Creating a Second Support System for a Picnic Table: A SketchUp Tutorial

Alright, in this video, we want to make a second table leg system for our picnic table. So first, I will select all of my geometry, click and drag a selection window.

If I go this direction, I have to have all of it enclosed within the rectangle, or I can do CTRL+A to select all. So right-click and choose Make Group. Groups can be nested inside of other groups for nice organization.

So a lot of times you'll have groups inside of groups inside of groups all kind of combined. When you need to get into it, you can double-click and you can individually select things that are within this group. Then you can click Escape to back out of that entire group.

These are really good modeling practices. So instead of redrawing all of this, we can actually make a copy, a duplicate of this. So I'm going to zoom out and orbit around and pan.

Because I want to make a copy of this over here to be our second support system for our picnic table. The best way to do it would be to use the Move tool. Click this.

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And then if you see down here in our tool information, you can see that CTRL equals cycle copy mode. If I click CTRL, you can see now there is a plus sign next to this move. So what does that mean? That means I can click on an area, some sort of portion on this model.

And I can click and then I can make a duplicate of that same thing. If I click CTRL to undo that, it goes away and it's just physically moving that object. I click CTRL again, it brings it back and it's a duplicate.

So I want to move this 5 feet 8 inches along the green axis. So I can type in 5 feet 8 and then click Enter. However, this is now rotated the wrong direction.

So what I want to do is rotate this around. So I can go into my Rotate tool, which is located here. I will click this and with my little blue Rotate tool, I will find the center midpoint right here in between the table.

I'll zoom in so you can kind of see. I want it to be here. This is the middle of all the supports.

When I click this and then click on the reference endpoint along the red axis. Click this and then I want to rotate this 180 degrees. So I can physically rotate it like this or I can just type in 180 for 180 degrees and click Enter.

Now this has been rotated 180 degrees and now is in the right position for our table supports. So one of SketchUp's most powerful features is being able to draw on existing geometry. If I go back to my Rectangle tool, this right here, click on this corner.

And then if I was to move across to this, you can see that if I snap to this corner, my dimensions in the bottom right-hand corner of our screen say 0 inches, 6 feet. But as I drag along this, that 6 feet stays the same but that first dimension, which is our width, moves. So I want our board to be roughly around this size.

So I want this to be around 7–8 inches by 6. So instead of eyeballing it, I can type in 8 inches, 6 feet. Next, I will use the Push/Pull tool to extrude this geometry up 2 inches for our tabletop board. So I will type in 2 inches.

Next, I will click on the end of the rectangle and pull this out 12 inches. Enter. Then orbit around to this side.

Pull this out. 12. Enter.

I will go back to my Select tool. Triple-click. Right-click.

Make Group. There are also numerous shortcuts in SketchUp. For example, the Select tool can also be accessed with the spacebar.

So you can go back and forth using the spacebar. And the Move tool is M. For demonstrations in this video, we are going to be using clicking. But if you are ever curious and want to improve your workflow using SketchUp, you can go to Window > Preferences > Shortcuts to see all of the shortcuts within the model.

And you can assign. For example, if I want to search for Move, I can see that Move is assigned as M. So it's really useful to use a lot of shortcuts. But in this video, we will be using the standard tools by clicking and moving.

Alright. Now if I want to create a whole series of boards across the table, I could go into the Move and the plus and move that across and find where I want to do it. And do it again.

And again. And again. That can be kind of repetitive.

And it could be a lot. Especially if we are doing many of them. I am going to undo that.

And I am going to show you a really useful tool SketchUp has. It has a built-in array tool. And how we get to that is to use the same Move tool.

And you find the point where you want to copy from. So you click CTRL to activate cycle copy mode. And what I can do is click on this endpoint corner.

And I want to copy it to the destination point. And click. While the command is still open, I can type in x4 to array that same thing four times.

While the command is still open, without clicking on anything else, I can type in x8, x2, x5, ultimately x4, which is what we want. And that is a really good tool. The other method for arraying is the Divide tool.

If I undo this, the Divide tool is great. If I wanted to have four or five boards within this. Let's say I wanted five boards.

So I can click that. Go into my Move. Click the plus.

And then I know that I want the last board to be here. But I want them to be evenly spaced within five boards. So I will do divide, which in the command syntax is forward slash five.

Now that divided that by five. Now I see that is too many boards. I can do divide by four.

Oh yeah, that's great. Or if I want them to be divide by three, evenly spaced. Really, really useful tool to evenly space these out.

So I want this to be divide by four. So either we can do the times four or divide by four. Both are very useful tools in SketchUp.

Alright, so now that we have our tabletop, I’ll find the center. Click and drag to select all of those. I will right-click, Make Group.

Alright, now let's do the same thing for the bench seat. Go to the Rectangle command. And select the point where I want to make this bench and drag across.

I want to make this six inches wide instead of eight inches wide. We will do 6 inches, 6 feet, Enter. Now use the Push/Pull command.

I am going to pull this board up two inches. I am going to drag each end of the board out twelve inches. I am going to orbit around to the other side.

Pull this out twelve inches. And I will do Select, triple-click, right-click, Make Group. Alright, now let's go make a copy of this.

So like we just did previously, we can go to our Move command. CTRL to get that little plus symbol. Click on our first point and then on our reference point or destination point.

And then click. I will go back to my Select and I will select this. And then holding down CTRL, which you can see in the bottom, CTRL = Add.

So I can do CTRL with a plus and then add. And I can group these two together. And then I want to copy this across to the other side.

So I can kind of orbit around, find this point, this intersection point, which shows up as an X. I don’t know if you can see that. There is an X right there.

That means Intersection in Group. So I want to zoom out so I can see where I want this destination to go. Kind of orbit, get this centered.

I’ll click this. But if I'm not holding CTRL to make a copy, it will just move it. But if I click CTRL, it will make that a copy.

So I’ll drag that. I want to put that right on the end right there. All right.

I'm going to Zoom Extents, get this into a nice viewpoint where I want to end. And I am going to save my file. This is a great stopping point.

In the next video, we’ll return to finish the supports in the middle of the table and finalize our picnic table. Alright. See you soon.