I Can Get Rid of That Guy Standing in The Corner All of us had at least one teacher in junior high

who liked to point out the negative consequences of making an assumption. For me it was Mr. Sawyer, 8th grade math and foot all coach, in his dark suit, white socks and red tie, and ! imagine him in the retired teachers home, feeling satisfaction every now and then when one of his former students remem ers this lesson. "hen ! started to learn Sketch#p, ! made a unch of assumptions that made the learning curve steeper than it needed to e. $f that unch, one of the iggest ones was that ecause Sketch#p was free, it wouldn%t e very fle&i le. "henever ! teach or give a demonstration of Sketch#p, someone will ask '"here did you get those e&tra tools() '*ow come your cursor has those colored lines() or '*ow did you get rid of that guy in the corner() +hey%ve done what ! did, jumped in and started using Sketch#p, then assumed ,yes Mr. Sawyer, ! know- that there wasn%t any way to change the default settings. $ne of the guys who taught me a out Auto.A/ once said 'most of what ! know comes from playing around with the different uttons and seeing what happens.) So if you%re new to Sketch#p, or feeling frustrated, here are some things to look at and play with. $n a 0., go to the Window menu and select Preferences ,on a Mac it%s on the Sketch#p menu-. +he picture a ove shows an ama1ing discovery ! made2 Display crosshairs adds a red, green and lue line to the cursor making it easy as pie to stay on a&is when you draw or move. +he other items in the list on the left are all worth e&ploring, especially the last item, Template. Scroll on down until you find Product Design and Woodworking-Inches. Also under the Window menu is odel Info. !f dimensions e&pressed in feet and inches annoy you as much as they annoy me, here is where you can put things right. !f your display is ehaving adly, or if you want to add those ja11y slash marks that architects use for dimensions, you can do that here. 3ou can also dump e&traneous junk from your model, and fi& your pro lems ,well, pro lems with your model anyway-. $ne more window to click on is Instructor, again from the "indow menu. As you learn the tools, the !nstructor window will remind you what each one does, and how the different functions of each tool work. 3ou should also keep your eye on the lower left corner of the screen. "henever you hover the cursor over the tool, a line of te&t tells you the tools function. .lick on a tool, and the ne&t move, and availa le options are displayed there as te&t. !n addition to the "indow menu, the !iew enu is also worth investigating. +he first item, Tool"ars will open the door to the Sketch#p version of the 4ee 5alley catalog. .heck out the different tool ars, and use the !nstructor window to find out what they do. !f you%re using a ac, this is a little different, select Customi#e Tool"ars to add tools to your workspace. +he 5iew Menu also gives you control over the ways that faces and edges are displayed. So don%t assume that you are limited in what you can do, or how you can do it in Sketch#p. And don%t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. +hey are likely speaking from their own assumption, and we all know what happens when you assume . . . 3ou can tailor the program to the way you want to work. And you don%t need to e afraid to play around and push uttons to find out what they do. $ne of my favorite things a out Sketch#p is that you can%t really reak anything, and materials are a solutely free. +hose are magic words to anyone who likes to e&periment. Those Colored $ines and Dots ean Something

4earning how to use software that%s new to you is like adapting to the way things are in a foreign country. +he language is different, the customs are different, and ehavior that is perfectly accepta le at home can get you in trou le without you reali1ing it. 4earning Sketch#p is like that, ut more so. !t%s more like getting used to the way things are on another planet6in addition to terms and procedures that aren%t familiar, the laws of physics aren%t quite the same, and it%s possi le ,actually quite easy- to ecome lost in space. 3ou think you%ve drawn a nice little o&, you or it around to look at it and reali1e that it is all twisted and distorted. 7ecause we%re making 8/ stuff on a 9/ computer screen, we need some help to keep from getting lost in space. !n real life we know when we%re going up or down, right or left or forward or ack, ut in

Sketch#p it can e hard to tell. +he program provides cues, ut they are easy to miss. A lot of people, myself included don%t recogni1e these when they start using the program. "hen we draw, or move something in Sketch#p, colored lines appear when the motion is parallel to one of the a&is directions. Staying on a&is is critical in Sketch#p, and our real world senses can work against this. :ventually our hand and eye coordination adapts, and we follow the cues without thinking a out them, ut when we first start out, we need to remem er to look for these colored inferences. !n addition to the line inferences, the ends and mid points of lines light up when your cursor is over them, and if you%re moving slowly a little te&t tag appears . !f you click the mouse to end a command when those colored dots are visi le, things snap to the point. 3ou need to move slowly and carefully to let the inferences appear, and learn to trust the inferences rather than your own judgement. 3our eye may tell you that things are lined up ut that isn%t always the case. $ne area where point inferences ecome e&tremely important is when you move something. !n Sketch#p, you have to let go of an o ject with the same point you used to pick it up. Most often you want the corner of this lined up with the corner of that. !f you gra it y a random point, it will move ut you won%t e a le to put it down where you want to. $ne of the parado&es of learning how to use Sketch#p is that if you want to get fast, you need to slow down. 4ook for the inferences, make sure you%re going in the direction you intended to, and e precise. !t won%t take long for those things to ecome second nature, ut you can%t shortcut the process of getting your eyes, hands and rain used to a different world. %a&igate With the ouse

At Sketch#p 7ase .amp ! was in a group of people who teach Sketch#p, and someone suggested that saying the program is 'intuitive and easy to learn) may not e such good advice. !t can e a real struggle at first, and one of my pet theories is that this is ecause you have to learn two sets of skills at the same time. 3ou want to make stuff, ut you need to e a le to get around the modeling space to do do that. 4earning to navigate is often the igger hurdle. ! spend a lot of time in my classes saying '1oom in so you can see what you%re doing) and 'or it around so you can see what you%re doing). !f you don%t get the hang of getting around, you won%t e a le to work accurately or efficiently. !t takes practice, ut you should e careful a out what you practice. $ne of the things ! encourage eginners to do, especially if navigating is awkward is to spend some time poking around someone else%s model. $r iting and 1ooming in an empty model won%t teach you much. !t is also important to recogni1e that the o vious way to do something in Sketch#p isn%t always the est way. +he tools on the tool ar are easy to figure out, the pencil draws a line, the eraser gets rid of a line and those magnifying glasses, the little white hand and the lue spinny thing will get you around. 7ut the key to getting around isn%t on the tool ar or on a menu, it%s uilt into the scroll wheel of the mouse. 0lace the cursor over an o ject in the model and roll that wheel ack and forth to 1oom in and out. 0lacing the cursor is important, ecause the program uses that point as the center of the 1oom. !f your 1oom command suddenly quits working, check the cursor location. !f it%s is empty space, Sketch#p won%t really know what you want it to do. 0ut the cursor over something and roll the wheel to get in quickly. 0ush down on the scroll wheel and move the mouse around to or it. $r it makes it seem like you%re spinning the entire model around, ut what is really happening is that you are moving a camera around. ! caught on to those two features rather quickly, ut ! found it frustrating ecause most of the time when ! or ited, ! also needed to pan. After an em arrassing amount of time, ! finally caught a glimpse of the command line in the lower left corner of the screen while or iting. After '/rag to $r it) it says 'Shift;0an). *mmmm. *old down the shift key while in the or it command and 0an ecomes active. !t%s right there where and when you need it, and it%s ama1ing what

this one trick will do to speed things up. !n real life, we don%t have to think a out how we look at things, we just move closer, step ack, or turn to a different angle. !magine how slow and awkward you would e in the shop if you tried to cut a fine detail at arms length ecause you couldn%t remem er how to get a closer look, or if you had to do something ackwards ecause you couldn%t remem er how to turn around. +he same thing goes on in Sketch#p, and when you can get around without thinking a out how to do it, your modeling skills will make a great leap forward.+he ad news is it takes some practice. +he good news is it doesn%t take that much practice. +here are a couple of other fine points a out navigating. !f you right click while in a navigation command, a menu pops up with other options. At the ottom of the list is '<oom :&tents). +hat will ack up the camera to let you see your entire model. ! think of that as my parachute when ! 1oom in too far and don%t know where ! am. $n the .amera tool ar are two commands that can also get you out of trou le, '<oom 0revious) and '<oom =e&t). '<oom 0revious) takes you ack to the last several camera positions. '<oom =e&t) only works after '<oom 0revious), so you can step ack and forth if you need to go ack and fi& something. !t would e nice if '<oom =e&t) could take you into the future. 3ou could just open an empty model and click that thing until you were finished. May e that will e a feature of Sketch#p >, or someone will come up with a +ime Machine plug in. #ntil then, we just have to practice. $ne thing ! plan on emphasi1ing in this year%s Sketch#p classes is using the mouse effectively. Modeling in Sketch#p is a very efficient process if you click the right way at the right time, ut if you don%t have a good grasp of all the various ways the mouse works, it can e incredi ly frustrating. "ith most programs there isn%t much to remem er, and there aren%t any serious consequences if you don%t get it e&actly right. !n Sketch#p, eginners tend to get nervous and hold the mouse utton down, click when they don%t mean to, or add an e&tra click or two. Any of these actions can lead to real confusion, ecause something strange happens, apparently without a cause. *ere are some important things to keep in mind a out using the mouse in Sketch#p. For most commands2 such as drawing a line, moving or copying something, or e&truding with 0ush?0ull, the command will work two ways. 3ou can click and hold down the mouse utton, or click and let go. .lick and let go is almost always the etter method. +ry it and see. .lick once, move the mouse in the direction you want to, then either type a num er for the distance and hit :nter, or click a second time. +hat eliminates the risk of moving off a&is as you shift your vision from the screen to the key oard, and the risk of ending the command too soon y inadvertently letting go of the mouse utton or clicking too soon.

3 clicks will select this entire box

"hat happens when you dou le6click on something depends on what that something is6loose geometry, or geometry that has een com ined into a group or a component. !f you have a single line, that isn%t connected to any faces, a dou le6click isn%t any different than a single click, the line is selected and turns lue to let you know. !f you have a face, which is defined y edges, dou le6clicking on the face will select oth the face and the edges. !f you have a num er of faces and edges that define a three dimensional o ject, a third click will select the face the cursor is over, the edges surrounding it, and all the other loose geometry attached to those edges. "hen you have some e&perience, and you%re adding something in etween two e&isting parts that are components, this is an ama1ing feature that you will appreciate. As a eginner, it doesn%t make much sense. !f you%re a nervous eginner and not aware of how many times you click, it will drive you cra1y.

9 clicks will open a component of group for editing /ou le6clicking on a group or a component is different than dou le6clicking on loose geometry. +hose two clicks open the group or component for editing. +he image at right show a component in this condition. +he component is surrounded y a dashed line and the rest of the model is dimmed out. $nce again, this is a valua le time6saver when you have some e&perience. Many eginners however, don%t reali1e what is going on and end up changing a component ,as well as all the other components with the same name- when all they wanted to do was move it or make a copy of it. $ne of the est ways ! know to get these things to sink in is to move as slowly and deli erately as you can when you are first learning Sketch#p. 4earn the proper sequence of things, and e sure you%re doing what you intend to do, and efore you know it you%ll e modeling at a rapid pace. +he way way to ecome fast is to slow down. 'ust Type The %um"er ! think this post is more a out me and the way my rain works than it is a out learning to use Sketch#p. =ow that !%ve ecome somewhat adept at modelling, ! really admire the simple and elegant way this program works. 7ut it wasn%t that way at the eginning, there were several elements of the program that took me a long time to catch on to, and one of them was entering dimensions. !t turns out that this is so simple, ! flew right y it and couldn%t get it to work ecause ! was e&pecting more complication. !%ve een told that ! could complicate a peanut utter and jelly sandwich, and !%ll admit that sometimes this is true. 7ut ! have also een influenced y itter e&perience using software that was written y guys like me, programs with convoluted methods to do the simplest tasks. +he good folks who made Sketch#p did a wonderful jo at keeping things simple. And simple is good when there is a lot of work to do. !f you%re like me, sometimes it takes a lot of work to understand simple. /own in the lower right corner of the modeling window of Sketch#p is a small window la elled 'Measurements). /epending on what you%re doing, the la el may say '4ength), '/imensions) or '/istance) and when you%re drawing, moving or e&truding something, the num ers displayed in the window tell you how far you%re going. 3ou might think ,as ! did- and then try repeatedly ,as ! did- to wiggle the mouse and then click when you see the num er you want. +hat will work, ut you will spend most of your time ouncing ack and forth etween just a little over and just a little under what you want. Frustrated with that, ! read the directions ,reluctantly- and found something to the effect of 'type the dimension in the measurements window). +aking that literally, ! desperately tried to click the cursor in the little window efore typing. +hat doesn%t work. =o matter how many times you try, or how loud you cuss. *ere is what does work@ Start the command, click on a starting point and let go of the mouse utton. Move the cursor in the direction you want to go and when you see the colored inference that lets you know you%re moving in an a&is direction, let go of the mouse. =ow, type the num er and hit the :nter key. 3ou don%t type the num er in the Measurements window, you type the num er and it appears in the Measurements window."hen you catch on, this is as quick and easy as it gets. "hen you type, the distances will e in the units that you choose in the Model !nfo window. !f you%re working in inches, you can enter fractions as decimals, or two num ers separated y a forward slash, A?B for e&ample is the same a .9C. !f it%s a mi&ed num er, hit the space ar after the whole num er. Sketch#p will read improper fractions and if you forget the space the program will read A8A8?AD as one6thousand6 three hundred and thirteen si&teenths, and not thirteen and thirteen si&teenths. !f you want to switch etween units in midstream you can do that y typing a dimension indicator after a num er. !f you%re making ca inets for e&ample, and using :uropean hardware, you can copy holes 89mm apart just y typing. "hen you%re moving or copying, or e&truding with 0ush?0ull the distance you type is the distance the o ject moves. !f a o& is

four inches high, and you want to make it eight inches high, you start the 0ush?0ull command and type the num er B. Sorry, ut sometimes you do need to add and su tract. Another cool way typing dimensions works is with the rectangle tool. +ype two num ers separated y a comma and hit :nter. 3ou can also pick up a point inference from something e&isting and use that for one of the num ers. !f the inference is for the first num er, type ',E) or if it%s the other way around type 'E,) and hit :nter. +he ig lesson for me when ! picked up on this was that if something is a complicated struggle to accomplish in Sketch#p, the chances are very good that !%m struggling with complications !%ve thrown in. 4ook for the simplest way to do any task, this is supposed to e fun, and it really is easy.

Components (re Crucial

Select geometry and right-click to make a component

My a ilities in Sketch#p took a great leap forward when ! gave up on drawing and egan modelling, and ! was a le to take that step when ! got a grip on using components rather than dealing with edges and faces. Most of what held me ack was my training and practice in designing in two dimensions. +here was a it of snootiness ! needed to overcome. "hen ! worked in the architectural millwork industry, ! used to make fun of what ! called 'the tree house guys.) '+he tree house guys) were people who didn%t really understand two dimensional plans, those who needed to see pieces of wood going together efore they could make decisions.+his approach works well if you have deep pockets or call yourself an artist ,you can call it 'composing) or 'letting the wood speak)- ut if you have any interest at all in working efficiently, the etter you plan, the etter the results.

Loose geometry sticks and stretches

"hen you create o jects in Sketch#p, they look like hunks of wood, ut they have some qualities that real6life o jects don%t. All the lines and faces that make up o jects in Sketch#p stick to each other, and when you move one thing, something else will stretch. +his is actually a useful feature2 it lets us make a oard longer, change a utt joint to a miter joint, and create tapered parts quickly. 7ut if you want to see what one part looks like when stacked on another part, it%s as if every piece of wood in your shop was coated with cra1y glue. $nce you stick two pieces together, you can%t do anything else, and you can%t go ack to what you had. ! have seen people make incredi ly comple& models that are all sticky and stretchy, and ! admire their patience. 7ut models like that are nearly impossi le to change or gather useful information from.

Edit a component to change it (and others with the same name) without affecting other parts of the model

+he solution is to group things together into a component as soon as you possi ly can. !n my way of doing things, as soon as it looks like a stick, it ecomes a component. !t%s easy to do, select a unch of geometry, either y drawing a o& with the selection arrow, or y triple6clicking on a face. "hen all that stuff is highlighted, right6click and select 'Make .omponent) from the menu. +his cures the stickiness and stretchiness, and makes the o ject ehave like a hunk of wood. !f you want to alter the component, dou le6click on it ,or right6click and select ':dit .omponent) from the menu-. :verything else in the model dims, the component is surrounded y a o& to let you know it is 'open) and the lines and faces in there are ready to e changed. "hen you%re done, click out in empty space to close the component. #sing components gives you the est of oth worlds, you can take the tree house approach and see what things look like when you arrange them together. 3ou don%t need the a ility to draw, design or visuali1e efore you egin. 3ou can stick this here, put that there and see what you end up with. "hen you like what you see, all the information you need to uild is right there waiting for you to pull it out.

/on%t /raw if 3ou .an .opy F .opy is 0art of the Move .ommand
!t%s easy to miss the o vious when you%re learning something new, and that was my e&perience when learning Sketch#p. $nce again, my Auto.A/ e&perience was more a hindrance than a help. ! knew the value of copying things instead of drawing them, ut in Auto.A/ Copy is a distinct command from Move. !t%s too em arrassing to fess up to how long it took me to recogni1e what the tag at the left says. !n Sketch#p, the tool is called Move/Copy and you engage the Copy function y starting Move, then tapping the .+G4 key ,option on a Mac-. "hen you do that, a plus sign appears ne&t to the cursor ,also easy to miss- to let you know you%ll e making a copy.

When you copy you ne!er ha!e to draw anything a second time"

My goal when planning a project in Sketch#p is to get it over with as soon as possi le, so ! can get out to the shop and uild it for real. ! tell my students to pretend that every click of the mouse or tap of the key oard takes a nickel away from the tool udget. For woodworkers, this is powerful motivation. !t%s o vious that a comple& o ject like a raised panel door takes time to model, and copying and changing what you have will

speed things up. "hat isn%t so o vious is that the same mind set applies even to a single line. !n woodworking, making one line parallel to another is a common task, and there are several ways to do it. 3ou can put in a guide line ,click, slide, type, click- then use the pencil to draw in the line ,click, slide, type, click-. $r you can copy the line you have, with half as many actions. Adopting that one method instantly makes you twice as fast, and you%re on your way to the shop with money in your pocket.

The Power of Reusing Details

#raw the selection box from left to right

/esigning on the computer can e far more efficient than drawing with pencil and paper. +he advantage isn%t so much in making the original drawing, that takes some time no matter how you do it. +he game changer is that you speed up dramatically when you want to make changes, or when you reuse something you%ve already drawn. Gaised panel, cope6and6 stick doors or panels are a good e&ample of this. !n the shop, one of the most time consuming elements is setting up the router or shaper cutters for the joints. !t takes time to get it just right, and it is a common sight in production shops to see separate machines that are set up and left that way, each dedicated to one step of the process. !n Sketch#p, the same efficiency is possi le for free. 3ou can draw one door, and as long as the molding and panel profiles stay the same, you never have to draw a door again. Make the door parts components, and the assem led door a component, then modify unique copies at any si1e you want. +he secret is to stretch the parts. !t%s easy, ut you need to understand how to use the stickiness and stretchiness of o jects to your advantage, and how to select the right stuff.

Select a point to begin the mo!e that will be con!enient when you end the mo!e"

A door rail has a molded profile and a groove on its edge, and a negative cut of the edge profile on each end. "e can make it longer y stretchingHall the geometry on the end stays the same and everything connected to the end stretches. ! open the rail component for editing, and use a left to right selection o& to gra only the cope cut on the end. .lick on the picture to make it larger and you can see the selected geometry highlighted in lue. All you need to do is move the selected parts. "ith the component open for editing, the faces and edges connected to the selection stretch. 7efore eginning the move, look for a point that will e useful when you want to let the o jects go to end the move. +he point you click at the eginning is the same point used at the end. !f the rails are instances of the same component, oth will stretch when you edit one. "hen the rails are the new si1e, the same procedure works to stretch the panel.

$ wider !ersion of the original door %uickly made by copying and stretching

"here this really proves eneficial is when the time comes to uild, and you need to know the si1es of all the individual parts. !f you had a large ca inet jo , like a kitchen, and you were drafting it on paper or in Auto.A/, you would have to sit down with a calculator and work through an equation for each door. !f the door is E and the stiles are 3, then the rails and the panel are . . . +he great thing a out doing this in Sketch#p is you can change the si1es of the doors to fit, and when you%re done, it is a simple matter to have Sketch#p tell you what si1e the parts are. !n my classes, we always talk a out what level of detail to add to a model. /o you really need to include all the joints for all the parts( +hat seems like a lot of work, ut what if you only need to model a detail one time to have an asset that you can use over and over and over again( +hat changes everything.

0aste in 0lace is My 7est Friend

My primary goal when modeling a project in Sketch#p is to get away from the computer as soon as ! possi ly can. $ne of the main reasons Sketch#p is the ultimate design?planning tool for woodworkers is that it is incredi ly fast. 7ut it takes a while to get fast. 3ou need to know the asic principles of how stuff works, and you need to practice.

$ne of the keys to efficiency is to not draw anything unless you a solutely have to. !f the geometry e&ists somewhere, copying it is etter. +he pro lem is if you use components, the comple& geometry you need, as in this dovetailed drawer side is locked up in the component. *ow can we get it out of that component and into the drawer front component which is still a rectangular lock(

+he first step is to put the drawer side into position on the end of the drawer front. +his will e a half lind dovetail, so ! used the points that will e on the inside corner of the finished drawer to egin and end the move.

"hen the parts are in position, ! dou le6click on the drawer side component to open it for editing. +hen ! select what ! want to copy, in this case the inside faces a ove and elow the groove for the drawer ottom and copy them to the clip oard using the :dit menu.

A single click in empty space closes the drawer side, ! right click and pick '*ide) from the menu, and a dou le6click on the drawer front component opens it for editing. "hen it is open ,surrounded y dashed lines and the rest of the model dimmed- ! go ack to the :dit menu and select '0aste in 0lace).

0aste in 0lace) puts the copied geometry

ack where it was. +hat%s the

reason for lining up the two parts to egin with. 3ou can see how the oundary of the drawer front component has een e&panded to include the faces copied from the side. A few swipes with the :raser tool gets rid of the e&tra stuff ! don%t want. !n real life you wouldn%t throw away a comple& part to get a few pieces of it, ut in Sketch#p it%s a great technique.

+he faces come in with the ack sides showing, so ! select them, right click and pick 'Geverse Faces) from the menu. After they are reversed ! use 0ush?0ull to sink in the dovetail sockets. =eatness counts. +he only line ! have to draw is one to define the end of the groove efore e&truding the groove to the other end of the drawer front.

+hat leaves a single, although complicated face on one end of the drawer front. !nstead of repeating the process that esta lished the first face, ! just copy it from one end to the other, reverse that face and sink the sockets with 0ush?0ull. 7ecoming efficient in Sketch#p isn%t a out drawing things as fast as you can, it%s a out using tricks like this. !n the '0ro) 5ersion of Sketch#p, the solid modeling tools make this process even simpler, ut if you%re using the free version, this is my favorite method for getting geometry out of one component and into another. .omponents .an 7e Gedefined Sketch#p is a powerful tool for designing furniture and other woodworking projects. !n the design phase, you can quickly make o jects, copy and compare variations, and see how things will look in three dimensions. 7ut that%s only half the attle. 7etween design and uilding is another phase, detailing all the parts so you can head to the shop with information a out the e&act si1e

and location of all the parts and all the joints. Sketch#p also shines here, ecause you can add details with a few techniques that don%t take much time. $ne of my favorite techniques is redefining components. *ere%s an e&ample@ "hen ! design a project, my main interest is in the overall proportions and the appearance, so ! model the parts in place without sweating over the details. ! started with one leg, made it a component, then copied and positioned the other three. As ! made the copies, ! used 'Flip Along) to orient them properly. +he legs taper on the two inside faces. "hen the legs are in place, ! draw the aprons y snapping on e&isting points on the legs, making the aprons into components, then moving them ack from the edges. "hen !%m happy with how the structure looks, ! add the details. +o give myself room to work ,and to avoid losing the position of the aprons on the legs- ! make copies of the apron components out in empty space, open each copy for editing and add the tenons. +he tenons will appear on the other apron components, ecause they share the same definition names, 'long apron) and 'short apron). !n real life ! wouldn%t throw away two perfectly good pieces of wood, ut in Sketch#p editing a copy, then deleting the copy is a great technique for adding detail. +urning on the E6ray face style shows the tenons, and it looks like all the joinery is in place. 7ut the mortises aren%t really in the legs. "hen ! get to the shop, ! will need to know e&actly where the mortises are, ut ! don%t want to spend all day ,or even more than a minute or two- drawing mortises. +he tenons contain all the geometry for the mortises, and they are in the right place, ut that geometry is locked in the apron components. +he principle for moving geometry is asically the same, ! make a copy out in empty space where ! have room to work without interfering with the rest of the model. +his time ! copied the leg and oth aprons. ! picked the parts closest to the model origin, and when the copies are in position, ! right6clicked and selected 'e&plode) from the menu. +hat returns all the its and pieces to loose geometry, what ! do to the copy off to the side won%t affect the components in the rest of the model. ! had to do that to get the tenon geometry out of the apron components. =ow ! can erase everything e&cept the tenons from the copied aprons, and that geometry ecomes the mortises in the legs. !t may seem that !%ve painted myself into a corner. ! have all the geometry for the mortises in position in my copy of the leg, ut this copy isn%t a component any more. $ viously ! can make this a new component, and ! could then move my new leg component into position after erasing the old leg components. +hat works, ut it%s kind of tedious, and there is the danger of not getting everything perfectly lined up. "hat%s not so o vious is an option ! have when ! make this copied unch of edges and faces into a new component. "hen ! do this in class, !%m always tempted to say '*ey Gocky, watch me pull a ra it out of my hat). What would happen if I gave the new component exactly the same name as the old component? +he first time ! tried this, ! was a it afraid of ripping a hole in the space6time continuum, ut all that happened was this o& popped up, asking me if ! knew what ! was a out to do. !f you select 'no) it takes you ack to the '.reate .omponent) dialog. !f you select '3es) wonderful things happen. All of the other components in the model, that have the

original name automagically change. All of the legs now have mortises, all in the right spots, and it takes longer to e&plain how to do it than it takes to do it. +here%s always a question when making a model of 'how much detail). !t%s really nice to have the detail, if it doesn%t take too much time to add it. +his method makes that decision an easy one.