Introduction and Questions

I’ll get back to you after a nap. This darned virus makes it hard.

Hope you feel better soon. Good night.

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Hope you get over the bug soon. Keep safe.

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Good morning. I hope you are feeling better. I am going to start over. I think I messed up the geometry and fixing it is almost impossible. I’ll leave it saved and try again under a different file name.

Thank you. Slow going today. Already time for a nap again.

Starting over might be the best option. Make sure as you go that you are entering precise dimensions for the sizes of parts and the distances you are moving things.

In the case of the back slats, yu might find it easier to simplify the model to just the case sides and the slats. Once you have the process clear in your mind, it’ll be easier to do on the whole cabinet.

I got as far as the rails today. When I move/copied the rail and made the groove and tenons, they did not reflect in the original rails (even after several attempts). When I tried the Enroth Trim tool, it didn’t cut the mortises either. I’ll wait until tomorrow to try again. That’s enough for one day. At least I got further along faster than from the start before I wore out.

Sounds to me as if you’ve gone back to the thing of making the component, opening it for editing and then copying the geometry to make the counterpart, Your earlier model showed evidence of this. You need to model the rail, make a component of it, select the component (single click) and copy it. Don’t open the component for editing to copy the geometry.

I read but I’m not sure I understand. Step 1- model the rail (Does this mean when I first draw out the rail?) Step - 2 Make a component of it. (Right click, type in rail for name of component, click create component.) Step - 3 Copy it. (Move/tap and release control until ‘+’ shows, move copy).
Now here is where I make the joinery, but the joinery is not showing up on the flipped along components. Before I make joinery on the copy, do I single click it, double click, or triple click?

Yes. This is creating the 3D geometry.

Select the geometry from step 1. Either right click on it and choose Create Component or press g which is the degault keyboard shortcut for Create Component. Give the component a useful name and click Create or press Enter.

Copy the component you created. When it is selected it should show with a blue bounding box.

If you are actually copying the component you need to open one instance of the component for editing (double click with Select or right click and choose Edit Component or single click on it and press Enter.) Then add the joinery.

Royce

I think it’s sinking in now. I’ll give it a go.

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I’m still stuck. The joinery isn’t reflected on the original and flipped along rails. Right after I clicked on edit component, I did the joinery on the copy, but it wasn’t reflected on the top and bottom rails.
Cabinet Exercise.skp (75.6 KB)

You’ve opened the component for editing and copied the geometry. Note the size of the bounding box when you single click on the component.

And with that component opened for editing you have three distinct lumps of geometry.

The location of the component’s axes and origin indicates to me that you created the bottom rail. Then, after creating the component, you opened it for editing, selected the geometry, and copied that to make the top. Then you copied it again to make the lump of geometry you you detailed with tenons and groove.

Put this file aside and start a new one. Don’t bother with the rest of the cabinet at this stage. Just draw a rectangle and use Push/Pull to give it some thickness. Make it the general shape of the rail. Then select the geometry and create the component. With the component selected, but not opened for editing, use Move/Copy to create a second copy of it. Just as I did in the gif earlier.

After you have the copy of the component the bounding box should still only surround one of the rails. Edit one of them to add the joinery features. The other should show the same treatment.

I did as you said and the joinery showed up.
Cabinet Exercise-0.skp (109.3 KB)

Now you’re on the right track. The step I left out for this (intentionally) is to flip the upper copy along the component’s blue direction so the grooves face each other. Easy step to add, though.

Now you need to do that same sort of thing for the rest of the elements in the cabinet. In your current model you did the same thing with the top and bottom of the cabinet as well as the sides. And in the case of the sides, the door stile geometry is included with the case side geometry.

I measured the dimensions before I did it (8 15/15", 1 1/8"). So, they should match the space.
Can I erase the original components, and just move the bottom rail into the space, move/copy, flip along axis blue, move it into the space of the upper rail? Probably not, because the groove needs to be flipped?

You can erase the the original components. I would suggest starting over from scratch on the cabinet as separate components to make reinforce the workflow of making the components correctly.

Yes, I need reinforcements :upside_down_face:

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After practicing for several days, I was still having geometry and other problems. Finally, today I noticed that after I push/pulled the bottom of the shelf, that it was under the red axis. That made all the measurements in the video 5/8" off. So, I moved the whole cabinet up along the blue axis 5/8", solving that problem. The whole cabinet was also 9/16" too far to the left, because when I push/pulled the side out, it went to the left side of the green axis. So, I moved the entire cabinet over 9/16", solving that problem. Later, I would keep opening up parts for editing wrong. What works best for me is clicking on the copied part, then right clicking (instead of double clicking), and picking “edit component”. I noticed when I edited the bottom rail for joinery the changes, I made to the bottom rail only were reflected on the original bottom rail (I can live with that.) I then, selected the copy of the top rail for editing and was able to make the joinery and it was reflected in the original top rail (no need to flip). Now, the Enroth trim tool is not cutting the mortises in the stile. It worked the first time I used it. I open the stile for editing, double click with the Enroth trim tool while hovering over the tenon, but no mortise. What step(s) am I leaving out?

Certainly the direction of your Push/Pull on the bottom and the side are going to affect things.

You should be able to double click with Select to open the component for editing although there’s nothing wrong with right clicking on it and choosing Edit Component. You could also select the component and press Enter.

You shouldn’t have to live with that. Either you are still copying the rail geometry within the rail component or you’ve copied the geometry before making the component. If you are using the workflow I showed in the video, the top and bottom rails would get edited at the same time.

rails

In the video, you made a copy of the bottom rail before doing the tongue joinery. When I copy the bottom rail and pull it out, a top rail copy also comes out.