Can someone help me understand the difference between a Left to right Vs right to left selection box and when appropriate to use each?
Left to right selects only those entities which fall fully within the selection box. Right to left selects anything that is even partially within the box.
Is left to right primarily for expanding or contracting a portion of a model? I watched your video on the stairs for the boat and noticed you used left to right to expand the panel.
Right to left would select the whole model. Would this behave like a group under these circumstances?
Not only that. It’s used whenever you want to select a limited set of entities and nothing more. Right to left is useful when you want to select a bunch of stuff but perhaps you don’t want to get other things.
I used left to right so I could select only part of the part of the geometry of the panel that needed to be moved and not include geometry I didn’t want to move.
Not necessarily. It depends on what you drag the selection window around.
Thanks, Dave. I think I’ll have to experiment with this to grasp it but I have a better idea.
Would you mind taking a look at my model to check for any loose geometry or other errors? John recently checked it and I added a base as well as drawer faces since then. Just don’t want to go too far without having it looked over. drawer cabinet.skp (105.2 KB)
I looks pretty good to me. The only weird thing is the length of the back panel.
If you use entity info it can tell you.
As you see here by selecting all of the model it shows 32 solid components, but if I add an edge in it shows 33 Entities. So it is telling you there is more than just components in the selection.
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Thanks, One last question for the night. I’m getting an approximate measurement for the width of my back piece at ~79 1/8. Can you tell me why this measurement is not precise? On my cut list it is the only dimension that is listed this way.
What is the precise measurement it should be?
It should be 79 1/8". When I use the tape measure tool it shows an approximate measurement, ie ~79 1/8" but if I used the dimension tool it show a dimension of 79 1/8". Is this something that I should be bothered with?
There is a tiny inaccuracy, that is even smaller than the 1/64 that you have the units set to display. Here I show copying the edge over by the correct amount to remove the little sliver. Note I have to lengthen the edge because of the cutout.
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Thank you. I’m perplexed as I used the rectangle tool when I made the back. I guess it must have been slightly off of the corner.
Thanks Dave.
Looks like Box has you sorted out. As for drawing that back panel in the first place, if you entered the dimension as 79 1/8 when you drew the rectangle it would be that. I can only guess that you didn’t type in the length.
Here’s what I did. My cabinets bend at 45º where my sink is located, then again at 45º where my dishwasher is located. Attached is a picture. By the way, I’m planning to redraw the dishwasher portion due to so many errors. On the model you’re referring to with the problem back panel, I constructed the front frame and side panels. I then used the protractor tool, clicked onto the front right edge of the front face frame to give me guide line at 22.5º. I then established a guide line running along the back of the cabinet so I would have an intersection to connect to. I then used the rectangle tool to click to this intersection and to the lower corner of the other side of my cabinet. I didn’t know the length of the back until this geometry was established.
The angle isn’t evident from the model but now with that information, it makes sense that the length of that panel might be odd like that. The locations of the cases on either side describe the legs of a triangle. The panel is the hypotenuse.
Would someone mind looking over this model? It’s finished as best I can tell. It’s showing 42 components in the Entities area on the right. I’m thinking that this is telling me I have no loose geometry. My cut list is showing approximate dimensions for my raised panel door stiles and the panel although the dimensions are accurate as listed. Seems like I learn something new every time one of you guys give me feedback. I feel like I’m making good progress and actually starting to get a clue!
drawer cabinet.skp (176.0 KB)
It’s looking pretty cleanly drawn. Looking at Model info/Statistics, if I turn off Show nested components I can confirm you have no stray edges.
The clearances you have round all the door and drawer edges, at 1/8", look very large to me.
Looking at my own professionally made oak kitchen cabinets, drawer clearances are about 1mm all round - approximately 1/32" - definitely less than 1/16". @slbaumgartner used to make furniture professionally, and might like to comment.
If you are making them yourself, you can make them very little or no smaller than the opening, then plane the edges to get as good a fit as you can manage. If you are having them professionally made, the maker should know how much clearance to leave, but I doubt it would be as much as 1/8".
What material are you planning to make them of? Standard timber/lumber dimensions vary by country, but your left hand end external framing at 3" wide isn’t usually one of them. 2 3/4" would be more common for softwood in the US, although hardwood may be machined to any chosen dimension, with some wastage depending on what you start with.
The drawer fronts are drawn flat on the front, with double lines to give a general indication of some moulding. What cross section would they have in reality? Similar to the main doors? Something else?
You will need some interior structure to hold the drawer runners, and probably a shelf or two behind the doors.
One could give a short answer, but…
Failure to allow adequately for seasonal wood movement is one of the most common errors.
The correct answer varies with the wood species, the grain direction, the wood finish coating, the climate of your area, and the climate control of your building. It also matters what time of year you make the drawer and how you conditioned the wood before working it. If you make the drawer at the end of a damp summer, you can make it with minimal clearance, but if you make it in the winter, you’d better leave an allowance. If the wood has sat in your shop for a few years you can treat it as fully seasoned, but if fresh from the mill you can expect some more change even if it was kiln dried.
For a precise answer, you need to take all these things into account, relying on information from sources such as Bruce Hoadley’s “Understanding Wood” or a Forest Service handbook. There are numerous online calculators that will do the math for you and at least one plugin for SketchUp as well.
But even given all the technology, the actual behavior varies from tree to tree and from board to board so your calculated value will be an average not an absolute. If you make it tight, you have to be ready to deal with the possibility that drawers will stick in the wet season.
Unless you are interested in wood technology for its own sake, these details can seem overwhelming. To avoid fretting too much about them, the rule of thumb I was taught is that you should allow for about 1/8" seasonal change per foot of board width. This ignores species, which means it needs to be conservative as most softwoods change far more than many hardwoods, but it is safe.
On a typical drawer of about 6" height, that means a 1/16" allowance. Where you need to put this allowance depends on how the drawer is supported. If the support is at the bottom, almost all of the gap needs to be at the top. If the support is centered on the height, you can split the gap between the top and bottom, leaving 1/32 on each.
Expansion along the length of the board is negligible, so the front can have a quite small end clearance. However, some people feel that a uniform gap all around looks best so they reduce the width of the drawer as well as the height, and may leave a gap at the bottom even when bottom support.
It is also common practice to make the body of the drawer smaller than the opening so that only the front has a chance to bind.
The above applies for inset drawer fronts. With the modern practice of partial or full overlay fronts, all this is academic since the drawer box width is determined by the drawer slide clearance, the height can be reduced for lots of clearance, and the front will be whatever the overlay requires.
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