Sketchup for Woodworking Plans

Until recently I drew all of my woodworking plans in Visio, a process that was often time-consuming and difficult to execute. On the LumberJocks site and in a Taunton community blog, called Design. Click. Build., there was a lot of chatter about using Sketchup instead. So I installed the free version of Sketchup about a month ago and started rendering plans with the new tool.

"Started rendering plans" sounds easy, and Sketchup does make many drawing and dimensioning tasks as easy as hammering a nail. But, as they say, the devil is in the details: the tool has a full and flexible feature set that suggests myriad woodworking design applications, and tempts you to include complex moldings and finicky details (like the brads that hold on a moulding or the threads of a screw). Adding these details becomes as challenging as cutting your first dovetails.

I'm attempting a plan for the inkle loom I built several years ago. With the body of the loom built in Sketchup, I'm working on the arm that adjusts warp tension on the loom. This has proved more challenging, and I've finally given up on rendering it exactly as I want it: the back edges should be curved in the same manner as the front edges, and the full end should be rounded over. Using a combination of the Follow Me tool and Intersect tool I know it should be possible to do this, but I can't seem to do it without losing skin on the curves.

In spite of the challenges, I won't be going back to Visio.

Here's a copy of Tensioner.skp. Feel free to play with it, and if you know how to round those other edges, please post a comment to let me know.