January Meeting: SketchUp for Woodworkers
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 4:00PM We started off the first CJWA meeting of the decade with five new members at our meeting. Frank Vucolo presented an update on plans for our booth at The Woodworking Show at the Garden State Exhibit Center in Somerset on Feb. 19-21. Although we have had a booth at The Woodworking Show every year in the past, this will be our biggest effort yet. Not only will we be showing projects that CJWA members have made, there also will be a full slate of demonstrations by CJWA members throughout the show.
Elections were held for CJWA officers for 2010. The current officers were re-elected.
For this year, one project that CJWA will take on for the Old Brick Reformed Church will be to build some storage shelves for use in the storage area just off of our meeting room. Dave White and John Steinmetz will head up this project. Thanks, Dave and John!
Our featured speaker was Robert Lafferty of Blackpoint Woodworking, who gave a demonstration of how he uses Google SketchUp in planning projects. He was able to show how to mock up a kitchen cabinet layout using SketchUp, including dimensioning the carcasses, showing how to easily add decorative elements like crown molding, and adding grain patterns using Wood Workshop, a program that will add wood patterns to SketchUp objects.
In addition to creating SketchUp objects from scratch, there are many woodworking related SketchUp models uploaded by SketchUp users that are available on the internet. Popular Woodworking magazine has an extensive selection of SketchUp models related to articles from their magazine and related publications.
Roger Ackerman and Matt Greco also showed how they used SketchUp in their projects. Roger used SketchUp for planning and building a shed. Matt showed how he used SketchUp to facilitate getting client approval for projects, and showed how to use SketchUp to create a table.
Jerry Fishlin showed a Greene and Greene inspired small table made of white oak. The top was quartersawn white oak, and it was finished using Japan Colors, shellac, and wax. Hopefully he will bring it to exhibit at our booth at the Woodworking show.