Cannot outer-shell these solids in Shop

threaded-part.skp (208.8 KB)
I’m a pretty new sketchup user and I’ve had great success for the last few weeks combining solids and subtracting them from each other up to this point.

Here I’ve created the threaded rod as well as a hexagonal shape for a socket to turn. I placed the hexagonal shape over the threaded rod and attempted to outer-shell them, but it does not produce an outer shell. It combines them but they become a ‘not-a-solid’ and when I go to x-ray view I can see that the hexagonal shape contains geometry within that means it did not outer-shell properly at least as I expected.

Could someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong?

Try scaling both parts up by (e.g.) 100 and then doing the outer shell. I believe that where the threads penetrate the hex, outer shell is trying to create some very short edges, and SketchUp’s handling of such edges is causing outer shell to misbehave. Try scaling both parts by 100 and then doing the operation. Then scale back down afterward. That worked for me.

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Do the threads in your plug have to fit some standard threads?

@DaveR
These don’t have to for anything standard. I was going to subtract it from another solid.

Doing as Steve suggested and scaling the model up would help. Personally I would normally model something like this using meters instead of millimeters for the units. I think mentioend this to you before.

It would also make sense to avoid creating the excess geometry that extends so far down into the head.

I redrew your model centered on the origin. I’ve moved the threaded component off of the head to show it is modeled flush with the head. Then the Outer Shell will tended to work better.

I didn’t make the same kind of threads so I expect this is no good for your use.

If you have to do a lot of this kind of stuff and your time has any value, you might find it makes sense to switch to Sketchup Pro as there are features in that version such as the ability to use extensions that will decrease the amount of time you spend doing these sorts of things.

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@slbaumgartner
Thanks. That worked perfectly the first time.

I’m just getting my feet wet with this stuff. I’ll probably get Pro after I beat my head against the wall a few more times.