Drawer face profile keeps changing on their own

I’m not sure what’s happening here.
I have a model with almost 100 cabinets. I start with my template model where my cabinets are drawn with simple geometry, then grouped … I do not use components. I just copy and paste my cabinet boxes and drawers/doors. To resize them I use the Fredo Box Scaler.

However in this model – and it’s happened more than once – while I’m working on it, the profile on the drawer face gets distorted, almost like shifted over. Where I have to go in and redraw every single cabinet face one by one.

Here’s an example of what I mean. On the right I’ve already redrawn them. On the left is happens.

Frustrating is an understatement.

I should add, this is not something that happens while looking at it. I’ll be working for hours, making saves, and then I’ll just notice it. So whatever the cause is, it’s a complete mystery to me.

I was just working in LO when this last one happened. Not sure the first time.

Can you post a “before-redrawing” .SKP model file with a small example for experts to examine? Or if this only happens in Layout, can you post an example Layout file?

Since it just happened, nothing is redrawn. So I can share that file. (It’s a large file)

And maybe useful info … I used the ThomThom CleanUp extention maybe 2 hrs before noticing this. The clean up took 15 min. In the past few days this model has become very slow to work with, which is weird since if anything I’m removing things and cleaning it up as I go. I did a clean up twice this week already.

If it’s set to do it, CleanUp would delete coplanar edges. If the lines representing the seams between the rails and stiles are simply drawn on a larger surface, they would be coplanar edges and subject to deletion.

To make the door I just make a rectangle, pull it to 3/4" thick, offset the face 3", and the push the center back 1/16". Not sure if that is what you mean.

Here are my CleanUp settings:

In your screen shot there are lines in some places that appear to represent the glue lines between rails and stiles. Are the rails and stiles separate components or are those lines just drawn on the surface?

Just drawn on the surface

Then as I said, CleanUp could remove them because they are coplanar edges.

Interesting … so wouldn’t my whole model go screwy in different places since I’m sure I do that in other areas as well? And not just doors and drawer fronts?

And to be clear … I should have each stile and rail and panel as it’s own group, then I can group them all together? This would avoid this problem?

If I can piggy back onto this, when I have a 5pc door/drawer like this, except with a curved profile on the top rail, I have a hard time using the Fredo Box Scaler to change their widths. It makes the curved portion very distorted. I can’t use the Scale tool since it scales all the pieces and not just the whole door/drawer.
Is there a better tool out there for this?

Well, you could do that. It would eliminate the coplanar edges that are getting deleted. It kind of depends on what information you need out of the model. If you need to be able to provide quantities and dimensions for the rails, stiles, and panels, you would want to make them separate objects. In that case you would also want to make sure panels are large enough to fill grooves and rails include the tenons or stub tenons so you get the right dimensions.

If I were going to model the five parts of the doors as individual objects I would use components, not groups and I would use Make Unique as appropriate when changing dimensions. I also wouldn’t use Scale or even Fredo’s Box Scale for changing the dimensions. (Arched rails add a little twist no matter how they are modeled.)

You could draw the doors as you have and avoid deleting coplanar edges.

When I don’t need detailed frame and panel doors I model them as you describe but I don’t bother drawing in the glue lines between rails and stile. They normally don’t show all that much in reality and I don’t think they are worth showing in the model. For example, the doors in this model are basically slabs with Offset and Push/Pull to make the panels. In this case the doors were being ordered from a supplier and they were going to be painted anyhow.

On the other hand, this cabinet was modeled for detailed plans so the doors are modeled with all the joinery and other details.

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I see … I think for my purposes making them individual pieces works for the info I want to get.

What would the benefit of making them components do in this case? I have never used components much

Components have a lot of benefits over groups. I’m not going to give a long list here since it would be taking the thread off topic but here are a few in no particular order.

  1. During creation you are prompted to give the component a useful name. If you don’t name it, at least each component definition will be different. By default all groups are called “Group” which makes things like a cutlist or even Outliner virtually useless.
  2. If you have multiple instances of a component in a model, editing one results in editing the others. This is a huge time saver. You can also make components unique to break their relationship from others if they need to get different treatment. When I’m modeling doors for a project like a kitchen, I only model one door as a component and only use Make Unique it I need to make a different size door. When the client decides they want raised panel doors instead of flat panel doors, it’s much less work to make the change than it would be if I used groups.
  3. components can be saved for later use. If you have common door styles that are frequently used, save them in a collection so you can bring them into your model instead of drawing them every time.
  4. Components are kept In Model even if they are deleted from the model space. If you use Hide from the Context menu but are a little clumsy and hit Erase instead, the action on screen looks the same. If it’s a group you erase (and the only one in the model) and you don’t catch that right away, the group is gone and you’ll have to remake it. If it’s a component, you can just drag a new instance out from the Components panel.
  5. You can easily swap components. If you need to show drawer pulls, for example and your client decides they want to see a different style of pull, you simply select the pulls in the model, go to your pull components collection, right click on the correct one and choose Replace Selected.
  6. Components have a description field along with other attributes that can be used for auto text labels in LayOut. I use an extension that automatically writes the component name and the dimensions into the Description field. Then when I need to label the parts of the model in the exploded view I can use that text and quickly label everything without typing.

There’s more but I’ll stop now.