The Push/Pull tool in SketchUp is where most of the fun really begins. It's just great to see 2D stuff becoming 3D! It's as easy as this:
Double-click in the Component to begin modifying it. Now select the Push / Pull tool.
Hover over the top of a plank until it highlights blue, and click. Now when you move the mouse, you can extrude the flat geometry into a 3D box.
Make sure the extrusion is going upwards, as you can see in the previous screenshot. Now click. You could leave it like this, but to Push/Pull to a particular dimension, type in
0.02
and hit Enter. You must do this during or directly after you use Push/Pull for it to work.Did you notice the plank jumped to the size you specified? Now double-click on each plank to repeat this command. SketchUp remembers the dimension you last used!
You now have a set of 3D planks saved as a component.