I am in need of some help. Hopefully the picture posted. If so, then let me explain what it is. This is a mount i want to design that will slide ontop of a pica-tinny rail atop of a paintball gun. The holes are 0.25 in diameter holes that will allow steel rod to slide threw and be help in place with a set screw. on the end of the rods,roughly 13 inches in length, will be a padded buttstock.
here is a link for a similar product. I am wanting to design my own for educational reasons and for school.
this one is not made for my gun nor do they make one for it. Even if my design is terrible, i still wanna try it out haha
ok, here is my question. I know very little of sketchup. I have made some basic stuff here and there but nothing like this. I will be 3d printing it on my printer i have. Should i draw it like a i would other basic stuff? or am i going to need to use componetns and groups and if so, the reason for that. i like to know why i need to something so i can learn haha
First of all you’ll need to create the object as if mm are meters. So given measures are 6350mm and 15670mm and the holes are 250mm in diameter. Sketchup fails in creating faces with very short edges. Once you have created your object group it to see if it is a SketchUp solid. You can now scale it down (for printing) by x0,001 or in two steps by x0.01 and again by x0.1
Make sure that all faces are oriented right, front side out, back side in (towards material).
Ok, thank you much for this repl;y. Let me make sure i understand you correctly. You are saying that sketchup pro fails at creating small edges such as 0.25 inches(6.35mm), 0.825 inches(17mm), etc?
Therefor, treat it as meters and scale down? I thought sketchup pro could handle qrtr inch holes and inch stuff? Thank you for helping me
What if i just multiplied all my numbers by 10? so that my quarter ich hole(which is 6.35mm) is now 65ishmm?
i know sektchup can do things with in the 1 foot and 2 foot area because i designed a food cart once.
It’s the 0.25mm hole diameter that worries me most. Its segments are most likely way below what SketchUp can handle. Calculate the segment length with a “circle” with say 24 segments. That’s by far less than 0.25 inch
i see what you are saying. the 0.25 is in inches, not mm. sorry for the confusion:) the dims are as follows:
if i go inches:
holes = 0.25 inch
top length is 0.825 inches
middle length is 0.6 inches
if i go mm:
holes = 6.35mm
top length = 17mm
middle length is 15.67mm
What might be the trouble maker are the two 45* lengths that are 2.96mm in length…I do like your idea of scaling down though. I might just multiply everything by 100, then scale down by 0.01 at the end. make it eaiser. Never done that before. Is there a video for this exact thing?
I’ve never personally had trouble with holes down to 5mm dia. I always try at real scale first and if any faces are missing after an operation, then I resort to The Dave Method which is shown in the link shown by Box above.
i like the dave mthod. let me make sure i understand whats going on. for my part, i start of with a single box set to my dimmensions i need. then i make siad box a component. i copy it, scale the copy up by 100 or so, edit the copy and then when finished, delete the copy and all changes will have been made on the itty bitty one?
What if i need to add another shape to the component like a circle? does it automatically put it into that component?
Yes that’s right, straight after the operation its worth checking Entity Info to see if the result is a solid. Sometimes there may be minute missing faces you cannot see. You may have to scale up further, say by 1000x in some cases to get a good result. A few tries and you’ll get the hang of it.
You have to make sure you are in component edit mode, in the same context as the other geometry in the component and the circle will be added. Double click a component with the Select tool to Edit and click in open model space to close the Edit mode.
Edit- If you’re also meaning adding a circle on the scaled up copy, yes the circle will be added in the original because it’s an instance of the same component definition you are working on.
ok thanks. i hope i can get the hang of it haha. I know my part is more than just a box haha.It has a box, some circles, some holes and lines and all sorts of fun things to try out. Those lines are about 3mm in length and the shape is kind of unique.
man i wish i knew more about this program but i feel so lost in it half the time. i wish there was a great course for this at my school haha
A lot of learning will come with practise, if you get stuck you can always ask here again. I’m sure you’ll be answered.
I don’t know how new you are to SU, but these may be worth a look if you haven’t seen them already: SketchUp Campus
I am new to sketchup. I have dabled but thats it. I did take a class 6 years ago in autocad inventor but that was years ago and i have not used any modeling since then.
thank you for the link and i will look at those videos… I am a mechanical engineering student but for some reason, it is not part of our degree to learn 3d drawing…
