Mucking about in Fusion360

[pointfiftytracer]

It's been a fair time since my last post. I've been moved around a bit at work and haven't been able to find the motivation to do my own projects. I did however get a chance to toy around with the Form workspace in F360. Here are the results of that session. the subject is the Buick... no scratch that. It's not a car. Okay take two, lets try this again. The Subject of my folley is the Skylark. I actually know nothing about the Skylark. I was just browsing the RMG collections and liked her lines. 

My goal with choosing the Skylark was to model a vessel the everyone and their cat haven't already done. It is kin the the Swift and Speedy, so I shouldn't have too much trouble sorting out all the details. 

So far I have the outer shell mostly done. the next step will be to add the deck and inner part of the bulwarks. once I have the hull modeled I'm going to slice it up to make laser cuttable bulkheads. Everything (well mostly everything. most the fittings will be either laser cut or 3D printed) from there will be done in the physical.  Hopefully I can get myself back into the ship modeling game. 

 

 

Cheers. Point.

 

[Nirvana]

I am pulling up a chair to follow this F360 creation.

I think we all have different approaches of making our hulls.

You have certainly go the lines right.

[iMustBeCrazy]

I will certainly be following this. My interest is that an Ancestor sailed on the Lapwing on her journey to Australia and Skylark was built to the enlarged lines of the Lapwing.

 

Related vessels:

 

Lapwing (1816)
Kite
Fancy (1817)
Racer
Sprightly

 

Nightingale (1825)
Speedy (1828)
Snipe (1828)

 

Vigilant (1821)
Swift (1821)
Basilisk (1822)
Bramble (1822)
Skylark
Diligence

[pointfiftytracer]

Thanks for the support Nirvana and iMustBeCrazy. Glad to see interest in this project. It helps me to keep up motivation. Something that I've been in short supply of lately. 

 

I did manage to get the deck and bulwarks on after fixing the topology in the bow. 

My next session will probably be working on tweaking things and getting my topology just right. After that it's on to the keel false keel and bulkheads. If I get good enough at using Fusion360s T-spline workspace, I may even try a POF model in the future. 

 

Cheers. Point.

Edited July 25, 2019 by pointfiftytracer
Typo

[Deperdussin1910]

I think I modeled a similar vessel CLIO (1809),

[fnkershner]

As you do this project can you talk it thru a bit. I have a couple catalogs from the Smithsonian. I intend to buy the plans for some interesting ships and scan them into Fusion. And loft them from there. I think my first step will be the Use the CNC to create a Half Hull. But the ultimate goal is to create a full model. Have you used the Slicer add-on for Fusion. And have you tried to output the results to a Laser or CNC?

[pointfiftytracer]

4 hours ago, Deperdussin1910 said:

I think I modeled a similar vessel CLIO (1809),

From the lines, I can see a few differences. The Skylark has a deeper "V shaped" hull whereas the Clio is flatter on the bottom. The rig is certainly similar and both vessels would have a similar profile, viewed from the side.

 

4 hours ago, fnkershner said:

As you do this project can you talk it thru a bit. I have a couple catalogs from the Smithsonian. I intend to buy the plans for some interesting ships and scan them into Fusion. And loft them from there. I think my first step will be the Use the CNC to create a Half Hull. But the ultimate goal is to create a full model. Have you used the Slicer add-on for Fusion. And have you tried to output the results to a Laser or CNC?

I haven't used the slicer add on yet, but I have used fusion for laser cutting. I export the sketch as a DFX file then open that in K40 Whisper. For this model I'm going to have a cut line and another engrave line. This engrave line will show me how far to sand during fairing as well as providing various assembly cues. 

As far as the actual modeling is concerned, I think blender is better suited to this type of modeling, but Fusion is what I already know how to use.

Edited July 25, 2019 by pointfiftytracer

[fnkershner]

I don't know anything about Blender but I really like the lofting function in Fusion. It is very powerful and made just for our purposes. How are you getting the plans loaded into Fusion?

[pointfiftytracer]

1 hour ago, fnkershner said:

I don't know anything about Blender but I really like the lofting function in Fusion. It is very powerful and made just for our purposes. How are you getting the plans loaded into Fusion?

I've actually used lofts in previous attempts at creating a hull. It did work to an extent, but I ran into complications around the bow and stern. Fusion was unable to calculate the lofts in those areas. 

The Form environment is better suited to this type of modeling in my opinion. 

To make the form, I inserted the plans as a canvas and scaled it to the full size of the vessel. Then I created a plane with control points at each bulkhead. The next step was just to move my plans to each bulkhead and pull the plane to match. After that I un-creased the control points and I had the basic shape of the hull.

 

Cheers. Point.

Edited July 25, 2019 by pointfiftytracer

[iMustBeCrazy]

I've played around with some of the RMG drawings, do these help?

 

 

ZAZ6345 Basilisk (1822) enlarged Lapwing j8083ab bw.tif ZAZ6345 Basilisk (1822) enlarged Lapwing j8083a.tif

[pointfiftytracer]

 

21 minutes ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

I've played around with some of the RMG drawings, do these help?

 

 

ZAZ6345 Basilisk (1822) enlarged Lapwing j8083ab bw.tif 351.05 kB · 0 downloads ZAZ6345 Basilisk (1822) enlarged Lapwing j8083a.tif 2 MB · 0 downloads

They are a bit clearer than what I have. Thank you. I wish I would have had these a few days ago. I will certainly hang on to them in case I need them later on in the project.

 

cheers. Point.

[iMustBeCrazy]

24 minutes ago, pointfiftytracer said:

They are a bit clearer than what I have.

I have done or can do similar for any of the other drawings, let me know if you need something and I'll see what I can do.

 

[pointfiftytracer]

59 minutes ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

I have done or can do similar for any of the other drawings, let me know if you need something and I'll see what I can do.

 

I will keep that in mind. Thanks.

[SardonicMeow]

 

On 7/25/2019 at 7:37 AM, fnkershner said:

As you do this project can you talk it thru a bit.

Point, I would also appreciate it if you could show us in more detail how to reached this point.  I'd love to see, in more detail, how you did the work in the Form workspace.

 

On 7/25/2019 at 7:37 AM, fnkershner said:

Have you used the Slicer add-on for Fusion. And have you tried to output the results to a Laser or CNC?

Floyd, have a look at my Sultana build log (which I really do plan to get back to once the summer is over).  I modeled the hull in Fusion 360, took cross-sections, and then laser-cut pieces from those.  (My cross-sections were created using the Intersect operation, not any add-on.  I'll have to see what Slicer can do.)

[fnkershner]

So let me try to describe what I have done. Let me emphasize that I have not completed the process. I am still learning.

 

Step 1. I got the original plans for the America's Cup boat America from the Smithsonian. They consisted of 2 sheets and were already drawn to 1:48 scale.

Step 2. I went to a local blueprint shop and had the plans scanned in to both a PDF & TIFF. I provided them with a thumb drive and they loaded everything there.

Step 3. I uploaded these files to Fusion as a Canvas. 

Step 4. I carefully used the Spline tool to create a sketch of the cross section at the keel.

Step 5. I created an offset plane and projected the Bulkheads on this Plane.

Step 6. I created Off Set planes for each bulkhead and projected the correct Bulkhead onto each.

Step 7. Using the Loft tool I connected each of the bulkheads together to create a solid the shape of 1/2 of the hull.

 

This is as far as I have gone so far. My plan is to mirror the above to get the complete hull. I have also been goofing around with the Slicer tool. It will create for me each of the bulkheads. From my limited experience it looks like it was custom made for a ship modeler. I can specify how many bulkheads I want and it will create them evenly distributed along the length of the model. It will even lay these parts out on a sheet of whatever material I specify. I can then take these plans to either a CNC or Laser and cut them out. I believe that I can get both the bulkhead former and the bulkheads complete with the slots cut into them all from Fusion.

 

I have also been toying with the idea of cutting a half hull using just the Fusion model & a large scale CNC. I have access to a CNC that has a max of 8" in the Z direction. This should work.

 

I will try to post a rendering of the work mentioned above in the next week or so.

 

When I asked above for more details this is kind of what I wanted. I would love to find someone else who is using Fusion to accomplish something similar. It seems to me that Fusion can make it easy to either create a solid hull or the parts for a frame to plank.

[fnkershner]

Peter - I need to apologize. I did not go to your log before I posted the above. You are way ahead of me, and you have done an excellent job. I will finish ready the rest of your log as soon as I can. This is perfect!

[pointfiftytracer]

I haven't disappeared. Just been sidetracked lately and haven't gotten too many opportunities to work on the Skylark.

Here is an update on my meager progress. I have chopped the model up into bulkheads. I may still adjust them a little, but I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. The false keel will definitely need some changes before I'm done.

 

Cheers. Point.

Edited September 27, 2019 by pointfiftytracer

[Nirvana]

Very nice!

One advantage creating a model in Fusion360 is that the base frame (keel and bulkheads) will be straight. Unless you make it like a banana on purpose.

Now add on with some plywood surface and do another rendering (HQ) and we will be blown away. Rendering makes a huge difference and so realistic.

Keep it up!

[pointfiftytracer]

It's been awhile, but I have been working on it here and there. I've gotten most the parts ready (I'll probably change the numbering to 321abc format and use a font that's quicker to engrave) to laser cut.  I wanted to laser the rails too, but I wasn't able to flatten the templait out in Fusions sheet metal environment like I had planned. 

Now that I have all my cut paths, I need to arrange them. Does anyone know of a program or inkscape extension to automatically arrange the parts? 

 

 

Cheers. Point.

[iMustBeCrazy]

Hope you don't mind if I throw a potential spanner in the works. I'm not positive yet but it seems like the transom has those sticky out ear thingys.

 

I think the black lines below are the hull and the green the transom. I won't be sure until I get around to drawing the deck.

 

 

[pointfiftytracer]

I see it now. This would also explain why the last two bulkheads wouldn't loft properly without modifying the drawing. Unfortunately with the way I've made the model, changing the stern now would be a very difficult task. Since I'm not shooting for 100% historical accuracy with this one. I think I'll just leave it the way I have it. I'll definitely take more care if I make a more serious model. This one is just practice, kinda like my first book. Maybe someday I'll finish worldbuilding for the real one and start writing it. Might never happen, but a guy can dream can't he?

 

 

 

Cheers. Point.  

[iMustBeCrazy]

3 hours ago, pointfiftytracer said:

Does anyone know of a program or inkscape extension to automatically arrange the parts? 

 

All I know is it's called 'nesting'.

 

As for the stern, I don't blame you. I'd been looking at these drawings for months and didn't see it, then all of a sudden there it was.

[SardonicMeow]

Point, when I laser cut parts for my Sultana, I didn't account for the kerf of the laser.  As a consequence, there was a slight bit of wobble when I fit the bulkhead pieces into the false keel.  If you plan to laser cut, keep that in mind.  I later determined the kerf of the laser I used was .3 mm, but it may be different for you.

 

For the caprail, if the curve is very slight, you could project the shape of the rail onto a plane and it may be close enough to use.

 

[bricklayer]

Point, I just found a link to a free nesting soft on a german forum for cnc-machining.

https://deepnest.io

Yet I havn`t installed and evaluated it. I read the brief description, only.

I think it`ll do the job.

I don`t know whether parts are rotated during nesting or maintain their original orientation.

Rotating them may not be desirable because it changes the run of wood grain.

 

Michael