NRG's Capstan Project modeled in Shapr3d for iPad

Justin P. · September 14, 2021

Hi All,

With a return to onsite work slowly approaching full-time, my modeling at home has taken a severe and gut-wrenching slow-down. For context, I commute 2.5 hours each way, 5-days a week. I take a bike, a bus, a boat and a train - so lots of down time just sitting. Ive been looking for ways to scratch that itch and express my interests in ships and ship modeling when I cant be at the bench at home and started messing around more seriously with available "soft-CAD" programs available on things like iPad. Some time ago I discovered Shapr3d and used it to design and build my home workshop and found it incredibly useful and very intuitive to use. This is not a full-featured CAD program, and it is likely that a seasoned CAD user will likely find it limiting. However, if you simply want to tinker casually without being bogged down by 1000 features you'll never use, and are looking for a way to build things when you cant be in your workshop than this is a great option.

When I first picked it up I had ZERO experience and learned the program pretty quickly. The available online tutorials help a great deal.

In the last week, I used the practicum designed by @tlevine available at NRG to build the British capstan project virtually. I did all of this work in 2 hour stints while traveling to and from work, using the pdf of the plans to model each component and then assemble. I still intend to build this project in wood very soon, but for the time being found this little exercise well worth it. In either case, its a great way to prototype ideas and work out designs. I tried to build as close to the specs and steps outlined in the practicum. In a way, I think Im better prepared to have a go at the real thing as now Im intimately aware some of the complicated aspects of the model design.

Modeling the beams and carlings...