Cabriole Leg

mike d

is this what you wanted don to the front part of the leg
if so i can do a tutorial for you on this

Sawduster

Thanks for the greeting, Eric. I'm around Austin. I say that as I work in Austin but live northwest of the city in a place called Cedar Park.

I've tried pushing that curve through, but due to the non-planar surface opposite, it wants to stick as soon as any part of the section runs out of material, for want of a better word. Guess I'll try to push it through so it comes out the other side and see what happens.

I'm wanting to round off that entire vertical edge from the knee at the top all of the way down to the foot. In wood, I would simply grind/sand/cut away that corner all of the way down so it was rounded over.

Mike,
That is it. A tutorial would be grand. Thanks.

boofredlay

@sawduster said:

I've tried pushing that curve through, but due to the non-planar surface opposite, it wants to stick as soon as any part of the section runs out of material, for want of a better word. Guess I'll try to push it through so it comes out the other side and see what happens.

Make sure you hold down ctl prior to pushing the surface. This will create a copy surface and will push all the way through no problem. Then you can just intersect and delete unwanted.

@sawduster said:

]I'm wanting to round off that entire vertical edge from the knee at the top all of the way down to the foot. In wood, I would simply grind/sand/cut away that corner all of the way down so it was rounded over.

Got it, sorry I did not understand.

mike d

sawduster
try this i hope this makes sense

mike d

CabrioleLeg[2].skp

Krisidious

pictures people... I need pictures I don't read soooooooo well

Sawduster

Kristoff,
Sorry 'bout that. I'm a member of a half dozen different forums and every one of them works differently. Still getting used to this one. Here's a couple jpgs of what I was starting with and what I wanted to get to.

Thanks all, some good stuff to try. Funny how I get thinking in 3d, and the 2d thing just slips right on by.

Krisidious

np... thanks for adding those... there are other forums out there? wow I never knew... I guess I'm too happy here...

not registered yet

I have subscribed to the "extended" services on the Fine Woodworking Mag site.( http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking ) They have a number of videos available on various topics and have started a section on using Sketchup in woodworking. Recently they posed a video on doing Cabriole legs in SU. This is a link directly to the authors site, so I don't think you have to be a FWW mag subscriber to access it, but I'm not sure. If it doesn't work -- I'm sorry!

(www.brightcove.com)

P: chemtech

boofredlay

Great link and great site chemtech. Thanks for posting and welcome.

Bernard Hagan

Sawduster

It would be helpful if you could post an image of the leg so we can see how precise these curves need to be.

In doing what Eric suggests at the rear of the leg you will create two curved planes that join [intersect] on a line which can be smoothed using the eraser tool [while holding down the Ctrl key].

This can also be used on the front edge to smooth away the sharpness - but in both cases the resulting curves may not be what you are looking for since they look rather vague and unconvincing - unlike Mike's second solution which seems much more concrete.

I am still trying to figure out another solution for the rear of the leg - another version of Mike's solution might work using a circular path and the long elongated shape at the rear with the Follow-Me tool.

Sawduster

Bernard,
Since I'm designing and not replicating, there is no image of an actual leg to provide. The curves do not need to be super accurate. The execution of the real thing is done by applying a pair of mirrored patterns to two adjacent faces of a board carefully matching their orientation to each other. The pattern on one face is then cut out using a band saw (or other saw capable of making curved cuts), and then the waste from the cut is taped back in place, and the adjacent pattern is cut out. This leaves a squared off version of the leg which is then rounded appropriately using rasps or other freehand tools. While pairs or sets of the legs need to be very similar to each other, this is not (in my case at least) a machining process which requires super accuracy.

Thanks for the CTRL-Erase tool trick.