CNC woodworking was the topic for our special online meeting.

CNC woodworking is a topic of interest for many of our SketchList 3D users.  Our leader, Ralph Bagnall, is an author, consultant, tool designer, and shop owner.  During this hour he shared some of his CNC knowledge with us.   This quote is from Ralph.

“I started programming operating CMCS back in mid-90s 1995 or six. I’ve been teaching and programming and operating and training operators and installing and servicing machines since the mid-90s.   And so it’s just an area that I’ve really come to love and enjoy my work. And so when I got the opportunity to write a book about it.

But while the book is designed for beginners and for primarily for what I call the desktop CNC market, a lot of the programming strategies and things I talk about are applicable to professional shops as well.  I’ve consulted with professional shops for the last 20 years on their CNC acquisitions and operations. So, for those of you who are in the business and are working with your CNCS. Again, feel free to ask any questions.

A lot of the photos I will show you are from my benchtop unit.

But a lot of the things we’re going to talk about is the same as you face in as a cabinet maker, or as a furniture maker.

I know I learn more easily when what I’m trying to learn is in context.  Knowing how to figure out the formula for the area of the given size doesn’t really mean anything to me. But when you frame it as  “okay if you measure the wall you can figure out how much paint you need to buy, in order to paint the wall” that makes sense. And it puts everything in context so I understand the concepts.

And I did that with my book about CNC woodworking.  I  divided  the book into individual projects with each designed to teach a specific skill set or a different tip or trick or technique.”

I just got my copy and asked Ralph to share some CNC woodworking tips.

See the video [Zoom recording] here.

The book — Beginner’s Guide to CNC Machining in Wood — is a number one seller at CAD book on Amazon.

The book is it gives you insight into Ralph’s approach to thinking,  It covers his approach to the processes of the prep, cutting, and assembly through all stages.

If you want to know more, read the post of Ralph’s demo on using SketchList 3D and VCarve.

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SketchList 3D has a new feature to make this kitchen design software even faster and more accurate – without keying in any numbers. Our latest release – due out this week – supports a powerful align tool. Using the align tool you pick the board [or object] you want to align to, hold down the shift key and mouse click on other boards [or objects] then click the align tool object.
You can align in three directions – left / right, bottom / top, and front / back. You can choose to align to the inside of a board [like butting boards] or to the outside of the boards. You can also align to the center of a board.

Again – click the ‘target board’, hold down the shift key and click one or more ‘moving boards’, and click the appropriate icon. Simple.

You can also combine align functions. Move a board so it butts against the edge of the target board, then click the centering icon so the moving board is also centered on the target.

You can also insert a temporary board, set it in place, and use it as a bit of a target or snap to line. When you are finished – delete the temporary board.

Make a quick book case? Insert the left side. Insert a shelf. Align the shelf to the inside of the side board. Red dot-drag the shelf to the proper side. Clone and space shelves. Clone the left side. Click one of the shelves. Hold down the shift key and click a side board. Click the align right – outside icon. Boom. How easy was that?

Watch this video…

Align is a very powerful and flexible tool. Think about the ways you can use it. Experiment and see what it can do for you.

The post Kitchen Cabinet Layout Software Designs Numbers-Free appeared first on SketchList3D.

Get an email from a user this week asking about the way one would provide dimensions to the detail of a rabbet.

“Message: I have created a rabbet on a board edge. How can I print a shop drawing of the dimensions? ”

I thought that maybe more than Peter might have an interest in the answer.   So as I often do I put together a YouTube video posted it so that you can see exactly how the SketchList 3D woodworking software allows you to dimension detail like a rabbet.

You can see that video here.

The post Woodworking Software – Dimension the Rabbet appeared first on SketchList3D.

A drawer is a difficult thing to hand draw with any accuracy.  There is a fair amount of detail in a drawer.    At the very least it will take you a long time.

I receive a fair amount of questions about doing drawers in SketchList 3

In the very first version of SketchList I had an insert drawer function which worked quite well.  And as soon about the third user looked at it I heard the old refrain — “That’s not how I make my drawers!”  So I dropped the wizard knowing that it’s easier for you to make one drawer and save it as a standard to be used over and over again.

So this is the process.

1.  Insert a drawer into an assembly.
2.  Locate and size the drawer.  I remembered to have the drawer overlap the face frame by half inch to the left and right to account for the overlay front BUT I forgot the same half inch top and bottom.   In the video I added on a minute at the end to show how to make this fix retroactively.
3. Drag boards into drawer locating and sizing them as you go along.  The left and right side drawer boards are offset by half an inch for sliders.  Of course you use whatever size your hardware requires.
4. Mill the box parts which in this case means running a dado across the bottoms to fit in the bottom board.
5. Put a contour on the front panel board.
6. Insert a drawer pull from the standards library.
7. Save the new drawer as its own standard to be used again.

It seems that the whole process took about 10 minutes.  The one thing I would like to add is the ability to mirror front to back.  When I made up the left side I just cloned and mirrored it to the right.  I would be nice to do the same after cutting the front.  Of course I could have rotated a side by 90 degrees.  I try to stay away from rotating unless it is something other than a 90 degree step.

Here is the video.  Let me know if you have questions on the making of drawers in our free furniture design software.

Hint:  You can use the batch move function is SketchList 3D to move everything in the assembly back say 8 inches.  Make sure the project is deep enough first.  Then highlight the drawer and set its front to zero.  Presto – open drawer effect.

The post Furniture Drawing Software for Drawers appeared first on SketchList3D.

This is the second of a series of basic introduction videos on how to use SketchList 3D for wood projects design.  This video covers the placing and sizing of virtual boards in your assemblies.

The first video covers the use of assemblies, doors, drawers, and hardware – their creation, locating, and sizing.

The tools used to locate and size boards are show in detailed examples in this second video..

Both locating and changing the size of boards can be done using one of three tools.

Dots on boards – red dots change size, blue dots change location.

Form – enter new values in a form.

Spreadsheet – enter new vales in a spreadsheet.

Your wood projects design using SketchList 3D is sped up greatly by using and one, or combination of these tools.

Please watch this video.

The post Wood projects design software uses virtual board – video appeared first on SketchList3D.

Re-sizing cabinet designs – one size can indeed fit all.

In this week’s webinar we had an opportunity to discuss and use the cabinet re-sizing capability within sketch list 3-D. The users had questions about what would happen to a shape or to a data placed on a board when that board was stretched or shrunk in a cabinet resize.   We experimented back and forth re-sizing cabinet designs.   I’d say that people were very impressed with the power of SketchList to resize all of a cabinet and even selected parts of different cabinets. One person said that it was an extremely powerful capability and would enable him to design a very small number of cabinets and just pull those in as standards and resize them as needed in his job.

Re-sizing cabinet designs is one of those features that is extremely powerful, very useful, and all in all very easy to use. It is also, unfortunately, one of those features that probably a lot of users both old and new just don’t fully appreciate.  So as I often do I thought I would put together a quick video and posted to YouTube to further explore this powerful capability.

The re-sizing can be accomplished using the red dots. If you’ve seen the red dot video you know that you right-click a red dot and can type in a new value for the location of that edge or size of the assembly and SketchList 3-D resizes automatically. That is the default way of using the re-sizing feature.  It has the advantage of being easy to use and very fast. In order to keep things from becoming more complicated the necessary SketchList assumes that the place where the re-sizing will occur (re-sizing plane or “pink box”) is at the center of the assembly. This means that any boards that fall across the center of the assembly will be stretched from that point. Most of the time this works.  It doesn’t work if by chance that center re-size plane falls on something like a toe kick, a drawer, or a shape that you do not want to resize.  For that reason we’ve implemented the ability to move the re-size plane (which appears in your assembly as a pink plane or box when you right-click the red dot).

You can be very selective about exactly where you position the re-size plane.  Anything touched by the plane has its size changed according to the amount you drag the red dot. Any objects between the plane and the direction your dragging the red dot will be moved.

This is one of those things that is much easier to understand when you see it.   So here’s a video click on it and think about how you might be able to use this capability to speed your work when re-sizing cabinet designs.

The post Re-sizing cabinet designs appeared first on SketchList3D.

Project

The project is the overall container for your designs — everything including materials information are stored in the project.  This way you can easily exchange projects or move them from computer to computer by exporting and importing project files.  [Unless of course you implement our new shared database features!  Then all machines running SketchList 3D anywhere can share the same project file.]

This video explores the use of projects within SketchList 3D in a fair amount of detail.  From setting up a project, to understanding how assemblies fit and don’t fit in — there is a lot of information on this video.   The video is about 4 minutes long and is a must see for new SketchList 3D users.  More experienced users want to review it as well since some of the thing I cover came from phone calls or email questions from users.

As always if you have any questions or comments PLEASE let me know.  If you find a mistake – help me fix it by describing and with the approximate time it shows up in the video.

This is the first installment.

The post Cabinet Design Software – Quick Introduction appeared first on SketchList3D.

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