I have an old friend I can always count on to come up with some topic idea for a Design. Click. Build. post. Today when I got home from work there was an e-mail from him with a new project he’s working on. This is a small step stool he’s building to make it easier for his bride to reach things. It’s not a terribly difficult project but he wanted to make a SketchUp model first and asked for a hand at getting the parts in the right place.

There’s an interesting thing with the geometry of the legs that might not be evident at first but it can create a puzzle if you aren’t expecting it. Due to the splay in the legs and the fact that they are tapered toward the top, their edges are also angled. This means you have to be careful about what you are using as references as you draw.

To simplify the amount of work needed to draw this model, I’m leveraging components and the symmetry of the whole thing. This means I only need to draw one notch to make all four and this saves time. I hope you can find something you can put to use in your modeling.

–Dave