How do I get started making parts?

[ChrisNelson]

Agreed, you should update to the latest version. If for no other reason than 0.18 is thousands (no exaggeration) of fixes and improvements behind.

Which is fine except when I search for a way to install 0.19, the last notes say that the installer isn't ready yet.

I would not use copy, I would use clone. then transform. Then the clone will change when the source is changed.

"clone" is a great clue and after googling that a bit and poking around it seemed promising but... it's disabled when I try to clone my part.

I found a thread from another woodworker considering FreeCAD. He states my problem very well... and never seems to get an answer.

Part Design is all well and good if you're going to drill or mold or mill or whatever, but woodworking is basically done on cubes. That OP wanted to know how to make a door. If I knew how to do that, I'd be home. To create a shaker door you have two rails and two styles that go around a panel. So, I create a new part "Door", I add cubes "left stile," "right stile", "top rail," "bottom rail" and resize and rotate so it looks right. Now I want to make another instance of that door but copy is wrong because I want to be able to edit the original and have them all change. And clone is wrong because it's disabled. How to I make new instances of this part?

[drmacro]

Why is clone disabled? There is something missing...

What I described I've done many times.

Please post your file.

[chrisb]

Clone is disabled if there is a task in progress. As an indicator you see a pencil near the "Task" text in the tab near "Model".

[drmacro]

Just to check my sanity, I have produced a parametric style and rail using Part Design WB and cloned styles and rails.

Obviously it is not fool proof, I have built in no checks for unworkable values, so beware. For example, an attempt to make the door width too small will cause the rail length to fail...

This was built in 0.20 and some testing in 0.19, caveat emptor.

Snip macro screenshot-178e21.png (113.78 KiB) Viewed 422 times

[ChrisNelson]

Clone is disabled if there is a task in progress. As an indicator you see a pencil near the "Task" text in the tab near "Model".

No, I don't see a pencil. If I click the Task tab, there is a section that says "Start part" with an item below it that says "Create body". If I click that it adds a Body to the Model below "Origin" and above the cubes I added before.

[ChrisNelson]

Just to check my sanity, I have produced a parametric style and rail using Part Design WB and cloned styles and rails.
...
Snip macro screenshot-178e21.png

Thanks. I'm not sure why -- or how -- I'd use Part Design. I'm surely new to FreeCAD but Part seems the natural way to go here.

[ChrisNelson]

Why is clone disabled? There is something missing...

What I described I've done many times.

Please post your file.

Sure.

[Bance]

The vast majority of software requires you to select something before making an operation, FC is pretty good in being flexible in that way, however for clone you must make a selection to enable the tool, in PD wb at least.

The Draft wb clone which is the one you should be using if not modelling in PD wb, doesn't require the selection to be enabled, it won't do anything if you don't select something though.

You should probably fuse the parts into a single solid first.

EDIT:- Here is an example of a 4 panel door, it is not complete, and not parametric but could be made so.

Doors.png (6.15 KiB) Viewed 369 times

[drmacro]

Just to check my sanity, I have produced a parametric style and rail using Part Design WB and cloned styles and rails.
...
Snip macro screenshot-178e21.png

Thanks. I'm not sure why -- or how -- I'd use Part Design. I'm surely new to FreeCAD but Part seems the natural way to go here.

Well, you now have two examples, mine and @Bance to go through and learn from...

I could do it in Part workbench as well. But, I've done it in PartDesign.

And I certainly would not choose Draft workbench.

[ChrisNelson]

You should probably fuse the parts into a single solid first.

I kind of assumed that. (In Dia, I'm used to grouping a few primitives to make something I can manipulate as a whole.) But I can't find the tool or technique to do that in FreeCAD.

EDIT:- Here is an example of a 4 panel door, it is not complete, and not parametric but could be made so.

Doors.png

Thanks. I'll take a look.