Lift off

Malgass

Hi
Yesterday the launch sequence started.
just knocking around I managed to get results from my attempts.
I work with mainly sheet materials, steel, aluminium, wood and plastics of various thicknesses.
I am trying to get new parts drawn out of steel. stumped on how to bend the material in my drawings to a specific "bend line".
Is there anyone who can please point me in the right direction.

Gaieus

One obvious solution would be an excellent plugin:
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44501

Another way is a bit more convoluted but works pretty well:
http://sketchucation.com/resources/tutorials/36-intermediate/26-texturing-an-arch-2

mitcorb

At first, I thought this was about emulating the results of folding as in a bending brake--or whatever it is called elsewhere.
What did I miss?

Jean Lemire

Hi Malgass, hi folks.

See these web pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_(metalworking

http://www.sheetmetalguy.com/bend-calculator.htm

Of course, therer are much more if you search the web with bend allowanceor bending allowance, for example.

Just ideas.

Jean

Malgass

Hi
Thanks for the posts.
Yes I am trying to draw parts as if they were bent in a press brake.
The wiki link does not really help as its a wiki.
The sheet metal guy page is great unfortunately for me it is in imperial.
I will look at the page again in more depth

mitcorb

Hi, Gary:
Based on your reply, there are two ways to go:

draw the profile of the stock as it will be after bending, then push-pull it along the bend line axis. This will produce very accurate results, which I suspect you would prefer. One problem that may occur is that if the material is too thin you may encounter incomplete surfaces.
there are plugins that will perform bending on "solid" geometry, even sheet goods.

Maybe you have some images you could upload to describe what you want to do specifically.
Down at the bottom of the reply page, click the Upload attachment tab, navigate to your image file make a comment if desired and click Add the file. jpg png are preferred, I think. and then Submit your reply.

Malgass

Hi Mitcorb
I have done what you suggested prior to reading your reply. I found that the highlighted surfaces are the only ones that are able to be extruded (push/pulled). Maybe I need to draw them as separate entities and see if I can join the 2 pieces together.
I found some fantastic plug-ins created by Fredo, which I hopefully will be able to incorporate on future drawings.

example 1.skp

mitcorb

You are working in Default Engineering Style according to your settings.
Your model is at an extremely small scale. One edge measures .040mm
It seems you have managed to navigate in such a way that on opening your file, it appears that you were working upside down. Typically, the blue z axis points "upward" in the model space, the red axis would point in the positive x direction of the cartesian plane or ground plane, and the green axis would be in the positive y direction of that plane.

You have modeled only faces with no thickness in this example. I was thinking that you might provide some real world images or sketches of what you are trying to accomplish.
What I see here resembles an articulating joint for shafts.
See my attachment, which is a modified copy of your example.
I added thickness with pushpull, but had to use Ctrl+pushpull to get some thickness on the plane common to both pairs of tabs. Then repeated push pull without the control button to get an identical thickness. I did not change the scale, or size of the object, but you should consider this.

I thought you were in the business of forming large sheets of metal with bend details. In this scenario, you would concentrate on the bent profiles, then add the rest of the sheet in the model as needed.

If you are really new to this program, take some time to become familiar with the program basic tools before stepping off into plugins, unless you really like the challenge. It is general "policy" to suggest this in this Forum.

Maybe this reply helps?

simply added thickness by push pull

mitcorb

Hi, Gary:
Rereading your reply, I think maybe the joining of two pieces can work. Did you have trouble with forming faces on the portion with edges only? Because, all you have to do is trace over one of the straight segments and the face will form. Then right click on the circle face and delete. Or select the circle face and delete. If it doesn't delete then the circle is not coplanar.
Again, working at such small dimensions could cause problems.

Are you familiar with Groups and Components?