Aaron: Hi, everybody.
My name is Aaron Marshall.
In this video I'm going to show a little bit
more about using SketchUp
which is a great 3D-modeling piece of software
that you can get from Google.
It's actually sketchup.google.com
I believe is the website to download
the Windows version and the Mac version
all for free.
It's a great little piece of software.
I use it a lot for creating plans
before I'll go out into the shop actually.
Many of you probably know by now that
Marc is working on a steamer trunk
that is based on some plans he got from Rockler.
The plans as they came from Rockler
have a curved top on the top of the trunk.
Marc's actually going to change that
a little bit and have a flat top.
So I thought it was a good opportunity
to sort of show a little bit about SketchUp.
I'm going to model the new top,
not the whole trunk but just the top.
At the end of the exercise
we should have all the dimensions
and all the little details that we would need
to actually go out into the shop
and make the thing.
I'll ask Marc actually to put that final file
up on his website,
but in the meantime take a look at this video
and it'll show you hopefully a little bit more
about using SketchUp.
Again, if you want to later you can just
download the finished product.
We'll make that available.
The first thing we'll do is remove the old top.
We don't need it and it's just getting
in our way right now.
I'll select it and hit the delete button
to get rid of it.
Then using the rectangle tool,
I'm actually going to just trace the top
of this trunk and create a rectangle
that's the right size.
In the spirit of getting rid of your tape measure
as Marc puts it,
we want to trace things and use the SketchUp model
as much as possible.
Using the move tool I'll actually grab that rectangle,
move it over here to the side
where we can work on it without worrying
about the rest of the trunk.
This is the footprint for the top of the trunk,
the dimensions that we'll use.
It will be two inches tall.
I'll use the offset tool now to select that face,
and the offset tool draws a parallel line
around the inside, or actually the outside
of a face or another shape.
I'll bring it inside and just type in 3/4
because the outside of the trunk lid
is going to be a 3/4 inch by 2 inch high frame.
Before I pull that all the way up though,
what I'll do is get rid of that inside.
Hit delete so we have just sort of a frame here.
I'll go ahead and get a head start on some joinery.
That front edge is going to be a separate piece
so I'll use the pencil tool to draw a couple lines,
and separate it so now if I use push-pull tool
and pull up two inches it's just that front rail.
You can see that there's some extra lines left over.
Usually that would be a problem.
In this case they're actually kind of useful.
The front of the trunk will be joined to the sides
with some rabbets.
I'll pull in a rabbet that's 1/2 inch
using the push tool.
Then on the second end over here
I can grab it so I've got it,
and then actually just reference this other face
so I know it's going to be brought in
the same dimension.
I know I'm spinning around quite a bit.
Sorry about that.
The last thing I'm going to do with
that front lip is I'll select everything there.
I'm going to reverse the faces
because I just like to kind of see everything white,
my OCD coming out,
and then I'll make it a component.
I'll call it the lid front.
Always replace the selection with the component
and hit create.
Now we've got a separate component
called the lid front that's got
some of the right joinery, the rabbet.
We'll add some more later.
What I can do then is copy that.
The move tool is actually a great way to copy.
You just pretend like you're going to move it,
but then hold down the control key
and it makes a copy.
I'll move it to the back here.
Again, using the move tool still
I'll hover over one of these little plus signs,
rotate it around 280 degrees.
Now that is the back or our trunk.
I'll move it into position grabbing it
at that bottom corner, moving it to right there
on our template if you will.
Now we've got the front and the back all set up.
Now it will be fairly easy to work on
the sides of the lid with a rectangle.
Just come in here and draw a rectangle
from one edge to the other.
Push-pull tool, push it up
to the same height, 2 inches.
Select tool again. I'm going to flip all the,
reverse all the faces just to get everything
consistently colored.
That will help eventually if I do add
textures, wood textures to the faces.
That will help keep everything nice.
I'll select that whole part, right-click on it
make it a component,
and I'll call this a lid side, and create.
Now to create the second side,
I'll just select the component we just created,
and using the move tool grab it,
hold down the control key to get a fresh copy.
I'll put it over here.
I actually do need to spin it because
I am going to add some joinery to it later.
If I do that, the good thing about components
is if you edit one they all change,
but I would hate for a rabbet to show up
on the wrong side of a component
so I'll show you that in a second.
Now we have the roughed in top,
frame of the top, and that's all we need.
Voiceover:This is just one part of a three-part series
on SketchUp basics,
but if you've never used the program before,
you might need a more in-depth introduction.
For that I recommend going to
SketchupforWoodworkers.com.
Rob will take you through the basics
of setting up a project
from a woodworkers perspective.
So I highly recommend checking his site out.