Dewald Swanepoel

I love the Round Corners plugin and use it all the time. But it seems that there is something with the new SketchUp version (SU2017) that broke it as I can no longer get it to work. As a matter of fact, I've uninstalled the new version and went back to SU2016 for the sole purpose of being able to use this plugin. Have you had any success with SU2017? Another plugin that I absolutely loved was the SU2POV plugin with which you can export your SketchUp scene to POV-Ray to render them in high quality. But that plugin has been broken for several versions now which is a huge pity.

I use Sketchup all the time, often just for fun. I'm a bit obsessive and probably won't take on a woodworking project if I haven't already designed the entire thing in Sketchup. Sometimes it all starts with me playing around on Sketchup and then thinking, hey, I could make this from wood. I redesigned our kitchen in Sketchup. I've modeled our living room in Sketchup and try out colours for painting the walls and placement of artwork on the walls. I've modeled our swimming pool (odd shape) in Sketchup so I can calculate the water volume. I've used that same model to get the dimensions and shape for a tarp that covers the pool. But lots of times I use Sketchup purely to "build" something that I know I won't have the time, tools or motivation to "build" in real life. I really get a kick out of labouring over pieces of wood and shaping them into a table or a chest. But I also somehow get a kick out of messing around on my computer and "building" something that will only live in electronic space.

With every new version of SketchUp, they break another plugin that I rely on and I'm not getting fed up with that. The whole idea behind these plugins is to open up development of useful functionality to the wider community of SketchUp users. There are lots of plugins out there that was developed, tested and worked. But when they change their framework, the developers of these plugins are not necessarily staying abreast and updating the plugins. The most recent casualty for me is the "Round Corner" plugin by LibFredo6. It was easily one of the most useful plugins I had. It still worked in SU2016 but now I can't get it work.

Good point.

This is very cool, but I suspect not of much use to me. I just tried it on my PC and it works quite nicely, not better than the actual installed application though and so it's pointless for me to run it on my PC. I then tried it in my phone's browser and received a message saying that this service is not designed to work on multi touch mobile devices. The interface was unwieldy and I didn't get far before losing interest and closing it. It's a pity as I would've loved to be able to view Sketchup models on a mobile device - even if I can't edit them.

Gotcha. This is a much more elegant way of dealing with saved components. Thanks.

Where is this "Open or Save a local collection" option? I can't seem to find it anywhere in my Sketchup. I'm using Sketchup Make v16.1.1449

I'm not familiar with the "Open Local Collection" option you mention but I've always just copied and pasted. So I'd do this 1. Open the original Sketchup file. 2. Select instances of all the components you want. 3. Copy them into the clipboard. (Ctrl C) 4. Close the file and open the new file 5. Paste the clipboard (Ctrl V) 6. Now you can delete the pasted instances if you want, the components are still in your components palette. *** EDIT *** Jeez you guys are quick.

Oh no! Then I truly failed...

Who said anything about this toy being for kids?

I'm not sure I can answer this question. I did draw a fair bit on some very distant memories of Statics/Dynamics from my varsity days. So I started by constructing a free body diagram and tweaked the lengths and swivel points of the components so that I got the desired angle of "flaring" for the available travel distance of the shaft. I gave the wood inside and the arms of the mechanism a good rubbing with beeswax to ease off the friction and I used springs from clothing pins on the ends of the trapezium to provide counter force that returns the horse to the up position.

I'm loving that table top (I assume) in the background. What species of wood have you got in there? Any Project Showcase post that I may have missed perhaps?

Here's a wooden toy I just completed. The horse is made from African Mahogany while the rider is made from European Beech and Panga Panga. My original idea was to devise some kind of mechanism that would limit the wheels to turn only forward. That way, when the rider is pressed down the hind legs would remain stationary while the fore legs move forward and when the rider is released the fore legs would remain stationary while the hind legs catch up. In the end I abandoned that plan as I just couldn't figure out an elegant way of doing that without spoiling the visual appearance of the toy. And here's a short video clip showing the internal mechanism before I assembled the horse. And to wrap up, just another animation I made for the fun of it :-)

Yeah, I already have another passage in the garden behind the swimming pool house which I'm thinking of blocking off with a gate. The hook and band hinges will come in handy for that. And this time I'll take their design into consideration while building the gate.

I just completed a garden gate, 70mm thick, just over 1m tall and just under 1m wide, from African Mahogany. This was my first serious woodworking project since school over 20 years ago. I also had a project journal going as I went along: Before: After: Closer view: Back of the gate (with the reason for the project peeping through the mullions): And here's a picture showing the original design and the final product, side by side: