I received an email from a user that taught me a few things.  He was ‘frustrated’ and needed some advice.  When we spoke he said he found the relationship between boards and materials confusing.  What I learned is that what is obvious to some is not to others.  SO I decided to make a video explaining the relationship between boards and materials.

Boards – we’re beginning to call them parts – are three dimensional objects in your design.  They can be shelves, or rails and stiles, or dividers – or anything.

Material is the stuff boards (parts) come from.  It can be anything (wood, stone, glass….) of any size.  A material has a width and length which you change when you ‘cut’ boards from that material.  You set the thickness when you define a material and can’t change that.  Someday we’ll make that possible!

So watch the video at THIS LINK on YouTube and you’ll see more.  The video is pretty basic – but you more experienced SketchList 3D users might learn something from it.

Thanks,

Dave

Hi Dave,

I finished my first SketchList 3d project recently so I figured I’d send you some pictures.  I’m a software engineer and had no experience with woodworking but was able to create this reptile enclosure from hardwood with relative ease using your program.

Thanks,
Adrian

Boy this is a nice kind of email to get!!!  I like the project because it involves multiple materials – no need to limit yourself with our cabinet design software.   And the project gets to function – Adrian wanted a specific kind of project to meet a specific need and was able to pull that off.

Now my daughter (with three sub-six year old boys) needs one of these for her ball pithon snake.  They have a kind on enclosure which the snake outwits regularily.  And the search is on…

Thanks again Adrian.

Dave

Finally it’s ALMOST finished.  I had been asked to put together a series of videos on one project.  I choose a desk that I might actually build someday.  The front assemblies – left and right – close back on the center unit.  The backs of those assemblies have five piece doors on them to make it look more like furniture.  It’s a case where woodworking software allows me to “build” something before I commit to it.  The shop drawings and optimized parts layout diagrams will help me do the planning.  Parts list and purchase lists – of course.

The real kicker is that the video accompanying this design is about 90 minutes long (bad – too long) BUT it is indexed so you can so directly to – for example face frames) good – complete).

I noticed after that I overlooked hardware.  I will get to that and put on an extra segment.

If something is missing – let me know.

This video even covers file management – answering often asked questions like “How do I restore a file?”

The link to the video is HERE and on this page.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Dave

Questions are good.  I got a great question in an email last night.

“I am trying program and couldn’t find a way of rotating a door inside of an assembly, is it really possible? If I wanted to do a “strange” design and create two adjacent doors with 90 degree correlation, then how do I do it?”

Well let me tell you about the business man looking for a one armed economist.  Why?  Because every economist  he ever listened to said “on one hand…. on the other hand…”.

On one hand you can’t rotate a door or drawer within an assembly.  At least not right now.

On the other hand this video LINK TO VIDEO CLICK THIS show you how to get around that.

A few steps.

1.  Put door in assembly.
2.  Clone (or clone and mirror) that assembly.
3.  Rotate the cloned assembly 90 degrees.
4.  Merge the two assemblies.

Presto chango — all done.

Don’t forget stretch and shrink as other useful assembly tools in the tools set of our cabinet and furniture design software.

Thanks,

Dave

I did some design work for a very clever artist last week.  She had a specific idea for a shelving unit for her art work.  I received a series of photographs and a decent verbal description of what she wanted.   I started and after some back and forth we were pretty much able to get the design to the point where I could finish it off.

I learned something doing this project!  That’s special…

It may not look like it from the image above,  but there are many, many parts in this project.  And they exist in different assemblies.  And they need to be very precisely placed.  If you are a SketchList 3D user, you know ‘many parts’ leads to much cloning.   And I did clone around a lot (sorry clone around – get it?) doing this design.

What I learned is that you ABSOLUTELY must name the parts  as you create them.  Even if you make 10 clones of a shelf, it’s a good idea to go to each one and re-name it with a name (e.g. Top shelf, middle shelf, bottom shelf) that makes sense to you and the design.  Of course you say.  Make sense!  Who would not do this?

Wel,l let me tell you I see a lot of SketchList 3D projects – and well they contain a lot of part names  with the word clone in them!

Certainly this naming makes it easier at assembly time – but I discovered the design process was much easier when I was able to place a part called  “left bracket 2″  10 inches from another part named  “left bracket  1″ instead of Board 3 (clone 4) and Board 5 (clone 6).  And so on.

It seems like  a small thing but it really did make my understanding of the design, the parts, and what I was trying to do easier.  I spotted mistakes (who made those?) faster.   It just felt better to name the boards and not have to think to myself  “What exactly is “Board2(clone3)(clone2)(clone1)” and how, if at all, does it relate to “Board2(clone4)(clone2)(clone1): .

So take the advice seriously.  You will save time, be less confused (at least about your design), and reduce mistakes by creating meaningful and organized names for the parts in your design.

You are using the cabinet design software to do just that – save time while making better designs.  This is one small tip that will increase the benefits you get from your software.

A while back a longtime user of SketchList 3D and I spoke about different projects one could do in SketchList 3D.  He said he had some new ideas.  Well did he!  Yesterday I got the project file for a storage shed he designed using SketchList 3D.  I just think it’s so cool.  The closest someone else had gotten to this design was a basement frame out job.  Hey why not?

Stud walls in a basement.

Certainly if you are in the business of making and installing storage sheds – you could design two or three basic models – and use the standards capability of SketchList 3D to insert different objects like windows, or doors, maybe even a fireplace.  [You can tell I have been thinking about a 'man-cave' building for my yard.  My neighbor built one last fall and every guy on the street wants one!]   Then using the stretch and shrink abilities of SketchList 3D you can create any size building you want.

Heck – you could clone and space these babies and put up a whole street or neighborhood.  Kind of a Sim City for builders!  A special thanks to Brian from Halifax, Nova Scotia for sharing his work. By the way Brian  if you read this – please comment on your design experience.

When SketchList 3D was first released people wrote in with comments like:

• “It’s hard to describe – but much more than a drawing program.”
• “I see this as a way to model my shop processes on the computer”
• “The reports just fall out of the design – all in one step.”
• “This software make you think about how you are going to build the piece.”
• “I am amazing how quickly I actually completed a design.”

“I’m working with  Sketchlist 3D for Mac.   From what I’ve seen it’s a powerful tool — probably best for creating rendered projects but also good for basic design work.  I appreciate that you’ve programmed something like this since other tools I’ve tried have been wholly inadequate or way too complicated (full blown CAD).”

SketchList 3D was designed from the beginning as integrated 3D software for furniture, cabinetmaking, woodworking, and the remodeling tasks that include making built-ins.

SketchList 3D was designed to keep users from requiring large amounts of training like the more traditional CAD (computer aided design) packages do.

SketchList 3D uses terms like left and right, top and bottom, and width / depth / length  to let users describe what they want to do.  The software steadfastly avoids requiring users to know X, Y, and Z, tangents, layering, extruding — all the other things that make CAD so hard to learn and use.  CAD draws with lines.  SketchList builds 3D models using boards, doors, and drawers and lets you apply contours, joinery, holtes, shapes…..

There’s more…

• SketchList 3D automates regularly used woodworking functions like contour edges, joinery, drilling holes and slots, equal spacing of objects like shelf peg holes.
• With SketchList 3D you can shape a board – cut miters, cove moldings, almost anything you might do in the shop.
• Reports are automatically generated when you add or change a board, door, or drawer within your project.  If you add a 1/4 tenon to a board – the cut list immediately lengthens the cut part by 1/4″.
• Shop drawings, parts lists, cut lists, purchase lists, optimized layout diagrams of materials and parts.
• You can do virtually anything with the assemblies you design.  Stretch and shrink, rotate, duplicate, and even clone and space assemblies over any given distance.  Make one assembly such as a carcass and save it – and use it over and over again.  Saves time.
• 3D renbering in photo like quality.  You can even send a rotating 3D model to your clients via email.

Does it take time to learn?  Of course it does.  It  just takes much less time ot learn SketchList 3D then other design software packages.  There are nearly 100 training videos on this site and on YouTube to show you how to do pretty much whatever it is you need to do.

So if you’ve been thinking about upgrading your woodworking skills with a better approach to design, don’t settle for just CAD – even if it’s free.  Move up to a 3D woodworking modeling system that was designed by a woodworker for woodworkers, with integrated functions and automatic reports that will improve your

• designs,
• cut wasted material,
• speed design time,

and quickly get you into the shop with a set of plans you can use to create great work.

How to cut a toe kick in a board?  Select the board and enter the board level detail – select the surface of the board and click the Shape button.

Then follow the instructions as shown in this video.

A few tips.  Start an assembly with only one board – the one with the toe kick and such.   Cut the toe kick.  Cut rabbets, dadoe’s or pin holes as necessary.  Save as standard as” toe kick board – left” or some such.   THEN….  Clone and mirror that assembly. The board will become the right board you need to match the left.  Save as standard “toe kick right”.  Go back into the first assembly and insert the standard board – toe kick right.  Move it to the right where you need it (assembly width) and you’ll save a bunch of time.  I am going to develop a clone and mirror a board function to save the intermediate steps.    OTL – otherwise known as on the list.  Still this is a time saver…

Normally you wouldn’t start building drawers before you did the carcass – but it’s a good way to show how to put five boards together to make a box.  Again – this is basic.  A bit later I will go back to this drawer and put in some hardware, slots for the bottom and side joinery.

  I’ll admit it doesn’t look like much yet – but that’ll get fixed later.  For now – concepts.

Making the draswer required inserting a new board, sizing it, cloning it, and locating the clone. I did that twice actually – front and back, left and right sides.  Then I added the bottom.

A few things to remember.  Adding a board must be done – in this case – at the drawer level.

There are four steps in adding a board.

1. Pick material
2. Select orientation – which means what does the board look  like when viewed from the front.
   1. Vertical – top to bottom, looking at board edge grain
   2. Horizontal – side to side looking at board edge grain
   3. Flat – top to bottom, side to side, looking at board surface grain
3. Enter size of board (remember you can’t enter board thickness – that’s determined by the material you selected)
4. Name board

Next step size (or re-size) and locate the board.  THIS IS THE BASIC THING IS SKETCHLIST 3D.  Everything has a point of origin – where left = bottom = front = zero.  This is the distance from the object to the point of origin of the assembly.  If you change left from 0 to 10, you’ve moved the board to the right by 20 units so the new left value of the board is now 20.  If the width of the board is 10 – then the right edge of that board is no left = 20 plus width = 10 or 30 units from the left of the assembly.  But you don’t really do the math – SketchList does it automatically.

(See the video)

There are two ways to enter and change size and location information about objects.  An object is anything in a project.

The first is with the form.  Depending on which level you are working – it may be an assembly form, board form, drawer form, door form, or hardware form.

The second way to enter is with one of the spreadsheets.  The assembly spreadsheet contains all objects in a given assembly.  The general spreadsheet shows all assemblies and all objects in a project.  The assembly can be faster in terms of processing.  The general shows size and location of all objects in the project – making it easy to compare and related objects n different assemblies to one another.

You can learn much about SketchList 3D from these three videos.

Assemblies are the building blocks of your project.  You must have one and can have as many as you like.  You’ll get a feel for the right number of assemblies in any given project with some experience with SketchList 3D.

Assemblies are time savers.  They have the advantage of holding many components together in one unit.  Assemblies hold boards, doors, drawers, and hardware.

You can move all the objects in an assembly simply by moving the assembly: or cloning it, or rotating it, or stretching or shrinking it, or cloning and mirroring the assembly as one unit.  It save alot of time if, for example, you design one side of a wall unit, and simply clone and move it to the other side.

Assemblies can be added or deleted, have their size changed, and moved around at any time.

Assemblies can even be merged into one another.  Very useful for work like creating a leg as two board in an assembly, clone and rotate the assembly, merge the two assemblies into one — then clone and roate that assembly 180 degrees to make up the other two legs.   Merge these two sets of two legs and = presto – you have four legs – with two boards each!  It’s faster to do than to write about.

Three rules apply.

1. An assembly cannot be bigger than the project that holds it – in any direction.
2. And it can’t be smaller than the largest object in the assembly – in any direction.
3. You cannot move an assembly so any part of it is outside of its project.

Watch this video to get an idea of how it all happens.

This link video  shows the important concept of measuring relative to assembly point of origin or project point of origin.  Point of origin = the point where left = bottom = front = zero.

]]> http://sketchlist.com/2013/thinking-assemblies-project-cabinet-design-software/feed/ 0