thibaultron

Part 09A
 
Mirroring An Object
 
I have a bone to pick with SketchUp. Most every other program I’ve ever used, has used some form of the word ”Mirror”, in the command to create a mirrored image of an object. Not SketchUp, they use “Flip”, which, to me, means turn over like a pancake, while keeping it the same. Their explanation of “Flip” sounds like they were trying to explain it, and the word Mirror was patented, and they had to avoid it like the plague.
 
Just be aware.
 
Making A New Nose For The Frame
 
I will show all, or at least most, of the steps to create the new nose piece. There are lots of good techniques shown. Because of this it will be a very long post, but bear with me.
 
In the end after writing this section, it has to be posted in 5 parts, A through E
 
Now, last time I told you that I was throwing away all the work I did on the welded nose of the frame, and starting over. When I drew the frames, I started with the main body flat, and angled up the nose. I tried to make the tip curve in one direction, while remaining straight in the other. Well, my geometry calculations were off. When I went to paste the two sides, together, the tips curved away from each other, rather than running alongside. In order to get them to form a mass, they overlapped so much, the nose became only a single frame thickness wide, rather than two.
 

 
Then it hit me, angle the frames and draw the curve on the flat horizontal surface! So that is what I did.
 
This time instead of two cylinders I made the extrusion one solid piece.
 
To do this I went back to the flat frames I’d started with, before angling the tips, rotated them and combined them, into the proper configuration. I used the straight frame sides, so that I could get the proper flat curve, for the nose. You will see what I mean later.
 

 

 
Then I drew in a rectangle where the upper frame leg cylinders just met, to use as the line to cut the tips from the frame.
 

 

 
Notice, above, that the larger diameter lower frame leg cylinders connect before the joint on the smaller upper ones. This will come into play later in this process.
 

 
The upper and lower rods are a single cylinder were the joint will be. I cannot erase the left side on the tip end, without erasing the portion on the right. To solve this I needed to cut the frame cylinders where they meet the rectangle surface.
 
This is what happens if I do not cut the surfaces that cross the rectangle’s surface.
 

 

 
There is a function  Edit – Intersect Faces. That can be used to do this. When you intersect the faces, all the flat surfaces that cross the rectangle, or any other type of surface you choose, are cut in two, forming two new surfaces. This acts like a saw, cutting through the part.
 
First I selected the area I wanted to work on (including the rectangle). Then I choose the command.
 

 

 
Now when I select a surface on the left hand side, it is unique, not part of a surface that spans the “cut”.
 

 

Part 09E
 
Next I copied this frame, and flipped it to get a mirror image.
 

 
Next I moved them together, for the finished frame sides.
 

 
 

 

 
I think that next time, I will show how I connect a cylindrical part to a smaller rectangular type part.  There are probably better ways, but this is what works for me.
 
That should finish the operations that I think were good to use the frame to illustrate.
 

Part 09D
 
Now I need to cut away the second stub of the frame. Because the cylinders of the lower leg of the frame were larger in diameter then the top ones, and I made a cutting plain joint where the upper cylinder met, the lower ones connected further back. I need to preserve this area, for my final frame master part.
 

 
I used the same method of drawing a rectangle, intersecting the faces, and erasing the unneeded cylinder stub.
 

 

 
In the picture below you can see the flat area of the lower cylinder that we need. It is the larger , nearly horizontal curved surface.
 

 

 
After cleaning it up and removing the unneeded surfaces, we end up with this, as the end of the frame the new nose will be attached to.
 

 
Next I made a copy of that good looking Follow Me nose extrusion, and pasted it in place.
 

 
Wait a minute, what happened!!
 
Remember that Follow Me creates intermediate surfaces that are perpendicular to the path? The surface we started with was not perpendicular to the downward curve of the path, only in the straight. Z axis, direction.
 
So Follow me used the reference surface as the outline of the extrusion, but created a new starting face that was perpendicular to the first line of the downward curving path. It then deleted our original surface, leaving this gap.
 
Looking at the two extruded noses from the side, you can see the difference between them on the right hand end (the area where it will connect to the frame)
 

 
So despite having missing surfaces, the Upright Extruded nose is the correct one to use, in this case.
 
The Upright Extrude draws all the intermediate faces parallel to the original one.
 
After pasting this nose on the frame, and filling in the missing surfaces, we have this, as the part for one side of the finished frame.
 

 

 

 

 

Part 09C
 
With the nose separated from the frame, and the centerlines saved, I erased the nose area.
 

 

 
This last area had to be erased line by line, as it was too close to the rectangle, to select them together, and most of them contacted the rectangle, which means that you would have to select the rectangle, and any parts on the other side of it that were inside your selection box needed to capture the whole object, will also select .
 

 
Finally a clean section to start over with.
 

 
To save what I had here, I copied the whole frame, and worked on the copy. I will have to delete the rest (back) of the frame, when I finish the nose, so I can paste the nose onto the frame I copied from.
 
This gives me the rectangle, with the cylinder outlines, and the old centerlines, to begin building a new nose.
 
I drew in the straight lines between the circles to represent the eventual sides of the welded area. Sorry I forgot to make a graphic of this step.
 
To get the outline as a single surface, I had to draw over all the lines that made up the outside outline I wanted. SketchUp should have already made this surface a separate one, but for some reason did not. This happens occasionally, and you have to fix it manually. Most likely some very small line was lost during the removal of all the frame parts. Rather than try to find it, redrawing was quicker.
 
I then removed the outside rectangular surface, and the unneeded half of the new nose outline surface.
 

 
In the above picture, I have also drawn lines connecting the original centerlines, in preparation to draw the line I will use for the extrusion path. I drew from the endpoints along the segments that make up one line to the matching endpoints on the other line.
 
Next I drew a line along the midpoint of each cross line. This gives me a curved line that follows the downward curve of the centerlines, but is straight in the other directions, and perpendicular to the surface I want to extrude.
 

 
I then erased the extra lines between the old centerlines, the centerline that does not touch the surface, and most of the other one, just leaving the section closest to the surface. I left this line segment to use as a reference point when I paste the nose back onto the rear frame section.
The line down the center curves downward in what will be the vertical axis (Y axis), but is straight in the horizontal axis (Z axis).
 

 
I used the “Shift” key feature of selecting, to select all the line segments of the extrusion path. Then I extruded two new noses, using both Follow Me, and the Upright Extruder.
 
For Follow Me: you select the path, Follow Mw, and then the surface to be extruded.
 

 
For Upright Extrude: you select the path and the surface, then Upright Extrude.
 

 
The results from the Follow Me
 

 
The results from the Upright Extruder.
 

 
Keep both! The Follow Me extrusion looks like the winner, hands down, but you will see later why I saved both.
 

Part 09A
 
Mirroring An Object
 
I have a bone to pick with SketchUp. Most every other program I’ve ever used, has used some form of the word ”Mirror”, in the command to create a mirrored image of an object. Not SketchUp, they use “Flip”, which, to me, means turn over like a pancake, while keeping it the same. Their explanation of “Flip” sounds like they were trying to explain it, and the word Mirror was patented, and they had to avoid it like the plague.
 
Just be aware.
 
Making A New Nose For The Frame
 
I will show all, or at least most, of the steps to create the new nose piece. There are lots of good techniques shown. Because of this it will be a very long post, but bear with me.
 
In the end after writing this section, it has to be posted in 5 parts, A through E
 
Now, last time I told you that I was throwing away all the work I did on the welded nose of the frame, and starting over. When I drew the frames, I started with the main body flat, and angled up the nose. I tried to make the tip curve in one direction, while remaining straight in the other. Well, my geometry calculations were off. When I went to paste the two sides, together, the tips curved away from each other, rather than running alongside. In order to get them to form a mass, they overlapped so much, the nose became only a single frame thickness wide, rather than two.
 

 
Then it hit me, angle the frames and draw the curve on the flat horizontal surface! So that is what I did.
 
This time instead of two cylinders I made the extrusion one solid piece.
 
To do this I went back to the flat frames I’d started with, before angling the tips, rotated them and combined them, into the proper configuration. I used the straight frame sides, so that I could get the proper flat curve, for the nose. You will see what I mean later.
 

 

 
Then I drew in a rectangle where the upper frame leg cylinders just met, to use as the line to cut the tips from the frame.
 

 

 
Notice, above, that the larger diameter lower frame leg cylinders connect before the joint on the smaller upper ones. This will come into play later in this process.
 

 
The upper and lower rods are a single cylinder were the joint will be. I cannot erase the left side on the tip end, without erasing the portion on the right. To solve this I needed to cut the frame cylinders where they meet the rectangle surface.
 
This is what happens if I do not cut the surfaces that cross the rectangle’s surface.
 

 

 
There is a function  Edit – Intersect Faces. That can be used to do this. When you intersect the faces, all the flat surfaces that cross the rectangle, or any other type of surface you choose, are cut in two, forming two new surfaces. This acts like a saw, cutting through the part.
 
First I selected the area I wanted to work on (including the rectangle). Then I choose the command.
 

 

 
Now when I select a surface on the left hand side, it is unique, not part of a surface that spans the “cut”.
 

 

I tested today the idea, and it is OK
 
Took an old CD or DVD unit cover, and some old magnets

 
 cut some pats from the magnet support

 
the unit is: 17.5 x 15 cm and 3 cm high
 
Hope it is ok for everybody

Bob, daddyrabbit1954 and mischief thank you all for your comments. I truly thank for taking the time to help out a novice ship builder.
 
Greg H.

Look for magnets in the welding section at Harbor Freight the angle ones are great for squaring frames, cabins,  etc. on a large metal cookie sheet

I've seen the magnets at Harbor Freight, very very cheap.

How about a cookie sheet from the supermarket, at $5-15?  Plain steel would be ok, but one that is teflon coated would be easy to clean. Stainless steel might be nice too, but test first to make sure that magnets will be attracted to it.  
 
The magnetic clamp blocks look like they were scavenged from cabinet latches (~$1ea), but you could make them by cutting some modeling plywood (square or any other shape) and then gluing on neodymium magnets (such as the powerful ones that may be scavenged from defunct computer hard disks).

I've seen a few people use a magnetic tray for squaring up assemblies for their ships. Just wondering if anyone knows where to buy them? Thanks
 
Greg H.

HI,
 
Working on the Cutty Sark and need some feedback on furled sails.
I'm calling the top version option 1 and the lower version option 2.
 
I've looked at different references  of the Cutty as she was during the tea trade and as the Fierra and have seen the royals furled differently.  
 
I made sails with the heights cut in half to reduce bulk.  I finished the sails and bent them to the jackstays then furled.
The sails and yards in the photos are the mizzen royal and the sky which are essentially the same size.
 
Neither is furled below the yard.  I've tried to pull the sails up as high as I could and still attach the slings, although option 2 is actually on top of the jackstays.
 
This is from the front

Option 1 is at the top
Option 2 is on the bottom
 
This is from the top

 
I have to say that I'm not as happy with the accordion look of option 2 from the sides.
 
Option 1 port side

 
Option 2 port side

 
Comments? Which would you go with?
 
thanks
Marc

Part 09E
 
Next I copied this frame, and flipped it to get a mirror image.
 

 
Next I moved them together, for the finished frame sides.
 

 
 

 

 
I think that next time, I will show how I connect a cylindrical part to a smaller rectangular type part.  There are probably better ways, but this is what works for me.
 
That should finish the operations that I think were good to use the frame to illustrate.
 

Part 09D
 
Now I need to cut away the second stub of the frame. Because the cylinders of the lower leg of the frame were larger in diameter then the top ones, and I made a cutting plain joint where the upper cylinder met, the lower ones connected further back. I need to preserve this area, for my final frame master part.
 

 
I used the same method of drawing a rectangle, intersecting the faces, and erasing the unneeded cylinder stub.
 

 

 
In the picture below you can see the flat area of the lower cylinder that we need. It is the larger , nearly horizontal curved surface.
 

 

 
After cleaning it up and removing the unneeded surfaces, we end up with this, as the end of the frame the new nose will be attached to.
 

 
Next I made a copy of that good looking Follow Me nose extrusion, and pasted it in place.
 

 
Wait a minute, what happened!!
 
Remember that Follow Me creates intermediate surfaces that are perpendicular to the path? The surface we started with was not perpendicular to the downward curve of the path, only in the straight. Z axis, direction.
 
So Follow me used the reference surface as the outline of the extrusion, but created a new starting face that was perpendicular to the first line of the downward curving path. It then deleted our original surface, leaving this gap.
 
Looking at the two extruded noses from the side, you can see the difference between them on the right hand end (the area where it will connect to the frame)
 

 
So despite having missing surfaces, the Upright Extruded nose is the correct one to use, in this case.
 
The Upright Extrude draws all the intermediate faces parallel to the original one.
 
After pasting this nose on the frame, and filling in the missing surfaces, we have this, as the part for one side of the finished frame.
 

 

 

 

 

Part 09C
 
With the nose separated from the frame, and the centerlines saved, I erased the nose area.
 

 

 
This last area had to be erased line by line, as it was too close to the rectangle, to select them together, and most of them contacted the rectangle, which means that you would have to select the rectangle, and any parts on the other side of it that were inside your selection box needed to capture the whole object, will also select .
 

 
Finally a clean section to start over with.
 

 
To save what I had here, I copied the whole frame, and worked on the copy. I will have to delete the rest (back) of the frame, when I finish the nose, so I can paste the nose onto the frame I copied from.
 
This gives me the rectangle, with the cylinder outlines, and the old centerlines, to begin building a new nose.
 
I drew in the straight lines between the circles to represent the eventual sides of the welded area. Sorry I forgot to make a graphic of this step.
 
To get the outline as a single surface, I had to draw over all the lines that made up the outside outline I wanted. SketchUp should have already made this surface a separate one, but for some reason did not. This happens occasionally, and you have to fix it manually. Most likely some very small line was lost during the removal of all the frame parts. Rather than try to find it, redrawing was quicker.
 
I then removed the outside rectangular surface, and the unneeded half of the new nose outline surface.
 

 
In the above picture, I have also drawn lines connecting the original centerlines, in preparation to draw the line I will use for the extrusion path. I drew from the endpoints along the segments that make up one line to the matching endpoints on the other line.
 
Next I drew a line along the midpoint of each cross line. This gives me a curved line that follows the downward curve of the centerlines, but is straight in the other directions, and perpendicular to the surface I want to extrude.
 

 
I then erased the extra lines between the old centerlines, the centerline that does not touch the surface, and most of the other one, just leaving the section closest to the surface. I left this line segment to use as a reference point when I paste the nose back onto the rear frame section.
The line down the center curves downward in what will be the vertical axis (Y axis), but is straight in the horizontal axis (Z axis).
 

 
I used the “Shift” key feature of selecting, to select all the line segments of the extrusion path. Then I extruded two new noses, using both Follow Me, and the Upright Extruder.
 
For Follow Me: you select the path, Follow Mw, and then the surface to be extruded.
 

 
For Upright Extrude: you select the path and the surface, then Upright Extrude.
 

 
The results from the Follow Me
 

 
The results from the Upright Extruder.
 

 
Keep both! The Follow Me extrusion looks like the winner, hands down, but you will see later why I saved both.
 

Part 09E
 
Next I copied this frame, and flipped it to get a mirror image.
 

 
Next I moved them together, for the finished frame sides.
 

 
 

 

 
I think that next time, I will show how I connect a cylindrical part to a smaller rectangular type part.  There are probably better ways, but this is what works for me.
 
That should finish the operations that I think were good to use the frame to illustrate.
 

Part 09D
 
Now I need to cut away the second stub of the frame. Because the cylinders of the lower leg of the frame were larger in diameter then the top ones, and I made a cutting plain joint where the upper cylinder met, the lower ones connected further back. I need to preserve this area, for my final frame master part.
 

 
I used the same method of drawing a rectangle, intersecting the faces, and erasing the unneeded cylinder stub.
 

 

 
In the picture below you can see the flat area of the lower cylinder that we need. It is the larger , nearly horizontal curved surface.
 

 

 
After cleaning it up and removing the unneeded surfaces, we end up with this, as the end of the frame the new nose will be attached to.
 

 
Next I made a copy of that good looking Follow Me nose extrusion, and pasted it in place.
 

 
Wait a minute, what happened!!
 
Remember that Follow Me creates intermediate surfaces that are perpendicular to the path? The surface we started with was not perpendicular to the downward curve of the path, only in the straight. Z axis, direction.
 
So Follow me used the reference surface as the outline of the extrusion, but created a new starting face that was perpendicular to the first line of the downward curving path. It then deleted our original surface, leaving this gap.
 
Looking at the two extruded noses from the side, you can see the difference between them on the right hand end (the area where it will connect to the frame)
 

 
So despite having missing surfaces, the Upright Extruded nose is the correct one to use, in this case.
 
The Upright Extrude draws all the intermediate faces parallel to the original one.
 
After pasting this nose on the frame, and filling in the missing surfaces, we have this, as the part for one side of the finished frame.
 

 

 

 

 

Part 09C
 
With the nose separated from the frame, and the centerlines saved, I erased the nose area.
 

 

 
This last area had to be erased line by line, as it was too close to the rectangle, to select them together, and most of them contacted the rectangle, which means that you would have to select the rectangle, and any parts on the other side of it that were inside your selection box needed to capture the whole object, will also select .
 

 
Finally a clean section to start over with.
 

 
To save what I had here, I copied the whole frame, and worked on the copy. I will have to delete the rest (back) of the frame, when I finish the nose, so I can paste the nose onto the frame I copied from.
 
This gives me the rectangle, with the cylinder outlines, and the old centerlines, to begin building a new nose.
 
I drew in the straight lines between the circles to represent the eventual sides of the welded area. Sorry I forgot to make a graphic of this step.
 
To get the outline as a single surface, I had to draw over all the lines that made up the outside outline I wanted. SketchUp should have already made this surface a separate one, but for some reason did not. This happens occasionally, and you have to fix it manually. Most likely some very small line was lost during the removal of all the frame parts. Rather than try to find it, redrawing was quicker.
 
I then removed the outside rectangular surface, and the unneeded half of the new nose outline surface.
 

 
In the above picture, I have also drawn lines connecting the original centerlines, in preparation to draw the line I will use for the extrusion path. I drew from the endpoints along the segments that make up one line to the matching endpoints on the other line.
 
Next I drew a line along the midpoint of each cross line. This gives me a curved line that follows the downward curve of the centerlines, but is straight in the other directions, and perpendicular to the surface I want to extrude.
 

 
I then erased the extra lines between the old centerlines, the centerline that does not touch the surface, and most of the other one, just leaving the section closest to the surface. I left this line segment to use as a reference point when I paste the nose back onto the rear frame section.
The line down the center curves downward in what will be the vertical axis (Y axis), but is straight in the horizontal axis (Z axis).
 

 
I used the “Shift” key feature of selecting, to select all the line segments of the extrusion path. Then I extruded two new noses, using both Follow Me, and the Upright Extruder.
 
For Follow Me: you select the path, Follow Mw, and then the surface to be extruded.
 

 
For Upright Extrude: you select the path and the surface, then Upright Extrude.
 

 
The results from the Follow Me
 

 
The results from the Upright Extruder.
 

 
Keep both! The Follow Me extrusion looks like the winner, hands down, but you will see later why I saved both.
 

Part 09B
 
I need both the centerlines of the lower rods, to use later to create the extrusion path for my new frame nose tips.
 
To do this, I selected all the line segments that make up the centerline.
 
When you need to select more than one object, you select the first, then hold down the “Shift” key, and continue selecting things, Each new object will be added to the previous ones that were selected. Clicking on one of the already selected objects, will remove it from the group you are building.
 
I erased the end surfaces of these rods, for better viewing while doing the selecting. I selected the centerline, zooming along its length, through intervening surfaces, until I had passed the rectangle surface. I then made them a group, then locked the group from editing. Both operations are accessed by right clicking, while over the object, and selecting the operation from the pop-up menu.
 

 

 

 

 

 
The group has been made, shown by the objects being displayed in blue, and the box that shows what overall area the group occupies also in blue.
 

 

 

 
The red Group Box and objects, indicate that that group has been locked from editing. A group can be Unlocked, and returned to individual objects (Explode), using the same pop-up menu.
 

Part 09A
 
Mirroring An Object
 
I have a bone to pick with SketchUp. Most every other program I’ve ever used, has used some form of the word ”Mirror”, in the command to create a mirrored image of an object. Not SketchUp, they use “Flip”, which, to me, means turn over like a pancake, while keeping it the same. Their explanation of “Flip” sounds like they were trying to explain it, and the word Mirror was patented, and they had to avoid it like the plague.
 
Just be aware.
 
Making A New Nose For The Frame
 
I will show all, or at least most, of the steps to create the new nose piece. There are lots of good techniques shown. Because of this it will be a very long post, but bear with me.
 
In the end after writing this section, it has to be posted in 5 parts, A through E
 
Now, last time I told you that I was throwing away all the work I did on the welded nose of the frame, and starting over. When I drew the frames, I started with the main body flat, and angled up the nose. I tried to make the tip curve in one direction, while remaining straight in the other. Well, my geometry calculations were off. When I went to paste the two sides, together, the tips curved away from each other, rather than running alongside. In order to get them to form a mass, they overlapped so much, the nose became only a single frame thickness wide, rather than two.
 

 
Then it hit me, angle the frames and draw the curve on the flat horizontal surface! So that is what I did.
 
This time instead of two cylinders I made the extrusion one solid piece.
 
To do this I went back to the flat frames I’d started with, before angling the tips, rotated them and combined them, into the proper configuration. I used the straight frame sides, so that I could get the proper flat curve, for the nose. You will see what I mean later.
 

 

 
Then I drew in a rectangle where the upper frame leg cylinders just met, to use as the line to cut the tips from the frame.
 

 

 
Notice, above, that the larger diameter lower frame leg cylinders connect before the joint on the smaller upper ones. This will come into play later in this process.
 

 
The upper and lower rods are a single cylinder were the joint will be. I cannot erase the left side on the tip end, without erasing the portion on the right. To solve this I needed to cut the frame cylinders where they meet the rectangle surface.
 
This is what happens if I do not cut the surfaces that cross the rectangle’s surface.
 

 

 
There is a function  Edit – Intersect Faces. That can be used to do this. When you intersect the faces, all the flat surfaces that cross the rectangle, or any other type of surface you choose, are cut in two, forming two new surfaces. This acts like a saw, cutting through the part.
 
First I selected the area I wanted to work on (including the rectangle). Then I choose the command.
 

 

 
Now when I select a surface on the left hand side, it is unique, not part of a surface that spans the “cut”.
 

 

Check out a model train store. The brand you are looking for is Detail Associates. They make strip (.015x.018 thru .015x.060, 5 sizes) and round stock (.006 > 1/16, 13 diameters).

you could try looking for machinist/mechanics brass shim stock also, goes down to a couple thousands in thickness. I bought a jewelers roll press years ago which has been handy for reducing stock thickness although you have to do a lot of annealing between passes with brass and copper.

Hi, Mike........
 
Try Ace Hardware. Our local Ace has quite a variety. If they don't carry what you are looking for, maybe they can order it.
 
Jim

Most times it's not that bad. I had to create some graphics for the posts, and in this case, just deleted a section, to use as an example. If it had not been as fiddley as it turned out to be, you would have gotten as intense an example.
 
It just happened to come out like that, so I went with it. It turned out to have quite a lot of good operations to be done.

Part 08B
 
You also have to check for missing surfaces, at junctions of shapes. The pictures below, are the interior of one of the cylinders. I zoomed through the end wall and scrolled along its length, checking for problems.
 

 
And found some.
 

 

 
I managed to fix most of them, until I got to the bottom of the large lower triangular area.
 

 
When I was filling this area, from the angle I was looking at (a view I could not get back after finding the problem), it looked like the area was closed properly. When I panned away, however, I saw that I had messed up. Instead of a flat surface, I had created a pocket by connecting to a lower surface, that looked like it was flush, at that viewing angle.
 

 
I deleted this and by changing the view, I was able to connect to the right lines.
 
Sometimes the endpoints are not terribly visible. In the picture below, that endpoint at the base of the triangle, was only shown when I ran the cursor along the bottom line.
 

 
In the next part, I’ll explain why I threw all this careful work away, and used a different method to simulate the welded front of the dredge. This is why I save to new file name versions frequently (Dredge Frame _45, Dredge Frame_46, etc.), as I talked about in a previous part.