Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual

Turning Your Bench Seat into a Component

When you place one SketchUp object against another, they tend to glue themselves together. Sometimes this behavior is helpful, but other times it's annoying. (For complete details see Understanding SketchUp's Sticky Behavior.) Suppose you place a 2 x 4 on top of the bench seat. Later, if you move the 2 x 4 with an edge or surface glued to the bench seat, one of two things happens. Either both the seat and the 2 x 4 move, or moving the 2 x 4 distorts the lovely shape of your bench seat. The way to keep this from happening is to turn the bench seat into a component. Components have many advantages and you'll read all about them in Chapter 5. The immediate advantage for your bench seat is that a component keeps its shape; you can place it against another object without gluing its edges and surfaces to that object. Here are the steps to turn your bench seat into a component:

1. With the Select tool (space bar), triple-click the 2 x 12 x 72-inch bench seat to select all of its faces and edges.

   The selected edges turn blue, and the selected faces are highlighted with dots.

2. Press G to open the Create Component box.

   You could also click the Create Component button (it's next to the selection arrow) or choose Edit → Create Component.

3. In the Name box, type Bench Seat, as shown in Figure 1-18.

   Use a descriptive name that will mean something to you (and others) 12 months from now.

4. In the Description box, type 2x12x72 inch piece of lumber.

   This description may come ...