I'm new to SketchUp Pro 8 and I was wondering if anyone can advice

3D Printing
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1

I’m new to SketchUp Pro 8 and I was wondering if anyone can advice me how to taper the teeth on this comb. Currently as you can see the whole comb is the same thickness on all portions.

Also, how can I make this comb slimmer in thickness? I tried “Push/Pull” tool but it only selects a triangle, like in the image below. How can I turn the whole comb to be one solid object so I can use “Push/Pull” tool to make the comb slimmer in thickness?

Any help would truly be appreciated.

Thanks everyone!!!

35af7e3094dab85476833aca60330193.jpeg
35af7e3094dab85476833aca60330193.jpeg1916×918 136 KB

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75bd8e3d56b5747fa93e4aefdcc87e59.jpeg1916×918 138 KB

2

I think the easiest would be to make a large box, position it in the area of the comb you want to get rid of, an then use the >solid tools>>subtract function to subtract the all areas contained by the box from the comb.

3

If you draw the comb from scratch you won’t have as many faces, but you can select all the edges on the top face at the same time and “move” them down to make the whole comb thinner. Just choose an end view, zoom in, and box select the top of the comb. UP arrow key will constrain the motion to the z-axis. Just type in a number for a more precise distance.
The same can be done for the top and bottom tip edges of each tooth to create a taper.

4

Use the intersection tool and two extruded planes

5

Pamela, can you give me more details on this? I’m new to SketchUp…

6

If you erase the lines dividing coplanar triangles, you will end with one surface that can be “Push/Pull”, as @Chet_Wyatt said when you draw something from scratch, your object had all the coplanar triangles joined, but when you import a STL, it only had the triangles information. Recently in SketchUp 2013 you can tick an option in the STL import dialog to join coplanar faces. Maybe the easiest way to do what you want is to import again using this function.

7

Thanks Cesar! But how do I taper the teeth of the comb? Any ideas?

8

You can make the teeth one face an then rotate it. Use Shift key to made the rotate tool perpendicular to the axe, being the axe the join of the teeth with the rest of the comb.

Extra help ;-D http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-the-rotate-tool-in-google-sketchup-8.html

9

I haven’t watched them recently, but the video tutorials are a really quick way to understand the basics :slight_smile:

10

Ya, I would use subtract, to subtract a tilted rectangle from both sides of the comb.