Holes in Sketchup?

[PeteM]

Making/drilling a hole is easy but is there an easy way to drill through a number of components in one shot so the holes all line up?
In this example, I need to make a hole through all 3 2x4s for a carriage bolt.

 

[Dave Richards]

Hi Pete. Sorry, I just saw your post now.

It looks like the two horizontal pieces are identical so presumably they are instances of the same component. Punch a hole through them with a circle and Push/Pull is easy enough.

What version of SketchUp are you using? Knowing that will give me an idea of what tools you can use for the hole in the leg. There are several ways to do it depending on what you have available.

 

[Dave Richards]

Here are two options. First with BoolTools2 which leaves the "bolt" in place. Second using Push/Pull. After pushing the hole through the rail, I copied the edge of the hole, opened the leg for editing and pasted the circle inside it. Then double click with Push/Pull to put the hole in the leg.

 

[PeteM]

Here are two options. First with BoolTools2 which leaves the "bolt" in place. Second using Push/Pull. After pushing the hole through the rail, I copied the edge of the hole, opened the leg for editing and pasted the circle inside it. Then double click with Push/Pull to put the hole in the leg.

Hi Dave - Thanks for the response.
I'm using Sketchup Make 2017 on a Mac Mini. I don't have BooleTools2.
I tried the push-pull method but couldn't get it to work.
I copied the circle and then selected the leg and pasted it and got this (see pic)
Why did the hole go vertical????

 

[Dave Richards]

I tried the push-pull method but couldn't get it to work.
I copied the circle and then selected the leg and pasted it and got this (see pic)
Why did the hole go vertical????

Did you open the leg component for editing before pasting? Did you select and copy only the circle on the face next to the leg? Did you use Paste or Paste in place? I used Paste in place.

 

[PeteM]

Did you open the leg component for editing before pasting? Did you select and copy only the circle on the face next to the leg? Did you use Paste or Paste in place? I used Paste in place.

Did you open the leg component for editing before pasting? Yes
Did you select and copy only the circle on the face next to the leg? Yes, I thought so. But I must have been doing something wrong as I got some weird results.
Did you use Paste or Paste in place? Tried both. When I did paste in place the circle stuck to the rail. I couldn't get it to go on the leg. When I did Paste I got the result you see in the screenshot.

 

[PeteM]

I'm thinking it might be easier just to make the holes in the rail and measure their locations and transfer them to the leg making the hole as a separate operation.

 

[Dave Richards]

When I did paste in place the circle stuck to the rail. I couldn't get it to go on the leg. When I did Paste I got the result you see in the screenshot.

This implies to me that you didn't have the leg componnt open for editing before you used Paste in place. The fact that you wound up with a cylinder instead of a circle like I got implies to me that you selected the surface of the hole and not the edge.

I'm thinking it might be easier just to make the holes in the rail and measure their locations and transfer them to the leg making the hole as a separate operation.

I don't really think it would be easier but you could do it that way.

Here I'm demonstrating first with Paste in place but hiding the components that aren't being edited. And in the second method I just used inferencing to draw a circle on the leg centered on the circle at the inside end of the hole in the rail.

 

[AllanD]

I am in Awe

 

[JNCarr]

I am in awe also --- that it takes this much work/time to align a single hole in three parts. Hmmm...

 

[JNCarr]

Actually I was Very interested in SketchUp because it is a well recognized program and has features I really wish Max has. If critiquing a product is picking nits, I guess I am guilty! I did the same hole boring in Max in literally less than 10 seconds, so that's my baseline.

 

[JNCarr]

Dave - sorry I dont want to get into a p$#&&** contest, I was sincerely interested in Sketchup and asked a simple question on the interface and commented on the difficulty of doing a very simple task. Im not "selling" Max or "dissing" sketchup. I critiqued the time it took to drill a simple hole as an honest observation. Since you have a predefined dovetail pattern, it is obviously a snap. I dont have a predefined dovetail outline so just did one and it took about 2 minutes from scratch. My apologies that you took my comments personally.
Max costs me nothing per year because I bought it the last year it was available to do so. Yes it is expensive and is used by professional animators and movie makers - it is not a CAD program - again , one of the reasons I was interested in SketchUp.

 

[PeteM]

This implies to me that you didn't have the leg componnt open for editing before you used Paste in place. The fact that you wound up with a cylinder instead of a circle like I got implies to me that you selected the surface of the hole and not the edge.


I don't really think it would be easier but you could do it that way.

Here I'm demonstrating first with Paste in place but hiding the components that aren't being edited. And in the second method I just used inferencing to draw a circle on the leg centered on the circle at the inside end of the hole in the rail.

Thanks Dave - I'm not sure what I was doing wrong in my prior attempts but zooming way into the hole in the rail then copying the circle and using paste in place on the leg worked. It's always easy once you know the correct way to do things.

 

[PeteM]

This implies to me that you didn't have the leg componnt open for editing before you used Paste in place. The fact that you wound up with a cylinder instead of a circle like I got implies to me that you selected the surface of the hole and not the edge.

One thing I have trouble with is the "Click-Release-Click" action. I've been a click&drag guy for many years and it's a hard habit to break.
The other thing is that most of my experience is with Adobe products where the space bar is for the hand tool and the v key is for the pointer. My thumb just automatically goes to the space bar when I want the hand tool.
These aren't meant as complaints. Just some things that I find hard to get used to.