Premises
I think more than 3 years as passed from my last model posted. The reason is for sure a lot of change in my life. The other is that I haven't find any interesting model to be tested that doesn't need some assembly features.
Now I have find this bucket. It is a new challenge because is not an usual mechanical part.
I am also trying to model the rake part of the beach toys I have, but it is even harder because I have to learn well how to use the loft and sweep features and how to integrate them in my workflow.
My intention is always to obtain the result without design as a power user, so everything is made with the available tools.
Everything is fully parametric and I avoid to use the boolean operations.
I made it with 0.16.4957 on Win7.
Bucket
The workflow I had in mind before to start was:
1. Create one of the six "petal" revolving a profile.
2. Make a polar array of the "petal".
3. Add the details
It was easy to create the petal already with the thickness. I stopped this workflow because I wasn't able to perform the polar array. The reason was that I cannot select the center of the array (the Z axis). The command gives only the possibility to select the axis related to the part itself, or am I wrong?
After some test, this is the workflow I followed:
Cylinder(s) -> draft -> thickness -> upper edge -> handle holes (with a workaround)-> add the handle
Notes
- Since I have started everything at least 5 times. It is good that the sketches remain available if I delete a feature in the tree.
- The sketcher becomes slow really soon adding constrains.
- The sketcher poligon creator make a strange result: I put the poligon center on the origin and the circle on one axis and the result is a poligon edge on the axis (try it..).
- The "merge sketch" doesn't work. It returned to me a wrong sketch and I couldn't remove the unedeed constrains.
- The thickness tool is really slooooow.
- I wasn't able to exclude the edge of the bucket from the thickness operation so I had to apply the thickness before the model complete design.
- Applying the fillet insanely increases the size of the file.
- Applying the fillet on a thin model, if the radius is more the the thickness, the result is wrong. The below image explain the issue. The command must evaluate and avoid this situation.
- fillet.jpg (5.74 KiB) Viewed 2874 times
- If I undo & redo a feature the "refine shape" is missing.
Handle
I was thinking it was the easiest one but it wasn't.
My first workflow was:
180° revolution -> semisphere terminals -> thickness -> pivots
It failed because It was not able to do the thickness
I tried
180° revolution (with a thickness sketch) -> semisphere terminals (with a thickness sketch) -> pivots
It failed because the revolution to make the semisphere destroyed the entire model.
Finally I had success with this workflow (except for the pivots)
180° revolution -> thickness -> semisphere terminals (with a thickness sketch) -> pivots
At this point I haven't found a workaround for the pivots (the sw doesn't permit to draw a sketch without a planar support).
So I made the sketch of the terminals with the pivot. In this way I had already available one half of the pivot plus a planar surface.
My intention was to make a sketch and a 180° revolution on this face to complete the model but it failed.
At this point I didn't find a solution so I finished the model with the pivots unfinished.
- pivot.jpg (14.11 KiB) Viewed 2874 times
Notes
- The thickness feature must be improved to work on complex models.
- I had big difficulties with the revolution feature because it fails a lot of times.
- The multitransform feature doesn't work as expected. It is not parametric and applying it two times, it creates two parts. So a boolean operation is needed.
Questions
- I cannot find anymore the option to increase the visual aspect of the model and reduce the "polyline effect" of the arcs and the smoothness of the surface. Where is it?
- How can I select a custom rotation axis?
FreeCAD
