I’m not sure how but I either grouped a bunch of components or merged them and now I can’t seem to undo: stephanie-filing-cabinet.skp (365.6 KB)
I’m still learning so very possible I did something without realizing. The ‘outer-shell’ group is the one in question. I did have the main box grouped but somehow the facing also got in there and now I can’t ungroup. I need all the sides of the box and face pieces back to components. Please help!!1
Thanks,
Mike
It looks like you’ve exploded the components that make up the case. Fortunately you used components for at least some of them (I haven’t hunted through the entire components list for all of them yet. So you can go to the In Model Components and drag out new instances of them. One of the many benefits of using components over groups.
It does look like you did some detailing after exploding the components so those details won’t be included in the components.
Which version of SketchUp are you using? Your profile is confusing.
Thanks! I’ll give it a go. I did do a bunch of trimming to get mitered corners - maybe that’s the detailing?
I am using the paid web version while I wait for a windows desktop to arrive. I’m a linux user really so I had to get something just to run sketchup desktop (found reasonable refurb on ebay and bought graphics card to add on)
Looks to me like some housekeeping would be in order. In the Components collection there are several that (at least based on their thumbnails) seem to have as many as 9 indistinguishable versions with names like tempinstance#25 and no instances in the model. I don’t know your workflow, but that leads me to suspect you are doing lot of unnecessary work. Certainly your naming practices are making your work harder.
Steve’s right about the housekeeping. Lots of unused stuff.
Also I would recommend using components for all of the parts. You’ve used groups for some of the base parts and components elsewhere. That can come back to bite you.
FWIW I redid the case from scratch and guessed that you are actually planning on plywood with solid wood edging based on some of the lines I saw. Something like this. Is this correct?
Yes! that is exactly what i’m doing - and yes I this is my first ever use of sketchup so i’m sure many things going wrong. Up until now I’ve still drawn all my plans by hand. This is such great help thank you.
Plan is hardwood for the face, plywood for box, hardwood for legs. Only difference from the what you recreated is that the middle shelf and “lower” top will be 1 piece of plywood since that middle miter wouldn’t be seen and so I can do a stronger and easier joint. Btw - if you are wondering why its asymetrical - it’s so my wife can open her desk drawer. The legs are closer to the front so it can sit over the radiator covers (80% of my woodworking is making stuff for my wife because what she wants to buy doesn’t exist)
I actually just got an update on my desktop and it should arrive today. So I could be using desktop sketchup by tonight.
I’ve been using photoshop for decades so I think I keep assuming that components = layers and groups = groups of layers but clearly there is more going on. I’m not sure how to reuse components that are going to be different sizes and have different detailing (eg miters in different directions).
Hey @DaveR, probably a bad idea to split that middle board in two with a miter joining them! That’s going to be a very weak place in the structure.
Thanks @slbaumgartner, i agree - it’s going to be a solid piece of plywood since the miter is going to be covered. I actually edited my response to point that out. Probably should have just replied again
Agreed. I modeled it that way because it looked like that from the original but it’s a quick fix.
As you can see I made that change. I added a shallow dado in the shelf to help locate the upper side panel and make a cleaner join.
Welcome to the club. Good excuse to buy more tools, too. 
Good deal on the new computer. Make sure you install SketchUp correctly when you get it. That means right clicking on the downloaded installer and choosing Run as administraor from the Context menu.
One thing you’ll want to get a handle on is correctly using groups, components, and tags which used to be called layers. Remember that tags don’t provide separation between geometry. You do that by using components and groups. Tags are only used to control the visibility of objects (groups and components) in the model. ALL edges and faces should be created as Untagged and remain Untagged.
As you may have found out, when you edit one instance of a component, all other instances get the same edit. That is extremely powerful. For example when I made the change to bring the shelf all the way across and add the miter to the right end and the dado for the upper right side, I only had to make those changes in the assembled version of the model and I knew the changes would show in the exploded view too.
If you want to make an instance different, though, you can right click on the component and choose Make Unique from the Context menu. For the case I only drew the left side, bottom, and back. The other verticals were copies of the left side. The horizontals were copies of the bottom. In each case I used Make Unique so I could edit them and make the needed changes.
Ah that is super helpful, thank you. At some point I had the plywood pieces of the box as a group of components and each edge face as it’s own component. In my fumbling around I somehow ended up turning that into 1 solid piece as far as I can tell - how could I have done that? When i go into editing group I can’t reduce it to it’s individual components.
It’s not a huge deal if I have to redo but just wondering what I did.
See my addition to the previous post.
Selecting all of the components inside the group, right click and choose Explode. The Explode command takes the wrappers off the components/groups and throws them in the trash.
Some new users think Explode will create an exploded view and instead end up with what you did.
That sounds right. Thanks!!!
I finished! Thanks to everyone for all your help. Tonight I get to help transfer all the files as my prize!
Very nice to see the original drawing take life as a real piece of furniture.
