I am retired from Bechtel Corporation after 36 years in Engineering and IT management. I grew up among woodworking machinery in Centerville, Ohio - both my father and grandfather had wood shops. I became interested in reproduction of 18th C furniture and have built several homes full of examples over the last 40 years. You can see some of these pieces on my website at http://killenwood.com.
I began working with SketchUp more than 2 years ago. After using various 2D CAD systems over the years, I wanted 3D modeling capability for furniture design. I am now an avid SketchUp user - I will not touch a piece of lumber in the shop without first having a detail model including all joints defined. I like how I can display various views of my design and produce full-scale patterns for marking out lumber. It also lets me "test build" the piece by connecting each component in sequence.
This tool has improved my woodworking ability, and I am interested in sharing features and capabilities that enable this improvement.
