This is the third of three posts and videos explaining how to design a wall storage unit with three assemblies container doors and drawers.   You’ll find that making drawers on the computer screen allows you to think about the different methods you might use to design a drawer.  Of course you can do it anyway you think is best.
This post goes through the process explaining how some of the SketchList 3D tools work.  Remember, there are only 3 steps – insert, resize, and locate.

Let’s get stated.

Click on the left base unit and go to the assembly level so we can make changes that box.

1. The drawer will sit on the interior shelf board.   We’ll make sure that the drawer will fit by moving the shelf board downward.  The bottom value of the top board in our example is 27 ¼ inches
2. So the top value of the internal board, in order to put a 6 inch drawer between them, must be 21 ¼”.  Click on the internal board.  Right click on any of the “upper” blue dots.  Type in 21 ¼ as the bottom value.   
3. Click the drawer icon at the top of the screen and drag it into the assembly.  Notice that the drawer is simply an empty container in which you will build the drawer. Also the drawer is not located where we would want it.

First we must size the drawer and then locate it.  There are only three actions in all of SketchList 3D – insert, size and locate.  You’ve already inserted it.

1. Size click on the empty container and using the form the top right of sketch list and type in the height of six and click the button labeled top.
2. Click the middle shelf board. Right click the blue dot at the front left of that board.  Click the copy button.  Right click the blue dot lower left corner of the drawer.  Click paste and it moves to the top of the cabinet.
3. Click on the box and set its depth to 22 inches using the form at the right of sketch list.  Type 22 into the depth text box and click the label Back.
4. For the width you can use the form, red dots, or spreadsheet.  Here we will use the spreadsheet in your cabinet design software to show how it works.
5. Click on the drawer.  And notice that the drawer row in the spreadsheet is highlighted.
6. In the column labeled left find the row that contains the right side board. In my example the the value of left of that board is 35 ¼. 
7. Click on that cell intersecting the drawer row in the right column.  Now type in 35 ¼.  At this point click on the width column heading for that drawer.  You will see that the drawer is now between the left and right sides of the cabinet. 

To complete the drawer go to that level.   At this point you will construct the drawer.  Remember all SketchList 3D designs are accomplished in three actions these are 1 insert, 2 resize, and 3 locate.

Making drawers.

At the top of the form there are three icons representing the boards that will go into your drawer.  

• Start by dragging in the front board icon.  Shift drag the red dots of that board to resize it to fill the front of the container.
•  Then clone that board and using the slider front to back found in the upper right corner of sketch list slide the cloned board to the back.
• Next drag in the vertical board icon.   And again using the red dot (this time holding down the shift key which will make the board snap between the others) size that board to fit between the front and the back.
• Clone and shift this board to the right.  In fact, you can use the clone and mirror button.
• Drag  in the horizontal board icon.   Now you already know how to size using the red dots – or maybe the red dot holding down the shift key method.
• Finally go to the assembly level and you’ll see the box inserted into the space unit.

Making drawers can be fun or can be challenging.  It will certainly be easier when you have detailed cut lists and shop drawings to help you.
For more information see:   LINK

The post Making drawers for our entertainment wall unit appeared first on SketchList3D.

A few years ago we conducted a survey on what SketchList 3D users were designing.  While of course kitchens were at the top of the list, a bookshelf cabinet with doors was a close second.  Who can’t sue more office storage?  Sometimes they have door and drawers, a television, of computer equipment.  So it’s a general category.  One thing about that type of work — it really can challenge you in terms of custom work.  And custom work presents the challenge of selling your client – since it’s harder for them to vision unique rather than cookie-cutter work.

A shop owner, Trent Tedder of Old Mill Custom Woodcrafting, [Link ] wanted to address this difficulty of selling custom work by learning to use SketchList 3D the segment of his business that provides bookshelf cabinet with doors and doors.

Trent emailed a copy of a hand drawing of the job he was proposing.  In a one hour session, he shared the SketchList trainer’s screen and creates the model.  This post shows what happened.

Drawing to modeling – the big switch over.

The bookshelf cabinet with doors and drawers might have been more of an office – since the center contained a drawing table / desktop.
Here’s the image we used for our effort.  It gave us a starting point with Trent filling in the missing dimensions and details verbally.

This is the result as we completed the session.   (We did not ‘install’ the top of the bottom cabinets since that material had not been selected yet.)

This model was completed in just over an hour.

The shop drawings, list, and optimized material layouts included – because they are integrated with the design process.

In this hour – social pleasantries and business questions included – Trent learned the 3 – 4 SketchList 3D concepts, the 3 tools used for all designs, how to output the reports, and the three steps in every design.  These three steps repeat constantly:  insert, size, locate.  He also saw how tools like clone (space, and mirror included) and align speed design times.

The work we did.

Working together we model the lower unit on the left – at least the box and face frames.  After about the first 20 minutes Trent was given control over the mouse and keyboard.  He then modeling the drawer in that unit, and cloned a copy and located it.  Then he cloned another drawer but this time making the height 6 inches.  Clone and mirror that first unit and the two lowers were done.  He did that.

On his way to expert – he cloned the lower left unit, deleted the drawers, inserted the doors, resized and located it.

The center unit was ‘build from scratch’ but by this time Trent knows the 3-4 concepts, 3 steps, and how to use the 3 tools for sizing and locating.  He ‘built’ that upper center bookcase in 2 or 3 minutes.    Remember – his first time using SketchList 3D for his bookshelf cabinet with doors and drawers.
Now what he wanted at the beginning of the training was to give his prospect a non-hand drawing with dimensions.    So here that is.

Ongoing process

And his work goes on.  So in order to ingrain what he learned in this hour, he will re-create the model on his own computer. if and when  he gets stuck he will ask for guidance from SketchList.  As of today  – no contact from him.  Must be he’s getting along well.

If you run any type of woodworking business and want to save time, generate better proposals, and have the detailed reports necessary to minimize production errors – you should use SketchList 3D.  The barrier we hear – not enough time to learn  – goes away completely with the JumpStart training session.  Make the change today.  Call in. Get online and sign up.  Take advantage of this powerful way to get you moving in the right direction.

The post Bookshelf cabinet with doors – modeled in an hour appeared first on SketchList3D.

Projects are created in SketchList 3D. The definition of project includes the idea of planning and organization to achieve the desired outcome.   Too many times when using SketchList 3D users rush the project creation stage and begin inserting boards and other objects.

Working with users I find mistakes that can be avoided by some upfront thinking are discovered at the end of the project design. For example, the project is ‘final’ and then the user realizes the crown molding must be added to the front and both sides of the design.   So now the project size as originally specified is not large enough.  SketchList 3D provides batch move for all boards and shrink and stretch capabilities that help address this problem.  It is better at the project creation to consider what, where, and how objects will exist.

One user wrote in about SketchList 3D:  “Once I realized I had to know what I was doing and think about it – things it became easier.”

This thinking process is a software version of: “measure twice, cut once”.

This post is going to lay out approach for beginning your cabinet design software project.

Projects contain assemblies.   Assemblies obtain boards and/or doors, roars, hardware. Doors, drawers, hardware contain boards and or hardware. Hardware contains boards but really those boards can be any material such as metal.

When you begin designing your project you logically think the same way you would create that project shop or at the job site.   So you start with boxes or carcasses, input sides and backs and tops, and keep going.  At the end you remember that the front of the project needs a frame, or hardware, or molding.  Because SketchList 3D ‘builds from the front to the back – there’s no room to add these things at the front.

SketchList 3D uses the corner where left equal bottom equal front equal to anchor every object in a design.

It is easy to increase the size of the project to the right, top, or back – away from the anchor. You can’t really increase the size of the project the left, front, or bottom – the anchor will stop.

This is because objects are located at a specific distance from the left, front, bottom. To “add space” to the left you must increase the project size to the right and move all of the objects to the right by the size required. For example, if I needed to resize the project towards the left by five units (which cannot be done directly). To do this you increase width of the project by five and add five to the left value of every object in the project. Of course this can be very tedious.  SketchList 3D does have a batch move for this function. Better to plan ahead and get the spacing right the first time.

To avoid this when designing the project consider what happens at the edges or boundaries of the project.

• What happens on the front edge? There might be hardware, face frames, or perhaps a molding. Consider the detail of sides in the same fashion. Going to be some sort of overlap?
• Consider what happens on the side edges.  Perhaps you will have something overhanging so you might scribe your project to fit an irregular wall.

This thinking will help you accurately size the project.

Size of the project is the biggest” box” that contains every element of the project including space – if necessary – for objects such as hardware.

If you are going to rotate an assembly within the project that project must be large enough to have the assembly spin inside the project without ash even for a moment – having the corner of that assembly go outside the boundary of the project. An assembly 1-foot-deep and 4 feet wide will not rotate the project 1 foot deep and 4 feet wide.   The project would have to be something like 50 inches wide and 50 inches deep to rotate that assembly within it.

Again there is no real penalty of over sizing a project with the possible exception that you might place an object so it exists outside of the room so to speak

Naming the project involves some planning as well. I see customer’s databases projects named project one, two, project three and so on. Some sketch list 3-D users will title projects with names like Smith bathroom. Think about the types of work you do and how you might incorporate some bit order or coding into project names. For example, instead of Smith bathroom you might choose to title the project bathroom – Smith – master suite. It seems like a small point but as you create dozens and dozens of projects in SketchList 3D the project list is better organized.

In setting up the project another good practice is to insert some sort of image.  Of course before you begin the design you have no image from SketchList 3D. If you have any kind of pencil drawing, photograph, or an image from a magazine, photograph or scan this image onto your computer and inserted in the record for that project. This way when the project form opens in SketchList 3D the project list will have images to help you select the project you want to open. You can change the image when you have a final design and even when you installed the work and take a photograph of the actual finished product.  Always photograph your finished work.

In the project definition form is a place for notes. When creating the project, you should include any notes that will help you design or assist you in the shop.

You should consider materials to use. You can go to the materials menu item top of your sketch list form and select or create materials you’ll be using for the project. There are videos that show how to select and create new materials. While you’re doing this you SHOULD go to the stock option under the material menu and size the material your project uses.

Materials information including video.

This avoids the optimize function displaying errors on all of the parts in your design. One of the most frequent optimizer error is not specifying the size of the source materials being used in the project.  Again see the video in the link above.

Summary. Plan ahead and minimize mistakes. Gaining experience will speed the process.

Measure twice cut once. Ready fire aim.   The best advice on creating a new project is take some time and think it through.

Size is the most important task although mistaken size can be overcome.

Naming and providing images helps you manage and identify your projects.

Some thought of materials you’re being used at only avoids issues with the optimizer but it is also a good mental exercise have you think about the details of how this project is going to come together.

The post Cabinet Design Software – Consider the Project appeared first on SketchList3D.

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?”

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Dave

The post Home office – furniture design software 3d model appeared first on SketchList3D.

  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.

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.

The post Making a drawer as a basic cabinet design software process appeared first on SketchList3D.

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.

The post Thinking about assemblies in a project with cabinet design software appeared first on SketchList3D.