I’m curious if there is a way with native SU Go tools for doing what the topic describes. I tried
intersecting selected faces of a dowel I passed through the leg and that just marked a circle on the faces that the dowel passes through. I tried also making a rectangle with a square face on each side of the leg and push pulling through but the hole only goes through the square part and not the leg. Here’s the skip file. the back legs are the angled legs. The front legs and dowels worked okay.
Royce’ Benches.skp (115.8 KB)
I’d make sure the leg was a solid object first and then use the Trim tool in the Solid Tools set to trim the leg with the dowel. I’d be inclined to put the dowel in square to the face of the leg, too. Something like this:
I had to erase all mortises and holes to make the rear leg a solid. I then used the trim tool. When I trimmed for the dowel, it made the hole but then the rear leg was no longer solid and I couldn’t cut the mortise. So I erased the holes and used the rails and stretchers to cut the mortises. Although the mortises were cut, the rear leg was no longer solid, so I couldn’t cut the holes for the dowels. I then just erased all holes and mortises again and put the leg back. I know that this would be easier in Pro with the Enroth trim tool. But would it still show errors after the joinery is cut?
Royce’ Benches (1).skp (117.2 KB)
You could use Solid Inspector to identify the issues. Not sure what you did but you’ve got some weird stuff going on with your mortises and the way the rails are aligned.
Eneroth Solid Tools would prevent the leg component being converted into a group and would result in the leg component at the opposite end getting the same treatment but your geometry still needs to be right first.
Since your rails should be meeting at the same height I would consider modeling them so the cross. Then cut the clearance miters after the mortises are cut.
I have been using solid inspector that comes with SU Go. It shows every dowel hole with short edges all the way around. The problem with the mortises you described is correct and earlier I tried to cut the miters in place (x-ray mode). The last skp file I sent you, though just had the rails and stretchers passing through the rear leg. I might just leave it like it is for now. I just wanted this bench to model my bench top bench on top of for making router jigs. Thanks for your tips because they help me. But fixing 96 short edges in dowel holes is just too much. I agree with fixing the mortises and I did that on the front legs. I’ll just consider your first post as the solution.
Short edges aren’t necessarily a problem. They probably don’t need fixing.
So I’m not trying to talk you out of learning to model details like the mortises and peg holes but do consider what you really need out of your models and don’t spend time modeling details that don’t add something to the “story”.
Example: Some years ago I made a ski rack for my bride. The back board was an odd length and I wanted to evenly distribute the support arms along its length. I also need to make sure I could get lag screws into a couple of studs and wanted to know where those holes needed to be drilled. This is the Sketchup model I created while I waited for my coffee to brew.
The three pairs of parallel edges represent the centerlines of the arms and the centers of the sliding dovetail sockets in the back board. The two edges pointing in the other direction represent the locations for the lag screws. I used the Tape Measure tool to measure the points I didn’t already know and wrote the numbers on an envelope before heading out to the shop with my coffee. Only problem is she wound up buying more skis and the rack isn’t big enough.
The only problem is that it keeps the rear leg from being solid, no?