CDH

Tim,

A big thank you for this post. I was searching for an efficient way to draw a round, curved, tapered leg. I didn't really expect to find one. But here it is, exactly what I need.

Since I'm not a metalworker I wonder if I ever would have found the Taper and Curve plugins on my own.

Also, thanks to Dave for his help with other problems and to the editors of FWW.com for hosting this blog.

Doug Hepler

Thank you. I had been working on a part of this problem -- drawing one curved slat. I had almost figured it out. Its great to know how you did it, and three at a time is a lot more elegant. This should save your readers a lot of time.

I'm looking forward to further posts on drawing chairs.

I was going to suggest this as a topic. Very interesting, and I learned a general skill: I had been wondering how to "skew" a shape.

I have a related problem -- What if I were drawing a chair with round, bent back posts, e.g., a ladder-back? Let's say I want the side rungs and the bend in the post to be in the same plane. I drew the curve for the bent posts, then used Follow Me to draw the bent post. Then I drew the rungs using push/pull on a circle.

My difficulty came when I tried to orient the side rungs in the same plane as the bend. (I can get them in the same plane as each other easily enough by using the copy tool and locking the inference, but I can't get them oriented in the same plane as the bend. It's hit or miss using the rotate tool from a top view.)

If they are not exactly in the desired plane, the drawing does not look at all like the chair I intend to build. It can look really odd with the rear posts akimbo. I had to give up on a 3-D drawing, and settled for a side view.

I'm self-taught in Sketchup, so maybe this is a very elementary question, but how can I keep track of the orientation of an object without a planar face?