Here is the original blog post over at Lumberjocks.com
I’m building a beside table / nightstand for my son. I found a set of plans I liked on the net, purchased from PlansNow originally published in Workbench Magazine.
Even though I have the plans I’m still drawing it up in sketchup.
I like to dry run in sketchup. I find it really makes my shop time go faster and I create fewer errors if I’ve walked through the entire cutting and assembly sequence in sketchup before committing.
If I start with a square block in sketchup the size of the surfaced lumber and then remove geometry similar to how I will do it in the shop I can see the sequence of cutting the lumber once in my head before actually cutting real wood. And then I can dry fit all of the parts in sketchup and see how they fit. I can grab a piece of the model and look at it from any angle before I’ve ever cut it and see fully formed before I ever see it in wood.
Here’s a picture of the start of the model so far. Got the posts and the rails modeled up.
The design calls for mortise and tenon joints throughout.
This is not my design, I dont own the copyrights to it so I wont be posting the actual sketchup model. I’m just drawing it for my own benefit.