Custom staircase using Sketchup. How difficult in Chief? Complete with all details?

[Gene Davis]

I'm a Sketchup user, so it is my go-to tool if I need a new symbol I cannot find elsewhere. I am pretty good, but not a power user capable of doing surfaces such as in bathtubs and automobile bodies.

If I want to get creative with something like a staircase, I build the stairs using Chief to see how everything fits in my house model, then take a few measurements to get the overall bounding box for the unit, and build it all doodled up in Sketchup. You can see in the attached what I get. The staircase symbol is made with the V7 SU file, and snapped into place. Materials are easy, and actually easier to do for me in the SU file before the import.

This one is pretty straightforward. Box newels with tapering tops capped with a pyramid, slat balusters every other one with a keyhole hole detail. The balustrade base is a buildup that includes the skirts in the staircase, and flat trim boards. In Sketchup I can fiddle with the spacings exactly the same way a trim carpenter or millwork shop does, to get the thing just right.

How much work would this be in Chief, to do it all as I show here, and not using the Sketchup crutch?

Want me to model your special staircase? I probably can do it.

[Joe Carrick]

Gene,

I'm not 100% sure about the alternating balusters, but everything else is really straight forward in Chief.

[Alaskan Son]

The alternating balusters aren't too big a deal either. I would just use the transform/replicate tool with multiple copies and appropriate offsets.

[Gene Davis]

I did this type of alternating-plank balustrade before by making a PAIR of boards in Chief, one plain and one with the keyhole, as a single baluster symbol, then playing with the spacing in the railing dbx. Turned out sort of OK.

Being an actual builder-of-staircases (occasionally) makes me want to do one that is detail-perfect, and SU gives me the quicker build, working directly in 3D all the time.

Guess I am more comfortable with SU for doing these millwork details than using Chief. I've a large component library in Sketchup that I have built up over time, and the way COMPONENT EDIT works in SU makes it easy to detail out a staircase when trying different designs for balustrades.

[Joe Carrick]

Why not just bring your Sketchup components into Chief as Millwork Symbols (or whatever they need to be)?

IMO, you're missing out on how chief can handle these things.