Category: Basics and How to

Learning to design a cabinet using software, mystifies many people.  There are, at least,  two reasons for this.  Firstly some software is mystifying.  You have little control over this except not to use it.  Secondly it may be the approach you take in teaching yourself how to use the woodworking design software you chose to buy.   However the difficulties arise, you can do better if you break the process into smaller steps and slow down.  Therefore this series of posts and videos does just that.

Introduction

This article is the first of several that teach you to use SketchList 3D, our cabinet making software.  The ‘lesson’ begins by making a very simple wooden box.  A twelve inch cube with six surfaces.
Why a box?  It allows us to focus on basics.
Which is funny since starting the post I picked up a copy of an adult education catalog.  And I usually do with these books I turned to the section of woodworking.  Then I saw it.  The first course is building a box!  Because with this you can start simple.  As a result you can focus on basics.  As a result if you do that well you’re building tools for your advancement.

Actually the same if true in the real world [wood] and the virtual world [computer screens]. Please don’t dismiss the box building instructions in this post as too simple a project.  Do not skip over it or go too quickly.  If you carefully follow each step of this article and the video that goes with it you will learn in the shortest amount of time.

Topics covered in the video:

How assemblies work.
Adding boards to ‘build’ you project.  There are three board types in SketchList 3D woodworking design software.

1. The vertical is for sides and dividers.
2. The horizontal for shelving.
3. The ‘flat’ is for backboards and such.

There are only three actions in SketchList  3D:  insert, resize, and locate.  First you insert a board into the assembly.  Certainly you must pick the correct type.  Then you size the board as needed.  And finally you locate that board.  You can think of it as if you are working in your shop.
In our box there are two sides [vertical boards] top and bottom [horizontal boards] and front and back [flat boards].

And only three tools accomplish the resizing and locating in cabinet design software.

• First dots.  Red dots resize.  Blue dots locate.
• Next spreadsheet. Here you type in values for sizing and locating while seeing all the boards’ information is one display.
• Finally form. With the form you focus on one board at a time, entering size and location information.

Remember, it seems simple but once you master them – you can design almost anything.

What is to come of our cube?

The box is finished.  After that the next video in the series we’ll add a face frame to the cube.  You’ll see slightly different uses of the tools.  For example there’s more use of the blue dot paste and copy [more on that next time!].  After that we’ll add a door and drawer.
Once we have that cube fitted out it will be used to demonstrate resizing, merging assemblies, rotating and locating for L shaped kitchens.
Certainly with all that progress we’ll venture off into making our little cube into a full blown entertainment center.

Room cabinet design using the SketchList 3D library speeds designs.

Recently we did a survey of SketchList 3D users.  Users were asked what the liked about SketchList 3D and what needs improvement.  The ‘needing improvement suggestions’ included good ideas that we’ll try to include in Version 5, suggestions we don’t understand, and those we already do but obviously need further explanation.  One response fell into – sort of – the room cabinet design category.
Here it is.

“More YouTube videos showing us how to set up the program, add pre-existing cabinets together to the kitchen design without having to put us through making each box! It should just be a snap and not hours of stress.”  This comment is related to the need for room cabinet design.  Certainly to save time.

Adding pre-existing cabinets – This post will deal with the question “How can I quickly put together a set of cabinets?”

That question takes me back to the very beginning of SketchList 3D.

I needed to design a breakfront or display cabinet.  I used that opportunity to search out some cabinet drawing software to help make a better design.  Well good luck!  In my opinion my choices were either cabinet design programs that were expensive and only allowed work on a cabinet basis or CAD programs that only allowed me to work on a line by line basis.  And SketchList 3D was born!  I thought we needed a middle ground between boxes and lines.  So Sketchlist 3D uses 3D boards.  Because of that you can design at a more detailed level than a cabinet with less detail than lines, rectangles and squares.
Of course, there is a cost to that.  You must design what you want to build.  While that seems always to make sense to me – some people don’t want to take the time to make their own designs.  I get it.  Remember – because you are creating your own design it conforms to the way you work in your shop.  That’s the custom part of custom woodworking.
The other part of it certainly for the professional or business user – is speed.
So the challenge is combining customer approach with an Ikea type of pick cabinets from a list to do your room cabinet design.

Remember Sketchlist 3D supports a library function that allows you to create and  store for further use a wide variety of standard objects.

These include:

1. Boards
2. Doors
3. Drawers
4. Assemblies
5. Hardware

A Cutlist is more than a list of parts – or should be.

Most of the people considering using SketchList 3D want a cutlist report for their work.  In Sketchlist 3D, a cutlist  provides a series of functions that help you go to the shop and turn the cut list into parts.  This post will show you several ways to use a cut list report most effectively.

The first version of a cut list is found under the reports menu item in Sketchlist 3D. 

his is the simplest version of the cutlist.

The cut list contains the:

1. ·         assembly name
2. ·         part name,
3. ·         cut thickness,
4. ·         cut with,
5. ·         cut length,
6. ·         material,
7. ·         material name,
8. ·         and notes.

 As you can see from this sample report, all the information you need to cut and produce your project is available in SketchList 3D.  Any changes to your design, additions, deletions, or resizes, are automatically  updated in this report.

 But how to make it more useful?     Use the Parts List report.

 To get to the report click Reports – Parts List Report.

 This opens a very powerful form that allows you to specify exactly which information appears on the report, sort that in three levels, and filter information by value.

For example, select part name, material type, and dimensions.  Then sort by material type and part name, then display only parts with a thickness = 1.

But there is more.  You can add the location information for each part – left, bottom, and front – and sort on it. 

 With that sort order you get information about the assembly.  You see which boards are at the front, bottom, left of the assembly.  [Note that the values are relative to the board’s container.  So a left of zero for a door stile means zero in the door container.]

 To check on it, I threw in the grain direction and board orientation.  If for example your side board had its thickness going from bottom to top – well that is the wrong orientation for a side board.

This listing provides a good quick check on the project.  Throw in a shop drawing and you are even better prepared to start cutting.

 Even if you use SketchList 3D Pro and generate optimized cutting layout diagrams, this approach to cut list reports will help you check, organize, and assemble you project. 

To read something a bit more general about cutlists, see this post.