Dear Jay,

Yes I know, but I got carried away. I have been using SU for the design concepts (because I find it quicker), and I'm almost ready to switch to Inventor for the rotor's component parts. After designing the machine base and load spreader using SU, I quickly redrew the component parts in Inventor, which then lead to the 2D drawings for manufacture. I must say that my Inventor models, being feature based, are much cleaner using this approach, and I get fewer conflicts when making changes as I know what I want to draw and how to draw it.

Why do I like modelling in SU? Because I can chop and change without worrying about the constraints placed on the features making up the model. Making the lobe/outrigger a component ensures that changing one changes all three, and so not a lot different to SolidWorks or Inventor.

I think it all stems from my background as I learned to draw on a drawing board (pencil and drawing film), and then migrated to AutoCAD 2D. When the department switched to AutoDesk's Inventor (which comes bundled with AutoCAD) I found the transition from 2D to 3D very difficult and so tended to rough out my ideas in AutoCAD before switching to Inventor. Discovering Sketchup and it's very user friendly interface I quickly became hooked on 3D modelling. I just need to hone my Inventor skills now so that I find modelling in that software as intuitive as modelling in SU.

Using Inventor's parametric modelling attributes is obviously the way to go, but unlike your good self, most of what I do is a one off and so the overhead of not using parametric modelling is very small.

The making of the mould was left to the pattern makers at Granitek (http://www.granitek.co.uk/index.htm) as it is a highly specialised process requiring alchemy as well as engineering.

No, I haven't made a pure hole component, but it is an idea I will try out. I have made some thread textures which I find useful for showing what is a clearance hole and what is a tapped hole. The texture only works if the upper and lower circles defining the hole are true circles. If the circles are exploded into segments then it won't work. You can find the textures here

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=11378&hilit=+thread

They could be improved, but I hope you find them useful.

Kind regards,
Bob