GeneDavis

I did a plan a couple years ago and opened it to revisit for possible changes. It has a wraparound porch on floor 1, post-to-beam open railing, so there are just porch columns. I did the columns to match the 1857 farmhouse this will replace, and don't know where or how I got the symbol. But I cannot find it in the library now, even though it is used in two walls of the porch. I had forgotten to change one side wall and now when I open for spec in order to change the post to "turned post 1," there is no such post in any of my libraries. I did a search to no avail. What might be the hangup here? I am posting some images ahead of maybe having to post the plan.

Trusswork always involves some fill somewhere. I edit out the ridge when doing fills. Just a few seconds to remove.

Sure would be nice if we could select the fill in 2D, have its lines and intersections be snap-to, and be able to either x-y move it, or point to point. I draw plans for a builder who is pouring concrete atop wood-framed floors, grinding and polishing it with what looks like terrazzo equipment, and sawcutting grid lines. I draw the grids using CAD, deciding best layout. I'll write up a suggestion.

Thanks, Eric!

I have had trouble getting dormers right since day one with Chief, which was back before X Chief. How to do the roof hole, how to specify the walls, using the specs that cut walls when joined by abutting roofs, what to do with the lower wall below the roofs, etc. It is all bad for me, almost every time. Maybe I should have used the dormer tool. I built all the roofs manually. If you go inside the rooms on second floor where the dormers are, you'll see the mess. Hope someone can help. Thanks. BZ pre.plan

Custom door needed for either way, whether one panel glazed or both solid. You'll use one or two sets of horizontal stretch planes, depending on the result you want. Write a suggestion for Chief to add this option. Chief seems to like cabinet stuff, and you might get it for 2022.

Is there one? Link? Thanks.

I make 'em in Sketchup and import them. Was a Sketchup user way before Chief v. 10.08 came into my purview.

Why don't you download (and learn to use) the freeware eCabinets? With that software, you can build your cabinets exactly the way you need per all your shop preferences, material preferences, hardware, finishes, edgetape, and more. The software can be set to produce either nested array parts for CNC cutting, or aligned array parts for saw-shop cutting. Every carcase part gets a label. The software produces your buy lists for whatever you buy out, whether drawerboxes, fronts, hardware, accessories, and more. Getting Chief to emulate your builds with thicknesses is as far as it's going to get. With eCabs, you are specifying tenon size, mortise size, mortise and dado clearances, edgetape thickness, back insets, nailer size, nailer placement, nailer fixing (pocket screwing, for example), and more. I attached a screencap of a part of their writeup on nested parts diagrams.

Laptop with Chief on it works for me. Gotta be a pretty skanky building to not have a place to set it on.

The challenge is when you want the skylight shaft wall at the lower side to be aligned to the wall below. A continuation of that wall right up to the skylight curb.

Still no file. Come on.

Made with the Chief window tools, including the custom muntins. 24" diameter. Go for it.

Explore the setting in WALL under the ROOF tab: Lower wall type if split by adjoining roof. Heck, explore all the things there in the WALL tab. Then go explore all the stuff that is under the STRUCTURE tab. So much to learn, so little time.

Take a look at the wall settings for the foundation wall and the building wall sitting atop that foundation wall. See the image attached. This is where you control how the walls stack. The MAIN LAYER is either a single layer or a group of contiguous layers (1,2,3, . . . ) and when building a roof over a wall, the baseline is set on that main layers outside face. If doing roof builds using the auto roof tool command, this is where baselines land. You have complete control over a roof already built when you select it for movement or editing, and can move the baseline somewhere else.

How can we possibly address your q without having the plan file?

Changed what? Did you look at your defaults for framing?

What is missing is your plan file so we can examine your window specs.

The Alaskan Wizard never fails to amaze us! Nice one, Michael.

Everybody thinks their roofs are complex, but there have been plenty of complex roof examples done mostly auto, right here on the forum, that show auto roofs delivering most of work. Show us one that is too complex for this to be the case, and don't wing a curveball like a Chinese pagoda at us.

Floor zero has a problem. I ran check, made sure the rooms were checked to be included, and did not return a Living Area number. Check says the plan has problems but does not identify them.

I went to the CA Site, home page, did a search screening for videos, typed "material painter" in search, and it returned 33 results. There is plenty to read and watch and learn.

Use the Help files and read up on the uses of the spraypaint and roller-paint tools.

I wrote up a suggestion last fall to be able to manually draw lookouts. It might be moot if we can draw purlins in X13. As for extending the top plate of the framed gable wall, to reach the subfascia, Chief won't do this, but you can, when editing the wall framing detail.

Some of us that know how to help you (like me) are going to ask that you first really try to solve this yourself. You need to know about Chief's room definition dialog, in which you specify floor structure. You also need to know about Chief's foundation builds in which you can specify and build the monolithic slab with any kind thickened edge details you need. Have you watched the available training videos about these topics, easily found on the Chief website? Have you reviewed the help files in the program for information about these topics?