Designing a longboard, need help

[kwikscopeguy]

So a longboard is pretty much just a skate board, and I was wondering how to get the nose and the tail to angle up

[blair]

I would treat the board as a sheet-metal item and then just bend up the nose and tail.

[JDMather]

If you want a compound curve then I would do Loft surface, Trim surface, Thicken and Fillet.

Attach your attempt here.

[kwikscopeguy]

Alright I converted it to sheet metal and bent the edges up, but now how do I do a contour for the main face? I am looking to do the radial concave in the attached photo

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi kwikscopeguy,

Attached is an example file that uses a concave side view profile sketch and the Extrude tool to create a surface (rather than a solid). Then a top view profile is used to Split that surface. The the extra surface is then discarded using the Delete Face tool, and then the remaining surface is Thickened and made a solid.

You can examine the attached example to see how each step is done.

This is very similar to the workflow JDMather described. The sheet metal approach would work as well, but I think using sufaces in this isntance might be a bit more straight forward.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[kwikscopeguy]

Sorry, I should have specified that I meant the concave for the width of the board, not the length.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi kwikscopeguy,

Yep, it just occurred to me why JDMather was suggesting a loft. Attached is an example that uses the Loft tool to create a surface that bends along the width and curves along the length The rest of the workflow is the same.

If you need the curve in only the width, then you'd use the Extrude approach, but just rotate the profile 90 degrees.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[kwikscopeguy]

How would I loft it from the center line of the board to curve the edges upward instead of the tail and the nose?

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi kwikscopeguy,

 I might not be understanding still, but here is another example, using the Sweep tool, that I think is what you're after. This sweeps the length center line along the Width center line. I'm using simple arcs, be keep in mind that your profie and path sketches can be more complex (a line with tangent arcs on the end for instance).

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[kwikscopeguy]

Ok, I have attached one of my sketches, and what i want to do is to make an arc type curve perpendicular to the center line that I have marked. Not a fold, but a sort of three point arc along the yz plane that defines the board.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi kwikscopeguy,

See attached, is this what you're after?

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[kwikscopeguy]

Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to achieve. So what did you do?

[Curtis_Waguespack · Accepted solution]

Hi kwikscopeguy,

You can generally use the feature tree in an Inventor part to step through each feature and see how a model was created. This might help you in the future, or with the attached variation of your board for instance.

For now though, here is a quick video showing the previous example:

http://www.screencast.com/t/QkSvTazvnu

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[kwikscopeguy]

Yeah, I tried going through the project browser to see what you had done, but I couldn't get past that first curved sketch. Sorry, I'm only in high school, and we just got a rudimentary lesson on this program. But anyway, thanks so much, I don't know what I would do without the gurus on this forum.

[jryan]

I too am trying to design a longboard but to run on a CNC machine.  I like what you did with the example above, but how do you then curve the Nose and Tail of the board in a direction 90 degrees to what you did? (the Nose and Tail are flat with a slight bend towards the ground)

I am going to try a series of lofts of the cross sections, but it is going to take me forever as i am anticipating maybe 20 sketches for just the first half of the board (going to try to mirror after that).

[Curtis_Waguespack · Accepted solution]

Hi jryan,

Attached are some example files.

For your design I think you can create a sweep to get what you're after. First create one sketch to define the longitudinal profile (Sketch1 in the example) so that it includes the turned up/down nose and tail, a second sketch to define the lateral profile curve (Sketch2), and another to define the top view pofile (Sketch3).

Then sweep Sketch2 along Sketch1. Then use Sketch 3 to Split the surface.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[jryan]

That method was a lot easier than the lofts I would have had to do. I was able to make the part, but there are still some issues that I just can't trouble shoot. I cannot thicken the part to .5in, I tried to extrude a cut for the trucks, and I am not sure how solid the part is. I saved it as a .DWG and tried to import it into Parts Works, the program for the CNC, and the error "No data was obtainable" popped up.

I know you are probably not familiar with the CNC program but if you could look at what I did and give me some pointers on what I did wrong I would appreciate it. I am attaching the final draft file.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi jryan,

I had a quick look and noticed the same issue trying to create a thicken feature. I have meetings to attend this morning, but will try to have a look at this later if no one else comes up with a solution.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com