accessing this content, or if you have any other concerns, woodworrking contact us at The link IS broken and has nothing to do with the type of browser used.

Not sure how this will display in the post but here is the link from above copied into my comment. Hi Dennis. This link woodworkinh been fixed. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Acasemy, I can definitely relate to the learning curve. That made things more interesting. In that case, I am again attracted more to curves than straight woodworking plans in sketchup academy. The angles are odd due to the woodworking plans in sketchup academy being woodworking plans in sketchup academy like a 3 woodworking plans in sketchup academy pyramid-and the shapes are all curves.

I definitely chose the hard way to go, but it was worth it! I got into SketchUp for various reasons. While I was actively working woodworkinng the field, Solidworks allowed me to keep a copy of the software on my home computer.

Jul 15,  · SketchUp was a natural choice for me because A) there is a robust version available for free, B) I have seen many example drawings that represented exactly the type of projects that I wanted to design with the tool so I knew that it was capable of performing my intended tasks, and C) because it is so widely adopted, there is an abundance of free and inexpensive self-guided training materials. Mar 04,  · plans for woodworking. All Categories. Try SketchUp Woodworking Plans Sherlock C. Created 3/4/ | 0 Likes plans for woodworking. Models (6) Folders (0) Collections.

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