New Way to Get Free Project Plans

Every woodworking magazine features drawings of projects as part of their printed editions. I'm excited to announce that Popular Woodworking, and our sister publication Woodworking Magazine are offering projects from our pages in a new, interactive three-dimensional format. I've spent the last few days uploading SketchUp models to the Google 3D Warehouse. I've you're not familiar with SketchUp, read on.

The image above is the Holzappfel Workbench built by Christopher Schwarz for issue 8 of Woodworking Magazine. But it's a lot more than an image. If you click on it, you will be taken to the 3D Warehouse where you can download the model. If you have SketchUp installed on your computer, you will be able to look at this from any angle, take it apart, measure parts and see how it all fits together. If you want to start with this design and modify it, you can do that too.

This image also links to a SketchUp model. This is the "I Can Do That" project from our June 2008 issue. SketchUp is a 3D modeling program that runs on both PCs and Macs, and it is available for free. To download it from Google, click here. When you have the program installed, you will find it intuitive to use and there is plenty of help available within the program and online. If you need more help, there is an excellent "SketchUp for Dummies" book and the author's blog is one more excellent resource.

Planning projects in SketchUp is very similar to building a project for real. This is one of the reasons it is easy to learn, and also one of the reasons that it is popular among woodworkers. The other half of this equation is the 3D Warehouse. 3D Warehouse is a website where SketchUp users can share their projects with the world. This is where we are sharing our projects and you can also find an amazing number of models that are already constructed, everything from tools to hardware to kitchen cabinets are online, and ready to be used in your own models.

We like the program so much, that we have switched to using it for many of the illustrations you see in the pages of the magazine. If you haven't tried SketchUp yet, I encourage you to give it a try. Even if you never make your own plans, it's an excellent way to review a project from the magazine before you build. In the coming months, we'll be regularly adding to the models already in the collection, and I will be teaching some classes on using SketchUp next summer. In addition, my new book Drafting & Design for Woodworkers has an extensive SketchUp tutorial, written from a woodworkers perspective. The book won't be available for a few weeks, but you can reserve a signed copy from my website by clicking here.

To visit the Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine collection on Google's 3D Warehouse, click here

To download the free version of the 3D modeling program Google SketchUp, click here.

--Robert W. Lang