Google Sketchup - Come Along for the Ride

Betsy said:

Trying to get back in the swing - new project

OK - so I'm finally getting back to doing things. Small stuff mostly and easy things. So I'm thinking of making a cutting board for my sister-in-law. A board for cutting bread. She makes the best homemade bread!!

Anyway - this is what I'm trying to do.



I'm having trouble getting the colors right. The whole idea of doing a SU picture is to see if what you want to do will look good, etc.

I want to change a couple of the components to a walnut color.

If you try to imagine what I want to do-the first 3" section (on the left) will have cherry on the bottom - walnut on the top.

then comes a maple strip, then a 3/4 strip with walnut on the bottom and cherry on top - then a maple strip - then 3/4 strip with cherry on bottom and walnut on top - then a maple strip then the 3" piece on the right has
walnut on the bottom and cherry on top.

If anyone can help with the coloring I'd appreciate it. I looked in the paint bucket and there are not many wood colors - I'm sure there is a way to import more - but not sure how.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Click to expand...

Betsy said:

In the beginning.....

So the journey begins. The trip is short this morning because I've got to start work shortly.

I'm a beginner at this program so thsy's where we are starting. I will do my best to answer, or find answers to all questions. Everyoneis welcomed to chime in with questions, answers, or corections to my answers.

So like I said short and sweet this morning.

First - definitely get a mouse with a scrool wheel-even if you have a laptop. I got my mouse out last night and it makes a HUGE difference in using the program.

Next when you open a new sheet there's this man standing there. Ten points to the one who can tell me his name! I know it already. Anyway - I don't like the guy. He's a sexist slob. How do I know this? because he appears to be walking and he has his head turned in the "Wow that's a good looking woman" turn. Just kidding guys.

To get rid of the little guy - use the select tool, the little arrow in the top left corner to select him and then right click and scroll up to erase or hide. You can also just click on him and then right click.

I believe to make him go away permanently you need to make a template. I'll get into that later this weekend when my home internet is fixed and I have more time.

"Snip"--you know what that is right-- snip a stray thread off your shirt or you snip at your wife-- wait that must be snap at your wife--sorry.

Snip is how you can stop what ever you are trying to do from happening again. Say, for instance you are drawing a line and are done and want now to draw a circle. You move your cursor to select the cricle but you are still dragging a line along for the ride to the circle tool.

To stop drawing your line, or rectangle or circle, etc. when you finish with the action press the "esc" or escape button. This "snips" off the line,ectangle, etc. and you can go merrily to another action.

OK, gotta go for now. Will do more exploring and more indepth blog this weekend.

Thanks guys and rememberEveryoneis welcomed to chime in with questions, answers, or corections to my answers.

Click to expand...

Betsy said:

In the beginning.....

So the journey begins. The trip is short this morning because I've got to start work shortly.

I'm a beginner at this program so thsy's where we are starting. I will do my best to answer, or find answers to all questions. Everyoneis welcomed to chime in with questions, answers, or corections to my answers.

So like I said short and sweet this morning.

First - definitely get a mouse with a scrool wheel-even if you have a laptop. I got my mouse out last night and it makes a HUGE difference in using the program.

Next when you open a new sheet there's this man standing there. Ten points to the one who can tell me his name! I know it already. Anyway - I don't like the guy. He's a sexist slob. How do I know this? because he appears to be walking and he has his head turned in the "Wow that's a good looking woman" turn. Just kidding guys.

To get rid of the little guy - use the select tool, the little arrow in the top left corner to select him and then right click and scroll up to erase or hide. You can also just click on him and then right click.

I believe to make him go away permanently you need to make a template. I'll get into that later this weekend when my home internet is fixed and I have more time.

"Snip"--you know what that is right-- snip a stray thread off your shirt or you snip at your wife-- wait that must be snap at your wife--sorry.

Snip is how you can stop what ever you are trying to do from happening again. Say, for instance you are drawing a line and are done and want now to draw a circle. You move your cursor to select the cricle but you are still dragging a line along for the ride to the circle tool.

To stop drawing your line, or rectangle or circle, etc. when you finish with the action press the "esc" or escape button. This "snips" off the line,ectangle, etc. and you can go merrily to another action.

OK, gotta go for now. Will do more exploring and more indepth blog this weekend.

Thanks guys and rememberEveryoneis welcomed to chime in with questions, answers, or corections to my answers.

Click to expand...

Betsy said:

Tools - general stuff

So now we have to take a look at tools. There are LOTS and LOTS of tools to look at. But the three most important are the zoom, orbit and pan tools. It seems that their importance are in that order.

Again, I've definitely discovered that if you don't have a mouse you better get one. You can do everything with your keyboard and cursor - but you'll save yourself a whole bunch of aggravation by getting a good mouse.

Moving the scroll wheel back and forth zooms in and out. This replaces the tool that looks like a magnifying glass on the menu bar. This feature helps you to move in close to any particular portion of your project that you want to work on at any one time. When you have a lot of different portions of a project on the screen the zoom feature will be a big advantage. (Layers is another feature that will be useful as zooming - but that's way ahead of where we are now.)

Pressing and holding the scroll wheel down orbits - allowing you to move around the object and see it on all sides. This replaces the icon that looks like two arrows going in a circle. (It's the one right next to that ghostly looking hand.) You want to become an expert at orbiting-- you'll thank yourself for obtaining this little talent. Picture yourself wanting to look at the back of your house. The only way to do that is to walk from the front to the back-- orbiting is like walking to the back yard.

The pan tool-- that ghostly looking hand - this allows you to move the object around the window. It does not spin the object - just moves it from one side of the window to another. The mouse, in my opinion is less useful with this particular tool. To use the mouse you need to hold down the scroll wheel and at the same time hold the shift key down. This makes the pan tool appear - then moving the mouse around (all the while holding the wheel and shift key down) will make the object move around. I think it is easier to use the icon - you have to select the icon then hold the LEFT mouse button down to move the icon/object around. I just think it's easier to have to hold only one thing down at a time.

Those are the three tools you MUST get a grasp on before getting very far.

Hopefully I'm not going to slow for everyone--I'm sorry if I am-- I am taking a long time to get the hang of the program. One thing that I think is very helpful is to just start "sketching" and clicking and doing the little things to get a feel for what each tool does.

I think that the biggest shortfall of any book, article, blog, or instruction on any topic is that the person who is writing or teaching leaves out some of the little things that make such a big difference to actually using the program-- I call those things the "Ah now I get it" things. The writer or teacher does not leave these things out intentionally, but the little things are just taken for granted. These are the things that I need to figure out to use the program. So that's what I'm going to try to do here.

Hopefully it won't be too boring. But we are going to take baby steps. I figure I have till about September before I can get back in the shop so that leaves a lot of time for baby steps! Not really, while I have until September, I won't really go that slow.

One assumption that I've made that is not necessarily wrong as a whole, but is not exactly right-- (did you get that?) is that everything starts out as a shape - in other words you have to start with a rectangle or circle or triangle, etc. This is not right.

The important thing is that you have to have an edge and a face to get anything done. You can accomplish this with the line tool (the pencil) - you don't have to start with a "shape."

Just try this-- select the pencil tool, click on any spot then move your cursor to another spot and click again. You now have a line. Because it is a single line attached to nothing in particular it will be a dark line.

Now something about lines and SU in general. As you drew your line did you notice what color it was? If it was green, red or blue that means you are drawing parallel to one of those axes. If the line is black as you are drawing - that means you are not parallel to any axis. Most of the time you want to be parallel to an axis - that will make everything that comes after easier.

Now back to that line-- if you have not moved your cursor from where you clicked the second time, you may notice that green dot at the end of the line - that dot - no matter the color is called an "inference" you need to pay attention to those little dots. The green dots indicates that you are at the end of the line and if you click again while that dot is green and move your cursor around you will begin drawing a new line from the "end" of the first. If you move your cursor so that the green dot disappears along the line it should turn red, this indicates that if you start drawing from there that your new line will begin on an edge not the end. Pretty simple. If you keep moving the dot will change to another color - light blue to my eye - indicating that you are at the midpoint or center of your original line. There are other dots or inferences to watch for. But those are the main ones to start with.

Now back to the end of your line where that green dot is take a look at the bottom right of your screen - you'll see a little box that says "length". This is the value control box. You can make this a complicated idea - but it's not. It's a dimension indication tool - that's it. Move your cursor away from the green dot and watch the box - it will show the length of your line. This will help you when you start actually drawing and want to make something a certain dimension. Don't make it a complicated thing--try to keep this simple. (That's what I keep telling myself.) If you are drawing a line - it shows length, if you are making a circle, it shows radius, etc.

Now just to complete (well not exactly complete) the thought on edges and faces-- take your line and draw four that are connected at those little dots. Once you finish that last line you'll see that the inside of the four lines turns a light black--that light black space is a "face."

Now let's play with that face. Move your cursor to the tool bar and pick up the "select" tool. That's the arrow in the upper left corner of the screen. Move the arrow over the new face and click-- that will change the texture of the face into a bunch of little dots. ANYTIME a face is selected it will have these dots. Anything that is selected will be the portion of the object that will be changed by any following action.

You can "select" by clicking as well - you don't necessarily have to use the select tool.

ok that's all for now - all this left handed typing gets tough! More later.

As always comments, suggestions, questions or corrections are always welcome.

oh and just because I don't think a blog is complete without a picture---



there - I feel better.

Click to expand...

Betsy said:

Tools - general stuff

So now we have to take a look at tools. There are LOTS and LOTS of tools to look at. But the three most important are the zoom, orbit and pan tools. It seems that their importance are in that order.

Again, I've definitely discovered that if you don't have a mouse you better get one. You can do everything with your keyboard and cursor - but you'll save yourself a whole bunch of aggravation by getting a good mouse.

Moving the scroll wheel back and forth zooms in and out. This replaces the tool that looks like a magnifying glass on the menu bar. This feature helps you to move in close to any particular portion of your project that you want to work on at any one time. When you have a lot of different portions of a project on the screen the zoom feature will be a big advantage. (Layers is another feature that will be useful as zooming - but that's way ahead of where we are now.)

Pressing and holding the scroll wheel down orbits - allowing you to move around the object and see it on all sides. This replaces the icon that looks like two arrows going in a circle. (It's the one right next to that ghostly looking hand.) You want to become an expert at orbiting-- you'll thank yourself for obtaining this little talent. Picture yourself wanting to look at the back of your house. The only way to do that is to walk from the front to the back-- orbiting is like walking to the back yard.

The pan tool-- that ghostly looking hand - this allows you to move the object around the window. It does not spin the object - just moves it from one side of the window to another. The mouse, in my opinion is less useful with this particular tool. To use the mouse you need to hold down the scroll wheel and at the same time hold the shift key down. This makes the pan tool appear - then moving the mouse around (all the while holding the wheel and shift key down) will make the object move around. I think it is easier to use the icon - you have to select the icon then hold the LEFT mouse button down to move the icon/object around. I just think it's easier to have to hold only one thing down at a time.

Those are the three tools you MUST get a grasp on before getting very far.

Hopefully I'm not going to slow for everyone--I'm sorry if I am-- I am taking a long time to get the hang of the program. One thing that I think is very helpful is to just start "sketching" and clicking and doing the little things to get a feel for what each tool does.

I think that the biggest shortfall of any book, article, blog, or instruction on any topic is that the person who is writing or teaching leaves out some of the little things that make such a big difference to actually using the program-- I call those things the "Ah now I get it" things. The writer or teacher does not leave these things out intentionally, but the little things are just taken for granted. These are the things that I need to figure out to use the program. So that's what I'm going to try to do here.

Hopefully it won't be too boring. But we are going to take baby steps. I figure I have till about September before I can get back in the shop so that leaves a lot of time for baby steps! Not really, while I have until September, I won't really go that slow.

One assumption that I've made that is not necessarily wrong as a whole, but is not exactly right-- (did you get that?) is that everything starts out as a shape - in other words you have to start with a rectangle or circle or triangle, etc. This is not right.

The important thing is that you have to have an edge and a face to get anything done. You can accomplish this with the line tool (the pencil) - you don't have to start with a "shape."

Just try this-- select the pencil tool, click on any spot then move your cursor to another spot and click again. You now have a line. Because it is a single line attached to nothing in particular it will be a dark line.

Now something about lines and SU in general. As you drew your line did you notice what color it was? If it was green, red or blue that means you are drawing parallel to one of those axes. If the line is black as you are drawing - that means you are not parallel to any axis. Most of the time you want to be parallel to an axis - that will make everything that comes after easier.

Now back to that line-- if you have not moved your cursor from where you clicked the second time, you may notice that green dot at the end of the line - that dot - no matter the color is called an "inference" you need to pay attention to those little dots. The green dots indicates that you are at the end of the line and if you click again while that dot is green and move your cursor around you will begin drawing a new line from the "end" of the first. If you move your cursor so that the green dot disappears along the line it should turn red, this indicates that if you start drawing from there that your new line will begin on an edge not the end. Pretty simple. If you keep moving the dot will change to another color - light blue to my eye - indicating that you are at the midpoint or center of your original line. There are other dots or inferences to watch for. But those are the main ones to start with.

Now back to the end of your line where that green dot is take a look at the bottom right of your screen - you'll see a little box that says "length". This is the value control box. You can make this a complicated idea - but it's not. It's a dimension indication tool - that's it. Move your cursor away from the green dot and watch the box - it will show the length of your line. This will help you when you start actually drawing and want to make something a certain dimension. Don't make it a complicated thing--try to keep this simple. (That's what I keep telling myself.) If you are drawing a line - it shows length, if you are making a circle, it shows radius, etc.

Now just to complete (well not exactly complete) the thought on edges and faces-- take your line and draw four that are connected at those little dots. Once you finish that last line you'll see that the inside of the four lines turns a light black--that light black space is a "face."

Now let's play with that face. Move your cursor to the tool bar and pick up the "select" tool. That's the arrow in the upper left corner of the screen. Move the arrow over the new face and click-- that will change the texture of the face into a bunch of little dots. ANYTIME a face is selected it will have these dots. Anything that is selected will be the portion of the object that will be changed by any following action.

You can "select" by clicking as well - you don't necessarily have to use the select tool.

ok that's all for now - all this left handed typing gets tough! More later.

As always comments, suggestions, questions or corrections are always welcome.

oh and just because I don't think a blog is complete without a picture---



there - I feel better.

Click to expand...

Betsy said:

Tools - general stuff

So now we have to take a look at tools. There are LOTS and LOTS of tools to look at. But the three most important are the zoom, orbit and pan tools. It seems that their importance are in that order.

Again, I've definitely discovered that if you don't have a mouse you better get one. You can do everything with your keyboard and cursor - but you'll save yourself a whole bunch of aggravation by getting a good mouse.

Moving the scroll wheel back and forth zooms in and out. This replaces the tool that looks like a magnifying glass on the menu bar. This feature helps you to move in close to any particular portion of your project that you want to work on at any one time. When you have a lot of different portions of a project on the screen the zoom feature will be a big advantage. (Layers is another feature that will be useful as zooming - but that's way ahead of where we are now.)

Pressing and holding the scroll wheel down orbits - allowing you to move around the object and see it on all sides. This replaces the icon that looks like two arrows going in a circle. (It's the one right next to that ghostly looking hand.) You want to become an expert at orbiting-- you'll thank yourself for obtaining this little talent. Picture yourself wanting to look at the back of your house. The only way to do that is to walk from the front to the back-- orbiting is like walking to the back yard.

The pan tool-- that ghostly looking hand - this allows you to move the object around the window. It does not spin the object - just moves it from one side of the window to another. The mouse, in my opinion is less useful with this particular tool. To use the mouse you need to hold down the scroll wheel and at the same time hold the shift key down. This makes the pan tool appear - then moving the mouse around (all the while holding the wheel and shift key down) will make the object move around. I think it is easier to use the icon - you have to select the icon then hold the LEFT mouse button down to move the icon/object around. I just think it's easier to have to hold only one thing down at a time.

Those are the three tools you MUST get a grasp on before getting very far.

Hopefully I'm not going to slow for everyone--I'm sorry if I am-- I am taking a long time to get the hang of the program. One thing that I think is very helpful is to just start "sketching" and clicking and doing the little things to get a feel for what each tool does.

I think that the biggest shortfall of any book, article, blog, or instruction on any topic is that the person who is writing or teaching leaves out some of the little things that make such a big difference to actually using the program-- I call those things the "Ah now I get it" things. The writer or teacher does not leave these things out intentionally, but the little things are just taken for granted. These are the things that I need to figure out to use the program. So that's what I'm going to try to do here.

Hopefully it won't be too boring. But we are going to take baby steps. I figure I have till about September before I can get back in the shop so that leaves a lot of time for baby steps! Not really, while I have until September, I won't really go that slow.

One assumption that I've made that is not necessarily wrong as a whole, but is not exactly right-- (did you get that?) is that everything starts out as a shape - in other words you have to start with a rectangle or circle or triangle, etc. This is not right.

The important thing is that you have to have an edge and a face to get anything done. You can accomplish this with the line tool (the pencil) - you don't have to start with a "shape."

Just try this-- select the pencil tool, click on any spot then move your cursor to another spot and click again. You now have a line. Because it is a single line attached to nothing in particular it will be a dark line.

Now something about lines and SU in general. As you drew your line did you notice what color it was? If it was green, red or blue that means you are drawing parallel to one of those axes. If the line is black as you are drawing - that means you are not parallel to any axis. Most of the time you want to be parallel to an axis - that will make everything that comes after easier.

Now back to that line-- if you have not moved your cursor from where you clicked the second time, you may notice that green dot at the end of the line - that dot - no matter the color is called an "inference" you need to pay attention to those little dots. The green dots indicates that you are at the end of the line and if you click again while that dot is green and move your cursor around you will begin drawing a new line from the "end" of the first. If you move your cursor so that the green dot disappears along the line it should turn red, this indicates that if you start drawing from there that your new line will begin on an edge not the end. Pretty simple. If you keep moving the dot will change to another color - light blue to my eye - indicating that you are at the midpoint or center of your original line. There are other dots or inferences to watch for. But those are the main ones to start with.

Now back to the end of your line where that green dot is take a look at the bottom right of your screen - you'll see a little box that says "length". This is the value control box. You can make this a complicated idea - but it's not. It's a dimension indication tool - that's it. Move your cursor away from the green dot and watch the box - it will show the length of your line. This will help you when you start actually drawing and want to make something a certain dimension. Don't make it a complicated thing--try to keep this simple. (That's what I keep telling myself.) If you are drawing a line - it shows length, if you are making a circle, it shows radius, etc.

Now just to complete (well not exactly complete) the thought on edges and faces-- take your line and draw four that are connected at those little dots. Once you finish that last line you'll see that the inside of the four lines turns a light black--that light black space is a "face."

Now let's play with that face. Move your cursor to the tool bar and pick up the "select" tool. That's the arrow in the upper left corner of the screen. Move the arrow over the new face and click-- that will change the texture of the face into a bunch of little dots. ANYTIME a face is selected it will have these dots. Anything that is selected will be the portion of the object that will be changed by any following action.

You can "select" by clicking as well - you don't necessarily have to use the select tool.

ok that's all for now - all this left handed typing gets tough! More later.

As always comments, suggestions, questions or corrections are always welcome.

oh and just because I don't think a blog is complete without a picture---



there - I feel better.

Click to expand...

Betsy said:

A simple table preview

I'm at work right now and don't have SU on this computer. But last evening I decided the best way to get moving on this was to put aside trying to do anything fancy (layers, components, MT joints, etc.) and do a simple table. So I spent about three hours or so putting a table together. The table is based on episode 11 of the Woodwhisperer's pod cast. I plan to take it one step at a time and go into detail of each step. I'm not going to do anything fancy like move, copy, tapers, etc. The only fancy thing will be guide marks. This will be an excercise in redundancy of effort. Such as you'll be forced to make 4 legs instead of one. But I think the practice will be good. Get the basics down and then the fancy stuff will really be easy to get. Doing this this way will help you see the various mistakes you can make and teach you how to avoid them.

I had a lot of fun making the table. I think I ran into some "ah that's how they do that" things that hopefully will help someone else.

If you have time, watch Marc's podcast and then check back tonight on my blog. Hopefully we'll all be on our way to mastering this program!

As always your thoughts, comments, questions and corrections are appreciated.

Click to expand...

Betsy said:

Table building --- starting simple

So the journey to building a very simple table begins. This table is based on one from Thewoodwhisperer's episode 11 arts and craft table. There's is nothing fancy that's done and that's the best part for this primer on using SU.

Now I've spent some time putting the table together-unfortunately, I've still not figured out how to post it here. So if someone can enlighten me on that little gem I'd appreciate it.

Regardless - here we go. And remember - we are taking baby steps, trying to go methodically and get all, or at least as many as I can think of, the details in there. Hopefully this won't be too boring but I'm doing this as much for myself as anyone. Hopefully it will help someone along the way.

First things first. Open SU and go to Window-Preferences-- highlight "templates" on the left hand list of items, then with the arrow drop down menu choose "inches woodworking 3d."

This should give you a picture with three axes - those lines and a picture of a small framing square.

Select the framing square (click on it) - that will put a blue box around the frame-- hit delete on your keyboard - or right click and scroll up to erase.

So now you are left with the three axes. The red and green lines are the "ground" and the blue line is "up".

Move your cursor to the upper left corner and select the rectangle icon-- this action will turn your cursor into a pencil with a small rectangle next to it.

Move the icon to the "origin" which is the point where all three axes come together. When your cursor hits the origin perfectly on center it will create a yellow dot. Using your mouse - left click to start drawing a rectangle.

Let go of the mouse after you click (we are going to avoid "dragging"), then move the mouse along the green axis. You'll see your rectangle starting to take shape. You should also see a red line moving up along with your mouse. That red line means you are parallel to the red axis. You should also see a green line on the right which means you are parallel to the green axis.

Move your cursor about four inches up the green axis and then left click. This drops the end of the rectangle and it will turn the rectangle a dark blue color. This is the "face" or your rectangle.

Hit the "ESC" button on your keyboard to stop drawing rectangles.

Remember that anytime you make a mistake or want to undo anything, just go to Edit - drop down to "undo" and that will undo your last action. You can continue to "undo" as many times as you want. You can also undo the undo function-- ain't that fun!

Take a look at the bottom right corner of your screen. The word "dimension" should be there and then a box with some numbers in it. Those numbers tell you how big your rectangle is. You can change that number, in fact you should. Type in 36,72 then hit the Enter button. This will size your table top to 36" deep and 72" long.

(If you drew your rectangle on the red axis you would type in 72,36.)

You do NOT have to put a space between the numbers 36 and 72-all you need is a comma. You can put in a space if you want to-- but you don't need it. You DO need the comma. Don't forget your comma!

Before we go any further, you should "save" your table so you don't loose all your efforts.

Move your cursor up to the menu bar and select the push/pull tool. It's the one that is square with an arrow coming out of it. (10th tool from the left).

Place the push/pull tool anywhere on the rectangle - just moving it over the rectangle will make a bunch of pretty little dots to show up. That means that your next action will effect that portion of your project. Move the tool off of the rectangle and it becomes a boring little box again.

Put the tool back over the rectangle and left click once - the pretty dots disappear - don't let go off the left button and move your mouse up. This turns the rectangle white and gives it depth.

Take a look at the dimension box in the bottom right corner - you'll notice that the numbers have changed from the rectangular dimensions to thickness. Type in .75 or 3/4 then hit Enter button. Then hit the "esc" button. Your rectangle is now a table top 3/4" thick and it should appear white on the screen.

OK. I have to take a break-- this left-handed typing is tough! More later tonight.

Remember I've still not figured out how to post it here. So if someone can enlighten me on that little gem I'd appreciate it. If you can tell me how-please do.

Click to expand...

Betsy said:

Putting in the legs and zooming and panning

Second try on this one. Had it almost done and it went into oblivion somewhere. Oh well - here we start again.

This is where we ended the last time.



So now it's time to place the legs. This will be another exercise in redundancy. No copying and pasting - practice practice practice. :+)

We are going to work with the bottom left leg. You need to select your rectangle tool and move it to the corner of the two guide lines. When your tool hits the corner exactly a black inference dot will show up showing that you are at the intersection of the guides. Left click the mouse once and let go. push the mouse up about an inch or so and click again. Then type in 3,3 and Enter. This gives you the dimension of your leg.

Next select your push/pull tool, which is the same tool we used to give depth/thickness to the top.

One thing you have to remember about the push/pull tool is this-whatever it is hovering over will turn to a bunch of dots--that means the tool is ready to do something to that particular part of your project. Because of that you need to be sure that the tool is on top of the new rectangle/leg. Once you have it over the leg = left click and bring the leg up. Then type 29.25 in the VCB box and hit enter.

You should now have this.



Now we want to work on the top left leg. You can see that when you place your rectangle tool there that it is not as easy to get the intersection to come into view. This is like standing at your workbench and not being able to correctly see the part you are trying to work on. So you either walk around the bench or you move the project. In this case if you physically walk around the project all you'll see is the back of your computer-- that won't help-believe me. What you want to do is to pan and zoom.

I like to pan (use that ghostly hand) and move the project to the center of the screen and then I zoom in (using the scroll wheel on the mouse) until I get a good view.

This is what my screen looks like.



Now try getting your intersection inference to show up. Place your second leg just like the first. Then zoom an d pan some more until you get all four legs in place.



Now is a good time to learn the eraser function. You cannot use the Edit drop down menu for this part - you can only use the eraser. The eraser is the flat pink tool (7th from the left).

Before you go any further have you been saving your table progress? I'm assuming you are building with me and not just reading. Maybe, please.

So anyway - now is a good time to get rid of those guide lines. You do this two ways one simple one not so hard way. The simply way if you want all of your guides to go away is to go to the Edit menu on the tool bar and drop down and select delete guides and just like that they are gone.

However,what if you need to keep one or two guides and only need to erase one or two. Hummm you do that with the eraser tool and this is how that's done.

Select the eraser tool bring it to the guide you want erased and left click near the guide - it should turn blue the click again - and it's gone

So now we have an upside down table. That's not much use to us. Use your pan and orbit tools to flip this table upright.



This is what we want to end up with.



Hope you all are getting a little something out of this. I know I am. All questions and comments welcomed.

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