I am having trouble making a dado across the face of my box. I made a rectangle and pushed it into my model. When i went to clean it up by erasing top so it was cut all the way through it jusr erase top face of my modelCatShelves.skp (93.8 KB)
Is this what you are trying to achieve?
There are a number of ways to do this. With SketchUp Make one option using nothing but native tools would be to outline the groove with the Rectangle tool, push in the face, push the ends of the groove out through the miters, use Intersect Faces on the geometry and then erase what isn’t the board.
There are other ways such as using a shape that goes where the groove will be as a cutter. Or you could model the panel as a solid component and use Trim from BoolTools2 to cut the grooves in the components.
The top face was lost because the remaining edges are not in a single plane. You need to create the sloping edges where the dado would pass through the sloping mitered faces. There are several ways to do this, either starting over again or adding the missing sloped edges. I see that @DaveR has shown you one.
Edit: you would also benefit greatly from making the top, bottom, and two ends into components (and making use of the fact that opposite parts are mirrors of each other). that will better match what you will actually build and will also make the model much easier to work with.
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Worked with the Intersect faces, thank you. Quick question though. When you push/pull a rectangle does it not make it solid? If not how do I do that?
Push/Pull used on a face will make a 3D shape. It would be considered solid if you make a group or component containing the geometry. Also to be considered a solid every edge inside the component or group must be shared by exactly two edges.
Push/Pull can also be used to create recesses and in step two above as well as creating holes through shapes (a through mortise in a table leg could be made that way) and in some cases as in step three, it can be used to extend the geometry beyond the rest of the geometry.
So the secret is make components or groups. What would be the advantages between one or the other? Group vs Component.
Yes. If you want to be able to show the individual pieces of wood as separate, you need to use groups or components to contain the geometry. Look at how your whole box assembly acts as if it’s all glued together.
Both groups and components are similar in that they form a container for the entities inside. At the lowest level that would be the faces and edges. There are many key differences between groups and components. Notable ones are: you get prompted to provide a name when you create a component. You don’t with groups. When you need to make changes to a group or component you open the container (go to Edit Group/Component). Editing a group results in only that object being changed. Editing a component results in all other copies of the component getting the same treatment.
to make the exploded view of your box I used components. The left and right end are instances (copies) of the same component. The top and bottom are, too. So when I cut the miters and the grooves, I only had to do those things for one of the ends and the bottom. The other two parts were done at the same time.
When I am modeling a piece of furniture I use components for all of the parts. I will normally avoid modeling the joinery until after the parts are all modeled in place. Then I go back and make the edits to add the joinery and other details. Because I use components the process is quite simple. And when the model requires edits because the client changed their mind, making the modifications is usually quite trivial and happens quickly.
Great! Thanks for all the help.
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FTFW:
Editing a group results in only that object being changed. Editing a component results in all other copies of the component getting the same treatment.