Tim I have purchased you book and the first chapter on setting up sketch up was worth the price of the e book! In addition to following along with your instructional chapters I thought I would strike out on my own to draw a simple “marble game” which poased a modeling challenge. Since the tracks slope downward from one another at 8 degree angle I tried to draw them in Sketch Up, I selected the arc tool for the groove and the push pull tool to remove the waste and all was fine. When I tried to put and 8 degree end cut on each end (which would be a vertical plumb cut on each end once assembled), the model will not draw a solid end with the groove in it (see attached rendering), yet it works fine when the ends are at 90 degrees. I have tried various approaches to remedy it but no luck. Am I missing something simple?
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Sorry. Not Tim. It's hard
Sorry. Not Tim.
It's hard to say without knowing how you put the 8° angle on the ends and it's difficult to tell from the image. I suspect your problem occurs because the arc is not on the same plane as the 8° lines on the sides. My approach to cutting that angle on the ends is to draw a "cutting plane" at the appropriate angle, select all of the geometry of the track and the cutting plane, right click and choose Intersect Faces>With Selection. Then delete the cutting plane and the bit of the track on the waste side. Think of drawing the saw cut if you were working in wood.
This same method is useful for mitering moldings or trimming other shapes, too. And if you wanted to drill a hole in the track for the marble to drop through, you would do a similar thing but you would draw a cylinder and intersect that.
Dave
p.s Don't forget to correct face orientation in needed. In my example the front face of the cutting plane is oriented correctly to begin with but had I drawn the plane at the opposite end, or copied it down to the opposite end, I would have had an exposed back face to reverse after deleting the waste.
Coplanar Surface Model Challenge
Dave,
Thank you for taking the time to give me a lesson in using a cutting plane as it worked great!
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