Wow, what a difference that made.
I was able to fix that shaded strip with that on.
Still, I dont’t know what caused me to screw up the model so royally last night…
Oh well. Back to it I guess.
Thank you!
Alright…
I have reached an impasse.
I need to figure out how to fill in this shape:
I need to leave the two holes blank and fill in the rest. All attempts to do so are met with frustration and the object refusing to fill in around the holes.
Anyone have any hints?
Can you copy just that part into a blank model and upload it here so we can look at it.
It could just be that one of your edges is out of alignment, but it’s all guesswork without the model.
You mean export it as a 3D file?
No, select the geometry of the bracket, go Edit/ copy.
Open a new instance of sketchup and go Edit Paste in place.
Save that .skp file and attach it here just like you do with the images.
GBG-BRACKET.skp (197.9 KB)
Oh sorry, here it is.
Basically it’s twisted.
Are you drawing everything with the pencil tool rather than the rectangle tool.
Quite a lot of it isn’t square.
Also you are drawing off axis, I can understand why as you are drawing it on the bridge, but if you draw one on axis and make it a component you can then place multiple copies all over your bridge. If you try to do that with one drawn off axis it just makes life even more difficult.
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Was giving it a try myself and was having problems with the bottom half too. Never thought of it being twisted. After I read your post that it was twisted I went back and looked again and seen it was twisted. Come back and seen you post a gif of what I was trying to do, but now know how to, thanks for another lesson!
Guess I can’t post pics or gifs to the forum yet or just to tired to figure it out. 
I’m drawing it in place because I need to line up the holes where the railings terminate into the concrete posts, and I have everything lined up.
I am drawing with the pencil tool, yes. I also am unfamiliar with how to make a component…
Ugh…
The bottom circle is out of alignment with the rest of the bracket.
Any way I can measure how far out it is and correct it?
Thanks for the help so far by the way.
It’s generally easier to construct a separate part off to the side rather than in place, just as in the real world. Just copy as much of the surrounding geometry as is needed to define the interfaces, build the part, and place it in position. Also, it obviates the clutter of all those guidelines.
Don’t waste your time reworking bad geometry. Chances are you’ll just make a mess. Just construct it over, correctly.
-Gully
2 Likes
Geez, I’m a total dumbass. Sigh.
Thank you for rescuing me from hours of staring at this thing, muttering to myself things like “what the [expletiive]”, and “need more Red Bull”.
I spent hours on that bracket only to find out it’s no good.
Also, the extrude tool is giving me grief. I try to extrude the railing, click once to set it, then when I go to extrude it again it disappears.
Gonna be a long night again.
Don’t stress about not knowing how to do this. This is what learning is all about. You have picked a very ambitious project to start with and have to say you have done a great job so far.
Things like @Gully_Foyle 's workflow are the result of modeling things over and over, and experimenting until you find the best way to do things. Pretty sure that Gully has been using SketchUp for… like… months, now! 
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If you’re interested, the bridge I’m modelling is one that was built in 1972 to replace the ferry service that ran from 1953 until, well, 1972…
My dad used to take me on these boating trips along the St Mary’s river (which divides Canada and the USA, that is, Michigan and Ontario) and one of the places we would stop at is the remains of the ferry dock, which was left (although the other remnants were stripped out when the bridge was done).
I used to play on the bridge, and around the area. One time my friend and I went up to the one abutement of the bridge and found you could climb through the box girders to the other side! So armed with flashlights, we did precisely that.
We were 12 years old, and I can tell you that it was SCARY. Pitch black, and when we’d come to one of the piers we’d have to climb over a gap that was only a few inches apart, but you could see the pier footing and water around it by looking down. It took us probably an hour, and when a car passed over the bridge it was only a few feet above our heads. The bridge has quite an echo, and I remember yelling under it just for that effect (much to my dad’s chagrin).
It’s a nice place to fish, but the docks have suffered from deterioration and vandalism so you probably couldn’t safely moor there now.
Many memories. Probably my most memorable was, at around the same age, I would walk halfway across the bridge to the centre span, and reach down to where the incandescent lights were and I’d steal the lightbulbs. I actually dropped one once I unscrewed it, and it fell…and smashed against the water. I’m glad a sailboat wasn’t going through…
On the one side of the bridge (Twyning Island), there is the remains of the construction barge that was used to aid in building the bridge. I remember taking the rusting iron rods laying around and tossing them into the wood.
Anyways.
Here’s a few pictures of back in the day…
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming of “…what does this do- WTF?!! Where did it g- oh, there it is” and “Why did you do that? No no no no no no come back! Please?”.
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There are two huge benefits to modeling a difficult form over and over until you (learn to) get it right
- The geometry gets better and better each time, until eventually it becomes perfect;
- Your skill improves each time as you imprint the process on your muscle memory.
This is called, as Steve Mizerak used to say, “practice, practice, practice.”
-Gully
Hi again.
I’ve hit a bit of a snag, nothing major, but it affects the asthetics somewhat.
Consider this:
This is where the handrail pipes connect at slightly different angles. I’ve already smoothed and softened the pieces so when I try to delete the ends inside of the pipes, it deletes the entire section.
Is there a way to remove these ends so the two pieces look like one?
Really like what you are doing and that you are sharing this. We all benefit. Keep going and Sharing. It looks great.
Turn on hidden geometry (View menu) and you’ll be able to delete the faces.
When edges are softened or smoothed they are still there and will divide faces when hidden geometry is visible.
Well thank you for the encouragement!
And I have attempted to delete the faces inside the pipes but at some points by doing this it deletes the entire length!
Hmm…
Through this together to show you a bit about soften and hidden geometry,.
