rshousha

I wonder if I am missing something here. What's wrong with using a tiny travel iron? It steams on demand and is very, very hot. I've been using this for years and it seems to work very well. What would be the advantage of using this little bender?

Hello Andre, Sadly, you are right. Over the years, I tried many of the less expensive software packages and always seemed to have the same experience as you. Eventually, I decided to spend the money, go back to school (900 hour course) and then spend the money on a real computer and a full Solidworks license. I justified the cost because the whole thing is about the same cost as a typical hobby. The only thing is you have to consider the CAD itself as the hobby, and not just a tool that you use once in a while. Once you've done that, the whole education thing changes completely. Once you are paying into the game, you have instant, or nearly instant, access to really excellent technicians and you also have access to parts of forums that are only accessible to people who pay. It's a bit of a stretch to make the decision to pay into one of these fancy-pants products but the difference, if you use it to do some interesting work, is well worth the cost to play. p.s. I'm a big fan of Autocad but I am mostly doing design for manufacturing and the 3D packages are better for that. One of these days, I want to get back to Autocad to make some really nice drawings of stuff. Regards, Rick

Actually, you can setup a good laptop for doing CAD but it costs a little more than usual. As a professional Solidworks and Solid Edge user, I use a very fine website that HP has for business machines. You can load up your laptop to handle pretty well any software you can think of. My old HP used to heat my office and needed a large fan underneath as well as a house fan blowing across my desk constantly, in order to ward off the BSOD. My new machine will handle over 300 parts before the internal fan turns on. I never have to wait for a feature to process, either. I don't remember how many I7 cores it has, or what graphics card I put in there but I do know it has 2 TB of SSD and that, also, makes a huge difference in speed. (I have no shares in HP, either). All this 3D CAD stuff has become a big part of my hobby, too. The good computer really helps!

What an amazing project! I wonder how many people can reach back into their youth like that. I have an old Raleigh racing bicycle with which I had a head-on collision with a car in 1979. I never got back on the bicycle and I still have it, rusty but usable. Restoring it would make a cool project.

Very nice effort. Looking forward to seeing the finished piece. There is a LOT of demand out there for printed parts.

Hello Gunther, Do you still have the instructions for this canoe? I built one a couple of years ago and would like to build another but I think I put the plans in the recycling at some point.

Very, very, nice work!

Hi Gaetan, I use Solidworks professionally and enjoy building models in 3D as a hobby. I find it most interesting to see how the parts fit, I don't need glue or paint, and I can zoom in to areas as much as I like. I can also build models wherever I am, from my office in Montreal, to the resort in St-Lucia. I've attached a picture of my latest project, a 1:6 scale version of a western stagecoach. Of course, I have done many ships but you seemed to be interested in the textures and colors that you can get. In this model, you can turn the wheels, apply the brakes, change direction, and even see the functioning of the support mechanism for the passenger compartment, which is still "under construction". Of course, there is a drawing made for each part, if someone ever wanted to make this in the future. Even the spokes are all separate pieces. Best Regards, Rick

Here's another point I just remembered as I'm working on my latest model. When you extrude your bulkheads you need to anticipate the faring process. In other words, the frames towards the bow will be sanded down in one direction while the frames towards the stern will be sanded down in the opposite direction. There are only a few frames in the middle which will be sanded down evenly. So, in order for the lines to remain true, you need to extrude the forward frames towards the bow and the rear frames towards the stern. Then, you simply fare in the direction of the planking but just up to the edge of the bulkhead. If you just leave that outer edge (the stern edge of the frames in the bow section and the forward edges of the frames in the rear section) you will be right at the lines you traced. If you extrude all the frames mid-plane, then your boat will be too small in the bow and the stern (unless, of course, you leave gaps and only fare half the bulkhead). OK, now who actually was able to follow that? Cheers, Rick

Greetings, With any good 2D or 3D software there are offset features to move a line one way or another. So, with a couple of clicks you can move the spline the exact thickness of your planking. Generally, I decide how many layers of planking will be used and I estimate 30% of each layer will be sanded off when faring a model. This gives me my offset dimension. Actually, very few of the models I make are for museums. Most are for racing sailboats and the dimensions need to be quite accurate to conform with class rules. Generally, also, the lines for these models are quite spartan and one has to be creative to get a nice shape. With about 45 years of experience racing sailboats I have a good eye for what will be fast. It's all good fun! Regards, Rick

Hello Moxis, I think there is another way to look at this problem, which expands on the post above, that will be much easier for you and more accurate. From your .pdf scan, you can take PRT SC of the various views you have and simply insert these in your favorite 2D or 3D program. You can then set the dimensions you want for the part and use the spline features to simply trace out the lines. This will give you much better accuracy than any scanning of the lines themselves. You do not count on the dubious algorithms of the scanning programs; you make your own decisions. Also, remember the originals are based on the outside lines of a ship and don't compensate for an offset that you will need since you are making the bulkheads and then planking over those. You really need to plan for that or your end product will be bigger than the scale you are considering. Plus, you will need to design a keel into the structure. The lines you have end in the original keel width. One way or another you need to cut a new keel into the bulkheads while keeping in mind the offset for the planking as well as the thickness of the wood you will use. Having done close to a hundred of these projects, I can tell you it's easier to forget about scanning technology and just go for it on your own. FANCY IMPROVEMENT: If you want to go crazy with these projects, you can start with 3D software and use surfacing techniques to increase the number of bulkheads. You simply make up the few bulkheads that are included in your lines and then simply loft a surface between the bulkheads. From there you can easily cut the surface and create intermediate bulkheads. For the sake of keeping things square, you can create waterline parts that run all the way along your ship, setting absolutely everything square. This helps a lot if you are making a really big model. Have fun! Rick

Ahh, OK, I see. Indeed, there are two versions of the Spline tool in Solidworks (your spelling is excellent, by the way) for 2D drawing, and one of them probably has the algorithm you noted above. However, I would just not worry about that. Since I am an older fellow, I do remember some interesting algorithms from my days in Electrical Engineering in the '80s, when Computer Engineering was the new kid on the block. Yes, I actually do know how Google finds things. I would say forget about all that. Just use whatever feature kind-of works and practice, practice, practice, until you beat it into submission. The power of current computers is so far above anything we actually see that thinking about how it is working will just slow you down. You should look at learning one of the CAD programs more like playing a musical instrument than learning a computer program. As with music, expect it to take 10,000 hours of conscious practice to learn. And I say this as an EE who spent years really tinkering with algorithms and programming. They are quite useless to me now. Now, I need to create content; get that creativity out from where it's been stifled for the last forty years. Regards, Rick

Hi, OK, as a professional user of Solidworks, and a daily user of splines, with all their features, what is a Bezier?