canopies are always fun... how would you do a 3 bounday surface in SW?

Originally Posted by Mithrandir

canopies are always fun... how would you do a 3 bounday surface in SW?

For the canopy, I usually make a solid body close to the shape I want, then trim/fillet the shape to my liking and shell it out to whatever thickness.
As far as a 3 boundary surface, you can extrude it, or use separate sketch's and loft it, then use the thicken feature to get your desired thickness .

Yeah, I haven't made the canopy on the above model yet, it still needs finishing, but that one is pretty easy to make, unlike a Bearcat canopy with that funky bubble shape... that one needed a little more thought.

Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by Spooky

For the canopy, I usually make a solid body close to the shape I want, then trim/fillet the shape to my liking and shell it out to whatever thickness.
As far as a 3 boundary surface, you can extrude it, or use separate sketch's and loft it, then use the thicken feature to get your desired thickness .

Yeah, I haven't made the canopy on the above model yet, it still needs finishing, but that one is pretty easy to make, unlike a Bearcat canopy with that funky bubble shape... that one needed a little more thought.

Hope that helps.

I have done it several times in Pro/E... I was just curious what capabilitie SW had???
There is a trick in Pro/E to do it.... basically two nested 4 boundary surfaces with tangency.

Never used Pro-E myself, but I learned CAD with Unigraphics, then went on to SolidWorks... There's probably a lot of similar features between the two, just named, or used a little differently. That's the way it was between UG and SolidWorks, although UG has more options on the way things were done, especially in SolidWorks early days.

Here's a pic of my Bearcat made in SolidWorks... Still more detailing to do on it.... I tend to have more than one project going on at a time .

I've gotten the wing lofted, and a couple of spars in place. I have reference planes at the places where I'd like to have ribs. How do I create a sketch of the rib on a sketch plane using the existing surfaces ? If I view a cross section at the ref. plane, I can not convert entities. I could do a cut-extrude thru at each rib station, to create the needed edges, but that seem like a lot of added effort. Suggestions please

Hey zx32tt,
Looks good... make a sketch on each Rib plane you have and try using an Intersect curve on the sketch for each section, where the sketch plane and wing surface meet.

Let me know how it works out.

It worked! But, I still need to get better at this. I would like to create the sketch on the new ref plane for each new rib. Can I just click on the ref plane and insert new part, the create the sketch using intersect curve?

Yes, you can.... and that way each rib is it's own Part file and keeps relations to the wing too, and if you change the wing later on, the ribs will change with it.

Good luck and keep me posted.

the way I'm having to do it is create a sketch on the ref. plane, by using the intersect curve, clean it up, and do a copy-paste into the new part. I haven't been able to create a new part sketch without going thru all these steps

Sounds like your making new parts from the Part file (wing) and not in an assembly... If the wing is a component of an assembly, you insert a new part into that assembly, make your sketch plane in the new part of the assembly and do the intersect curve sketch with that.

I hope that makes sense.

Use "Top Down" design methodology. Make an assembly and a skelaton. The skelaton consists of the OML or primary lofted surfaces and could include a datum plane at each rib station... the Skel can also include the Curve which results from the intersection of the wing skin IML.. (Inner mold Line).. or the underside of the sheeting... and each plane....
In Pro/E, you make the wing surface, make the plane, make the intersection and then "Pattern" the planes for each rib... then you can easily Pattern the intersection curves... maybe different phraseology in SW... but prolly the same process...

Well, the more I jack around with this, the more coninced I am the compufoil, or Profili2 will do the job in 1/10 the time and effort. If I can get my friend "Shreaderman" to do a test, I'll know for sure.

Hey zx32tt, don't give up, it just takes time to get used to it... If you want, send me a copy of your wing and I'll make a couple ribs for you so you can have an example to go by... shoot me a PM if your interested and we can line it up.

Here's a couple pic's on the progress of one of my current projects a XP-40.

Originally Posted by zx32tt

Well, the more I jack around with this, the more coninced I am the compufoil, or Profili2 will do the job in 1/10 the time and effort. If I can get my friend "Shreaderman" to do a test, I'll know for sure.

If I had your root section and your tip section... sheeting thickness and number of ribs... 20 minutes tops! Well.. a little longer if you wanted each rib as a part rather then just datum curves for each rib for the drawing...