Basic Sketchup.

cusoak | Posted in SketchUp on February 8, 2012 09:41am

Good morning, I am new to this site. I want to learn the use of Sketchup. I want to learn how to draw basic cabinets first. As I am redoing our kitchen. Is there a basic tutorial on how to use and draw simple cabinets and save the design. If so where would I find this.

I have plenty of wood working backround. About 50plus yrs. Have built most pieces from hand drawings. Need to speed up the process, and learn something new along the way.

Thanks for your help

Jeff

Replies

VAM | Feb 08, 2012 12:33pm | #1
One suggestion

There are a lot of resources on the web, but many are not specific to woodworking. I'd start with a book like "Google Sketchup the Missing Manual" and go through the first half. This gets you familiar with the basic operations and capabilities of SketchUp. Then I'd download the Fine Woodworking PDF "Google SketchUp Guide for Woodworkers". This is specific for woodworking and has excellent methods of work as well as covering more SketchUp features. The PDF is much faster-paced than the book, which is why I think starting with the book would work well for a beginner.

Unfortunately, the PDF uses a medium gray type which may be hard to read on some monitors - or at least you may have to tweak your monitor brightness and contrast settings.

All of this will take some time, but once you learn SketchUp you'll never go back.
daverichards | Feb 08, 2012 02:20pm | #2
Jeff, VAM had some good suggestions. If you are one of those folks who finds it easier to learn when you have someone actually showing you, drop me an e-mail at drkr4109 at gmaildotcom and let's talk. I can help you out.

Dave
cusoak | Feb 12, 2012 06:42am | #3
Thanks for the replys both of you I will look for the book and if that doesn't help I will be incontact dave.

Thanks Jeff
MSketcher | Apr 15, 2012 08:23pm | #4
Take advantage of the 3D warehouse

Just a note to anyone else new to Sketchup, if you're looking to do a kitchen remodel like Jeff, there are a TON of cabinets already professionally modeled that you can download from the 3D warehouse. So all you would have to do is draw the skeleton of your kitchen and drop the cabinets in. Companiees like Igloo studios have converted many big name companies products into Sketchup models for you to use. They recently released something called "Product Connect" where you can find these models easier.

http://igloostudios.com/productconnect
bones | Apr 17, 2012 08:25am | #5
plenty of places

You can look here there is a section for sketchup and the folks that respond will help. Youtube is a great help at least for me. I learn better by watching. I'm going to go a little different here and don't get me wrong sketchup is great and I use it now that I know my way around. However, if kitchen cabinets is your purpose, I'd reccomend e-cabinets Google it. It's free and it's made just for cabinet design and built in tools for laying out the cabinets fitting them toe kick face frame design etc. I used that for everything before taking up sketchup. Again I use sketchup now because all around it's more, but if kitchen cabinets is what you really want, then E-cabinets is specific for that purpose. Good luck.