I started on the side panel first, but then I realised it would be better to approximate the whole thing first, so I've just started doing that. my main ref is the 346XP. Once I get the blocking done, I'm going to break the model up where there are seams on the real thing (which I've already started doing for the side panel).

I've noticed other people only using double loops to sharpen their edges, but I read a while ago someone saying 3 is better because then you can control the smoothness of both sides. I'm staring to think there are times where you just don't need to have that much control, otherwise it gets unnecessarily cluttered.

Looking good. Also nice references. I've been trying to find all sides of this 346xp saw all over. Props on the search.

Lol, don't thanks me, thank SyncViewS, he posted that ref site in the main topic (and a site with all the manuals).

Double(or tripple you would say) loops(loop on each side of your edge) is generally always best, if you do an "edge bevel" on it, you ruin the initial edge, which can be a pain down the line, if you want to adjust, or when creating your lowpoly etc. For hte lowpoly for example, if you remove the 2 supporting edges your main shape stays the same. If you collapse the edge bevel, or remove 1 of the 2 edges there, your shapes start to get messy and not as accurate to the HP.

I was actually going to write about this in someone else's thread, but didnt get around to it.

Another side benifit is, you can easily take out the edges, and then add them back in if needed. Say you change the main edge loop and some other geometry around it, and now your supporting edges are messy. Simply select the loops, remove, and added em back in using loop slice(in modo) or connect? in max.

At the end of the day there is no hard rule about it, you just need to plan ahead and see if the benifits are good for how you plan to work.

Thanks for that EQ. I haven't done much more on it yet, but I was about to model the whole top as a single piece but then realized it would probably be a better idea to just intersect two object since the edge where they meet is so sharp: