Corner Trim on Wood Siding - Possible?

[Anonymous]

I am wondering how to attach wood corner trim to houses with wood siding. I want them to show up in the elevations automatically. Also, what about brick quoins a the corners. Any traditional residential master out there?

Thanks,
Stan

[Karl Ottenstein]

Archimac wrote:
I am wondering how to attach wood corner trim to houses with wood siding. I want them to show up in the elevations automatically. Also, what about brick quoins a the corners. Any traditional residential master out there?

Corner boards are most easily done IMHO with tiny thin walls - because you can trim them to the roof. Use an intersection priority number that is unique, so they do not clean up to the adjacent exterior walls. Their fill should be solid so that they stand out against the horizontal fill of the adjacent siding. If you don't have a belly band/etc and want the corner board to cover multiple floors, just make it a really tall wall on a single floor unless you want them to show up on all floor plans. (You can move and stretch the corner-board wall in the 3D window to get the correct base and height.) I only show them on elevations and exterior renderings (and so have them in a layer that ony shows up in those combos) and call them out on the elevation.

If you want them to show up in every floor's plan you have to put pieces of them (or an exploded version of them) on every story since ArchiCAD doesn't have a 'show on all floors' option for walls.

You can find a quoin object under Object Library / Masonry / Wall Extras.

HTH,
Karl

PS If you will be changing your model much, you would be better advised to use solid element ops to subtract the roofs from the corner boards and exterior walls (rather than use trim-to-roof)... by the time you put in corner boards, there is just way to much undo-trim, re-trim work to do if the exterior walls, roofs, or their elevations relative to one another are still changing.

[Anonymous]

Great info Karl!

At least I know there is a possible way to do it. Do you know where I can find good tutorials on traditional architecture (residential) using Archicad. Or maybe good add-ons etc.? I am currently playing with the demo which is a simple building but far from reality. I would want to know that Archicad can do all these things before I bought it for sure.

Stan

[Stephen Dolbee]

I do exactly as Karl suggests. I sometimes wish a corner board could automatically be placed at each wall corner, though. Should that be a "wish"?

Steve

[Anonymous]

Stan,

I am 2 months into AC and do 98% residential work. I have thought on Occasion AC could be well served to provide a Residential version but carefully selected add-ons will do the trick but still muddling through the commercial parts of the libraries and AC.. wonder if there is a way to weed out library items i absolutely will never use...

Your question helped me.. I keep assembling tips and tricks to guide me. So far I have Fast Cornice and Smartparts from the ObjectsOnline site.. I tried Door and Window Builders but found it extremely hard to use (a simple double hung was hard to arrive at) and didn't keep it as I needed it for a very small number of special windows i can manage other ways. Learning AC as well as DWB just too much for me.

AC is quite an adventure that has it's potholes but in the end I am convinced it will payoff.. The other option to keep drawing lines and rechecking to no end no longer thrilled me...

[Karl Ottenstein]

Archimac wrote:
Great info Karl!

At least I know there is a possible way to do it. Do you know where I can find good tutorials on traditional architecture (residential) using Archicad. Or maybe good add-ons etc.? I am currently playing with the demo which is a simple building but far from reality. I would want to know that Archicad can do all these things before I bought it for sure.

Glad I could help. If I understand what you're asking, no, I don't know of any good tutorials for doing residential architecture per se in AC. IMHO it is simply a matter of knowing how to build (and design). In ArchiCAD, you model the way the structure is to be built and the drawings (generally) take care of themselves. The part one needs to learn is how to set up office standards (layer combinations, materials, fills, etc.) and to use the tools effectively ... which includes realizing that no tool is only for what its name implies but rather for the type of geometry it generates, with the exception of the wall tool since walls are the only objects into which one can place windows and doors. OK roofs are the only objects into which one can place skylights. But, for example, the roof tool would be used to draw a sloped ramp or driveway as well.

There is much that you cannot experience with the crippled demo version of AC since copy/paste and save is required for so many features.

If your reseller has not spent any time with you, it would be good to give him or her a call for a little one on one.

Karl

[Karl Ottenstein]

Rashid wrote:
I am 2 months into AC and.. wonder if there is a way to weed out library items i absolutely will never use...

Absolutely. Open the 8.1 library PLA and choose the option to save it into a folder on your disk. Close AC.

Browse to the unpacked library folder and weed away to your heart's content, or reorgnize the content completely according to some office standar. You can now either load THAT trimmed down folder as your standard library, or you can pack it back up into a PLA that will load a little faster than the unpacked objects.

Karl

[Rick Thompson]

One other thing in addition to Karls comments that I find helpful is to think through the line thickness displayed in elevation. I assign a thicker line to the corner boards than is assigned to the siding. This helps the elevations look right without as mush fussing. You can add "L" shaped corner boards with pre-set heights and place 4 (different orentations) on your residential templates, then you can drag them into place and the whole procedure is quick and painless. I pre-set the height to bump up to the fascia board, which it also a little wall. Both these I define as a "composite", even thought they are simple walls. This gives them names for referencing and defined thicknesses. These are easily assigned to a property object for material list calculations.

[Djordje]

Archimac wrote:
Also, what about brick quoins a the corners.

Used to be there in the standard library ... id not need it for two years or so, so did not check recently.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Karl... I have another question...

I have a 2 story wall, floor joists in line with brick veneer stud walls as they should.. In 3d there is a missing belt of brick along the floor system... Do I have to add this veneer manually against the floor edge or incorrectly put my joists on the brick veneer??

Thanks