Cutlist Newbie questions

Hello.

Sorry I have fighting this all afternoon and am drawing a bit of a blank here.

I am creating kitchen cabinets, and its a pretty straight forward design I think. When I generate the cutlist it says on a lot of them that size is not defined.

I have only two materials, one is 18mm and one is 9mm

I can see a few errors with the 9 because my material is actual 10mm but so far as I can tell all of my 18mm are 18mm deep. It says the 18m us rounded by the precision of the model and really its 18.03 or something. but when I run rulers on the piece it says 18mm

I think because of this its splitting up the parts list which then means I cannot run the cutting diagramme properly as I have lots of space left over.

Anyway, any hints, or resources. I watched the Youtube embedded in the help bit, but that was based on a perfect model which evidently I don’t have

Which cut list extension are you using? Your profile says you are using the free web-based version of SketchUp which doesn’t have an option to generate cutlists. What version are you actually using?

Can you share the .skp file?

Hi Dave sorry for the delayed response.

Not sure where my profile came from but I am infact using SketchUp 2017.

Happy to share the skip file its attached.

One other thing I noted when it scans the file for materials, its finds loads including from the person you get on a new file, even though I deleted him?

Please go gentle on me, I never got to grips with sketchup. Since I got a 3D printer I am trying to learn from youtube.

bases final.skp (14.9 MB)

You can edit your profile by going to the G in a blue circle upper right (not the one beside your posts), click it, then click on the right hand ‘person’ icon below it and fill in your details there.

To remove unused components and materials from the model, you need to purge them. Looks as if you have now done that for Materials, but you have left Chris in the components - I can see him in the Component Browser. Click the broad arrow to the right in Component Browser above the component list, and then click on Purge unused to remove unused components.

But the model you uploaded has only three materials, two of them called Wood Veneer 2. The third material is used on only one component.

So at some point you have already Purged the materials used on Chris.

I see in Window/Model info/Units that you have Enable length snapping checked. Uncheck it. It causes more problems than it solves. And the next time you start a new model, uncheck it in that empty model, and Save As Template, so all your models using that template will have it turned off.

Adjust the thickness of your panels to an exact 18mm (or 9 or 10mm) to avoid CutList thinking they are different thicknesses. Easiest way to do that (with length snapping off) is to draw a guide with the tape measure at 18mm (type the number), then PushPull panels to the guide. Looks as if you may have started doing that - I saw a guide for some of the bottoms.

It doesn’t affect the way CutList works, but you would be advised to draw a large rectangle in the x-y plane (z=0), make it a component, R-click and Lock it, then sit all your cabinets flat on that - they aren’t level with each other, nor are their fronts aligned front to back.

You don’t need to use so many different components. For example, I expect all your cabinet sides are the same size (they probably should be, anyway!) Define one as ‘Cabinet side.’

Then select all the sides in the model which are the same size (or use Outliner), go to the component browser, and R-click on the new Cabinet side component and choose Replace selected. Then Purge unused to remove the multiple other replaced components.

Make the cabinet sides mirror images of each other (so that if, for instance, you show rows of holes for fixing shelves or drawer runners, they face inwards on both sides). To do that, R-click/Flip the right hand sides along the red axis (which as you have drawn them, is the component’s green axis).

Then if you want to know where each side is used, give each one in the model an Instance name in Entity Info.

And if later you find that some need to be different, R-click and Make Unique.

You can do the same for the top front struts for the same width cabinets, and so on.

You’ve used groups in a few places rather than components. I’d make them components (select, then type letter g, or R-click, Make Component).

As Dave asked earlier, which CutList extension are you using? Dave recommends CutList 4.1, and I use Open CutList, both available from the Extension Warehouse. They work slightly differently but either is a good choice, and I believe there are others too.

Good luck with further modelling, and actually building your cabinets.

Ask more questions here if you need further help.

Hi Gary,

I have a few things to add but it might look like piling on after @john_mcclenahan’s reply so I won’t.

It would still be useful to know which cutlist extension you’re using.

John thank you for the detailed information. I will absorb it once back from work.

Dave, I am using OpenCutList by l’air de bois. Version 1.9.10. TO be fair it was th eonly one I could get my head around :slight_smile:

Good enough. I’ll leave you in John’s hands.