How'd I do it? (SU)

[Dave Richards]

See below.

[Greg Hairston]

Do what???

[Dave Richards]

Greg, it was no big deal. I thought I'd try just posting some simple SU drawings and let others try to duplicate or at least figure out how to duplicate then. Lots of views but evidently no one interested in giving it a try.

[Jamie Buxton]

Dave --
Geez, you have a quick trigger. I never even got to look at your drawings.
Beyond those of us who didn't see the drawings, others might have needed some time to think of a solution to your puzzles. As I've observed before, not all of us have your black belt in this program.

Jamie

[Jim Benante]

I planned to try it out, but haven't the time yet. I played around a little and figure I need a a few longer stretches to get going. I would ask questions, but I am still so confused I can't even put any together yet.

I appreciate you offering your help and I'll be sure to look you up when I have time to give SU a an honest effort.

[Dave Richards]

Sorry, sorry. I just figured with so many views and no responses, I'd made a mistake by making the post.

Here are the drawings again. No special tools used. The methods are basic SU stuff.

[Art Mulder]

Dave, I've been using SU for exactly 2 days, since I downloaded the mac version on Wednesday. the one on the right, I thought I could do... but I'm not sure how you got the curved profile on the triangular bit. The rest is pretty straightforward.

The one on the left... Well, it would be laborious, but with the pencil and the push tool I could make that profile with all the bits pushed in. But somehow I figure you had a quicker or more regulated method.

Please, teach me Obi-Wan.

[Jamie Buxton]

Okay, I'll take some guesses.

On the first one, most of the profile was done with Follow Me. The dentil molding on the straight stretches was done with the Move/Copy tool, using the Repeat feature. On the semicircular section, the dentil molding would have been done with the Rotate tool, again using Copy, and Repeat.

To make the lamb's tongue, I would draw the profile on a plane which is at 45 degrees to the sides of the leg, extrude it through the leg, and use Intersect with Model to connect the extrusion with the leg. Then I'd erase all the extraneous bits.

[Jim Becker]

I agree with Jamie on the lamb's tongue detail...and I just saw this thread this morning.

[Dave Richards]

Jamie and Jim are correct on both counts.

On the dentil molding I drew the first block centered at the joint between straight side and arc. Then I rotated a copy of the block through 180° and typed /24 to get 24 copies of the original evenly spaced between the ends. I did a similar thing with the blocks along the side but used the Move tool instaed of the Rotate tool.

Thanks for playing along.

[Michael Adelong]

OK... I finally had time to mess with this and I'm a bit lost on the moulding in general. I have the top drawn fine.

How many steps are there, and in what order, to create that moulding?

(Just for the record, I couldn't do it in wood either.)

Thanks,
Michael

[Dave Richards]

Michael, I have a tutorial made up at work for that. I'll post it tomorrow.

Dave

[Michael Adelong]

Thanks Dave!

[Dave Richards]

Sorry, I didn't get this posted when I said I would. Busy in surgery yesterday.

Here we go.

Step 1. I start with the shape of the "cabinet". We don't need the thickness to create the molding. I just use it to simulate the top part of the structure on which the molding would be placed. I drew in a molding profile leaving a flat surface for the blocks of the dentil molding. I suppose they are called teeth? I'm making this molding up out of my head.


Step 2. I use Follow Me to run the profile around the form. I double click on the top surface to selectit and all the bounding edges. Then while holding the Shift key, I deselect the back edge and the face. Finally, I select the Follow Me tool (I have a hot key for that) and click on the profile. I make this entire bit of geometry a group.


Step 3. I draw a block (tooth?) centered on the join between straight side and the arc. It is pushed into the surface a little. Then I make the block a component. Since there will be multiple copies of this block, making it a component does two things. First it prevents file bloat and second, if there is a need to edit the block later, all the copies will be edited at the same time saving tones of work. I turned on Hidden Geometry so you can see the location of the block relative to the end of the arc.


Step 4. Using construction geometry, I locate the center of the arc. Using the Rotate tool with the Ctrl key (Option key on a Mac) I copied the block moving the copy 180° around the molding. I set the rotate tool on the intersection of the construction lines for this. After starting the rotation, I let go of the mouse and type 180 Enter then I type /24 Enter to create 24 copies of the original equally spaced between the ends. Remember, when doing this, the number you enter is one less than the total number of instances of the geometry you are copying. If you don't like the spacing you can type new values and try them until you get spacing you do like. you can keep doing this until you select a different tool.


Step 5. I selected the original block again and using the Move tool with the Ctrl key, I copied the block to the back end of the molding. I hit Enter to set the distance and then typed /14 Enter to make evenly spaced copies. Again, you can play with the number of copies until you get a spacing you like.


Step 6. I repeated the process in Step 5 on the other side. then I selected one of the block components to edit it and flattened it to make a little more pleasing thickness. since the blocks are all component instances of the original, editing any one of them will edit them all.


This is only an example of how to make an array. The technique is also useful for drawing things such as slatted head boards for beds, deck boards or a picket fence. If you know the end limits of the slats, you can let SU figure out the spacing for you automatically. If you know the desired spacing and the number of items but don't know how far they'll stretch, Move the first copy the desired distance and type either *N or xN where N is the number of copies of the original. As above, you can try different values for N until you get what you want.

Hope all that makes sense.

The Lambs Tongue will be next.

[Dave Richards]

Now the Lambs Tongue. The drawing should explain it all. The Intersect with model function is found in the Context (right click) menu. You should get very familiar with it as it is incredibly useful. You can think of it as a cutting tool.