GeneDavis

Here is a little plan I did to examine the situation. I set the deck plank thickness in the specs at 1". The 3D model complies with the spec, but the material list is still calling the deck planks 1 1/4 x 5 1/2, even though I placed 1 x 5 1/2 PT lengths in the structural reporting matrix. Oh, and the annoying rim thing. Find me a way to specify in defaults, deck rims separately from floor frame rims. Here's a tidbit for you. When I began working for ThermaTru Doors, way long ago, I did their purchasing. Lotta ponderosa pine parts bought each month, sometimes as much as 25 full truckloads. All made from "5/4 plump." It's a term in the pine remanufacturing biz, the biz that makes everybody's door and window parts. How about that? Plump! And I know what it means.

From where does Chief pull the description for deck planking, and from where does it determine size (width not depth) of rim joists? And once planking is generated, how does one edit its thickness so it gets called out correctly in the material list? I've got decks built and needed to edit the framing, because while it correctly placed 2x8 P.T. joists, it somehow picked up 1-1/8 x 7-1/4 as rims and called them out as P.T. Editing is tedious because the resize is concentric so all the perimeter parts have to get edited for length and placement. Now I want to edit the planks to be 1" thickness, not the 1-1/8 Chief built (and calls 1-1/4" in the material list. I can edit the planks for thickness, but not their description. And what setting does one do to have decks built with perimeter joists (rims) done in the same size as joists, and not at 1-1/8" thickness.

Yeah, that's it. Duh. Thanks. I renamed them manually and in the other panel, took them out of the SUBFLOOR category and assigned them to FRAMING.

I used room spec NO FLAT CEILING and manually drawn ceiling planes to do a job, and of course the planes do the expected job when doing trusses, but a small part of the ceiling is stick framed and I used GENERAL framing to place ceiling joists. The material list identifies them in the SUBFLOOR category. I put them on the ceiling joists level, but see no way to modify any sort of category for getting them better placed in the material list.

I did and searched and see no way to get the circle behind. I want a circle in dayglo yellow.

And I have searched Chief Help, explored everything I can find in Defaults and Preferences, and done a search at Chieftalk.

Mark, I missed that and thank you for the clarification. It is faceframed with zero width to the stiles, thus the 1/16" pulls the door edge IN away from the zero edge line. Clever indeed.

Thanks, Mark. Gave you another upvote. A lot easier and it makes it so one can use any door from the "descriptions" class (i.e. without going into libraries) and any door from a library. But you gotta admit, the step taken using the faceframed setting and needing to set the side overlap to MINUS 1/16" is as counter-intuitive as it gets. I attached a snip from Chief help for the cabinet spec panel to show how that is absolutely NOT clear in their description. One would think setting the faceframe width at sides to 3/4 and wanting a 1/16 reveal, one would set that at 11/16, but try that and see what you get. No reveal. And the other mystery, at least for me, is how Chief treats moldings in the cabinet dialog. Crowns end up referenced from top of cab, but anything else goes at the bottom. Nowhere in the Help Manual is this spelled out.

There ought to be a video detailing this out. Thanks. But to sum this up in words, the first thing you do is build a door symbol at EXACTLY the height you want. In my case I want a door for a 36-high cabinet, flush at bottom, i.e. no reveal, and with a 1/8" reveal at top. So I build a door at 35 7/8" height and convert my model to a symbol. Chief's cab-build wants to place doors relative to the bottom-most "separation" and so it is necessary in the first panel of symbol dialog to lower the door by the desired bottom overhang (1.25" in my case), so I go z = -1.25" and the visual confirms by the door dropping down. Can you see axes in the symbol image? Then it is onto the sizing panel of the symbol spec dialog, where we want to say yes, stretch in the x axis as the default does it, right at center. But for y, well, we want that door never to get stretched, this is a thing ONLY for 36-tall wallcabs, so we set the stretch plane up above the top. I used 36" which is just 1/8" off the top, safely away. And NOW one is ready to use this door in a wall cab. Spec is FRAMED. Separation is 3/4". Choose TRADITIONAL OVERLAY and set to 1/16". Now go to the FRONTS dialog, where to make this work for my desired outcome, goes like this: 1. Blank area = 1/16" (because I need another 1/16" atop the 1/16" the REVEAL spec gave. 2. Separation = 3/4" (this is essentially the top panel of the frameless cabinet. 3. Door = whatever the programming is delivering 4. Separation =3/4" (and at this "bottom" of cabinet, the door is being placed at its zero z, and its bottom edge is sticking down that 1.25 we created in the symbol dialog. 5. Finally, Blank Area = 1.25" And it's sort of a wrap, except that Chief does not auto-build the light rail that is below the cab deck and right behind that door overhang of 1.25" It is the bottom BLANK AREA that is "raising" the cab's deck. The gables (I love that use of the word, it's from cabinetmaking) overhang the deck by the 1.25". If one wants the gables, one or both, whacked back so one can get continuous lineals like light rails, light strips, plugmold outlets, one will do surgery on the inside gable of each end cab, and on both gables of the in-betweens. And that is done with the FRONT-SIDES-BACK dialog, choosing the side, going: 1. Separation = 3/4" (establishes the top) 2. Blank area = whatever (skip and get to the next, let Chief do the math) 3. Opening = 1.25" (the door overhang number) There! Wasn't that easy? Not for me, but for Mark the cab wizard, just another day at work. THANKS, Mark!

But the rope lights are on the electrical level, have light data, thus can be turned on and off and the lights brightened, dimmed, and colored. What makes them unique amongst electrical thingies is the ability to shorten or lengthen them, and the number of bulbs thus decreases or increases. Click on one to see about making it a symbol and you see that it is in the cabinet doors and drawers family. I'll bet once you make one a symbol and then place it, having made it a "light," you can connect it to a switch. But, and here is the big loss, you no longer can lengthen it or shorten it and have the bulb count go up or down accordingly. So we may be stuck with drawing arcs and making them dashed lines.

I am unable to get a connection. I go from switch to ceiling light and bingo! Connection. I go from switch to rope light and nada.

Why not refer to the window schedule, which can be formatted to show both unit size WxH and R.O. size WxH. You can draw your plans to dimension to R.O. Where I am, the suppliers send a guy to your jobsite when you have built most or preferably all your R.O.s, and he carefully checks them against his quote and your window schedule he quoted from. Only then does the release to to the factory to build the windows.

HELP! I am unable to get the expected result when I try to place my doors in the cabinet. File attached, plus my doors. I believe the doors are identical in Chief, one having been created in Chief with p'line solids and the other imported from Sketchup. By identical I mean I edited the symbols to have same origins and stretch planes. Red door.calibz White door.calibz 1812463411_overlaplightrail2.plan

I can see that in a table, maybe, for somebody's idea of energy calcs, or for some other reason, but on the drawings, for building?

OOOH! Thank you! The blank area! Opening at bottom to raise deck! What a revelation.

That'll do for illustration purposes, and thanks. But it does not do what I want, so I will make a suggestion in the subforum here. My specs for wall cabinets, vertically, are, and this is frameless, a 1/8 reveal at top, and at bottom, the door overshoots the deck with a 1-1/4" overhang. That 1-1/4" is matched on the right side or left side it the cab is an end unit, and if a betweener, the sides are flush to the deck. I do a light rail molding, a piece rectangular in x-section, 3/4 x 1-1/8 high, and that screws to the decks from below and is continuous across a run of wall cabs. I want the doors at that 1-1/4 line, covering the light rail piece with an extra 1/8. This began with me when I teamed with a partner in the 00s and teens to do kitchens, and we did them all with this detail. At that time, almost all undercab lighting was halogen, at first, then xenon, and the housings or pucks were all 1" tall, thus the 1-1/8 rail. It is all changed now with the LED strips, which can be installed in a shallow plowed groove, 19mm wide, just like I saw in my friend's custom high style kitchen last night. But done that way, the lights faced down, straight down. I am now a fan of doing the undercabinet lighting with the 45-angle-mount strips (section view attached) and so my detail will now be calling for that overshoot to be 1" for the doors and ends, and a 7/8" high light rail. The scheme was all easily done back in the days when I was building kitchens, because I used eCabinets software to buy the cab packages, and in eCabs you can do anything you want. A totally custom job could do the same, but you would never get this from the big players pumping out stock and "semi-custom" cabinets.

I know this has been solved already and shown in this forum, but my search failed. To hide undercab lighting I want to raise the deck (bottom of carcase) of wall cabinets. With frameless cabs this requires a light rail across the front under the deck, and doors extend down. it also means that the carcase gable (what many cabinetmakers call the carcase side) at the end of a run needs to extend down past the raised deck. And any in-betweeners have flush decks. This is how I build. How can I replicate in Chief?

You are seeing the light. Foundations have room control the same as levels 1, 2, etc., and there is no real limit on where in the z axis a room's floor is placed.

At the User Center.

Steeper than this? Just watch the Chief video.

PBRing the view gives me what I would expect from the pendants over island and small table, but raytrace does not? Why? The pendants don't even look ON.

Look up nail-base. Goes on top.

Found it! Thanks.

In the attached plan, a front porch with roof over and railing surround is designated DECK, and terrain is not cut. A rear porch is designated DECK but has non-railing framed walls with windows and a door, and cuts terrain. I do not want the enclosed rear deck to cut terrain. I tried specifying terrain without the building cutting the hole, and did the perimeter I wanted as a terrain hole, and STILL that back room cuts terrain. What's up? DECK TRIAL TERRAIN.zip

After I closed the file for zipping, I reopened it after doing this post, and now I have room def. Thanks.