# Struggling with alignmens

**URL:** <https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/struggling-with-alignmens/29312>\
**Category:** Modeling Questions\
**Created:** [December 12, 2023, 7:26am UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/struggling-with-alignmens/29312 "2023-12-12T07:26:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Metalmanokc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71c47a/32.png) [@Metalmanokc](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/Metalmanokc)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 7:26am UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/struggling-with-alignmens/29312/1 "2023-12-12T07:26:15Z")

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I am having issues with the alignment tools. Coming from solidworks, I can just align and mate surfaces. Yours seems a little different. I am mainly building custom furniture out of 2x2 square tube, so there is a lot of mate and alignments. When I align a surface, it doesn’t seem to lock in place, so when I align a second surface, it moves in totally the wrong direction. It seems frustrating. I really like the software and the rendering abilities, Just not sure what I am missing here. I spend more time moving components around than drawing. Any help or suggestions would be great.

Derick

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**Author:** ![Peter\_Gy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.shapr3d.com/peter_gy/32/9251_2.png) [@Peter\_Gy](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/Peter_Gy)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 8:25am UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/struggling-with-alignmens/29312/2 "2023-12-12T08:25:33Z")

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At the moment Shapr3D does not have the same mating functionality that’s available in Solidworks. However, the [Align](https://support.shapr3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/7874398317596-Align) and [Translate](https://support.shapr3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/7888735383580-Translate) tools can be pretty powerful for simpler, static configurations like aligning tubes. And they should not be moving both bodies, just the “source” one. Could you maybe record a short video of when things are going unexpected? It’d help us understand the issue better and figure out what’s going on.