I’m curious - what do other peoples’ shop drawings look like? Are you making cabinets? Furniture? Space ships? How detailed do you get?
I’d love to see some examples of your work!
Here’s a link to a recent one I did.The amount of detail that I put into a shop drawing depends on who it’s for If it’s for me to work from there’s typically very little detail. A shop drawing like the one in the link gets a whole lot more detail because of the audience it is aimed at. It also depends on the project. This one, for example, requires a whole lot more detail than the first one because the project is more complex.
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I only see a piece of furniture - not a shop drawing…?
Sorry. I can’t just give you the shop drawings. They aren’t mine to give away but they’re for sale from The Taunton Press.
Here’s a view of the SketchUp model from the second link.
Here are a couple of views from the plan for the low boy.
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Oh wow, I’ve never seen a perspective view with a section cut through it! It looks like it’s actually in parallel projection view but this is still a super interesting idea. Do you find that it’s better to do that sort of thing in parallel projection than in perspective?
Here are some pages from a conceptual design package I used as a reference in our latest course that just launched on SketchUp Campus - LayOut Design Package. Wouldn’t call them shop drawings per se but it lands somewhere in between cabinets and space ships as far as scale and amount of detail goes 
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I do all my construction drawings in Layout 2021.1. I use a series of scenes from sketchup that I bring to LO. I use paralell projection (Isometric for 3d views so that I can control scaling. That scheme seems to work fine because the views (scenes) I use are of smaller sections.
Layout changes to ver 2020 and forward are quite useful. Tags and styles are now choices made in LO, therefore fewer scenes are necessary.
For instance in cabinetry I will create a Front vie in SU. Then in layout I can rotate the view using TOP, LEFT,RIGHT, FRONT and REAR to create othgrahic projection views.
Below are my Tags (layers) for casework/cabinetry. Using Tags (turn visibility ON or OFF) I can show a front view with or without doors and drawers (tag Faces). Using Styles you can fyrther refine the look of your drawing.
Your work appears detailed and complete. Nice.
Richard Kleinschmidt
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That’s a nice list. You are giving me some idea’s to try out.
It’s always so interesting to see what solutions other professionals come up with. So many variations!
Here’s my list. Nomenclature is different but the basic workflow seems similar.
Appreciate the compliments.
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Hi Keith, this is a great shop drawing. How did you produce the exploded view of the hood in the top right? Did you manually create a different version of the file with the parts moved away from each other or do you have a plugin you like which does that for you?
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thanks!
plugin? Is there a plugin that does that?
I’m all about working harder not smarter. 
and yes, I took a copy of that model out of the kitchen it goes with and put it in it’s own file and then created a set of views and the explosion (manual) and then brought it into Layout.
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There are a couple of ancient ones but I found they created more work than they saved for the kinds of exploded views I need. Yours appears to be similar.
That’s good to know…I tend to want to have control of the placement of the parts instead of some randomizer or a set distance exploder. Didn’t think that a plugin could offer that kind of detail. Thanks for the tip Dave.
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Check this one:
I agree. I don’t believe there’s any way to make a really good exploded view automatically. I’ve seen the link that Jack shared. Would prefer to do it myself and get it right the first time.
Mike, thanks for the link. For me, as Dave has said, I wouldn’t have control of individual parts to move them for the right view of the piece. Additionally, not having control of the labels would be a no go for me as well. Locking those things in with no way to control individual labels would be a negative.
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Here’s a quickie I banged out today for a retired naval architect who wants to build this piece. Well, the first page of it, anyway. I probably didn’t put as much time into this one as I should have.
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That makes sense about manual explosions making the most sense. And beautiful, drawing sheet @DaveR … love the frame!
My biggest challenge is keeping everything organized so it’s useful and doesn’t stress me out.
Dave, for this final single drawing sheet… do you have just one file and have all pieces isolated on their own tags so that you can detail them each individually? Do you have a separate file for the exploded view or just simply place that elsewhere on the same file so edits to components show through on the exploded view.
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