My 13 yr old son is designing and building a 16’ utility trailer for his Ag Mechanics project (with guidance from his dad). We have SketchUp Pro 2019 and he’s learned what he knows from online tutorials on his own. He has already drawn the frame and tongue of his trailer and is ready to add parts like springs, axles, coupler, etc. We have found some components in 3D Warehouse, but they are not the right sizes/designs. How should he draw or get those shapes to add to his design?
He loves using/learning SketchUp, but is frustrated at this point and I want to help him find some answers. Please let me know if I need to ask this in a different area of the forums. Thank you for any help you can give!
Generally if the parts aren’t the right size, they can be scaled to suit. If they aren’t the right parts, though, I would start by looking for images or drawings from manufacturers of the right parts. Often they have technical drawings with enough dimensions that he should be able to make respectable 3D models of them. I find that there will also be installation manuals that can sometimes provide useful info. Things like the sizes of mounting bolts will help to determine how big holes must be, for example.
If there are 2D technical drawings, they can be imported into SketchUp to use as a guide and might even be traced. He might find CAD files that can be imported into SketchUp, too. I often get files for parts from sources like McMaster-Carr.
It depends on what the images are like. Sometimes you’ll get 2D drawings that are suitable for tracing. If you have photos, it may be easier to import the photo and stand it up in the background as a reference. I do that fairly regularly and it saves me looking at my second display.