It sounds to me as if you need to learn how to use SketchUp first. Transparent materials can be applied in SketchUp as can wood grain materials. In the case of the illustrations for that article, the materials and edges were hand drawn to match the style of artwork which is has been a trademark of Fine Woodworking Magazine since it started in the late 70s. That’s not really a plan. Just some illustrations for the article about building the piece.
I usually don’t apply materials for the plans I create because the client prefers line work only. That is much easier to do.
The shadows shown there were done in post processing in an image editor because SketchUp doesn’t do soft shadows.
A forum is the wrong venue to learn everything you need to know about creating illustrations like those. First become proficient with SketchUp and LayOut and then put it all together.