how to fit joints

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I was drawing this bollard and I faced a problem while finishing the corners in the base. I tried to make this red welding joint between the blue cylinder and the green base. However, as you can see, the base is slightly inclined, and I could not fit the red joint properly. It is a little bit opened in the top due the inclination of the base (Black circles). To do this red joint I made a copy of the objects and exploded them and I got the base of the joint profile. After that I just used the sweep tool in the path obtained. I do not know how to make it fit in the blue cylinder and in the green base. Does anyone have any idea? 

 

[john.vellek]

HI @Anonymous,

It is sort of difficult to see what is going on without the actual drawing. I am thinking though that you could use a loft to connect the pieces instead of a sweep. This would let you totally close the connection.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[beyoungjr]

Hi,

It appears that you are working with surfaces.  I think the Fillet command will perform as well on surfaces as on solid models but it would depend on the intersection of the surfaces being true.

I personally prefer 3D solids as I can always change the solid out to a surface model after getting everything as needed.  Solids won't prevent a designer from bad geometry but they always provide thorough intersections.

Like @john.vellek said... we can help more if we can have a look at your dwg.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm not working with surfaces, I'm using solids. I attached my .dwg file, and you can see that there is this gap between the blue cylinder and the red joint. I will try to use the loft command to draw this solid.

[beyoungjr · Accepted solution]

Good to know you're using solids but the fillet won't work unless these are Union-ed.

The profile you are trying to generate a solid from is absolutely do-able but I kinda abandoned some of those techniques a long time ago in favor of generating fully union-ed solid models instead of solid making up models.

It appeared you were using fillet radius of 6 so I used that value.

First I union-ed the center cylinder to the bottom plate.

Then used Fillet to select the edge created by the union.

It appears that you might prefer working with individual solids so that you can represent them by different colors or materials but I have a suggestion for that as well...  Hold the CTRL key while selecting the solid face of whatever you wish to color or apply material to.  In the Properties panel you can set material or color for the selected faces.

Have a look at Layout1 tab to see the difference with a Base view.  You can slap a dim on it and check sizes.

Is this helpful?

[beyoungjr]

Oops forgot to attach dwg...

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

I used loft and got this...

Let me play with this a bit more (still using loft) to change the profile of the weld.

[EDIT] I did use loft again and put in some intermediate paths to get the proper radius on the loft - just before my computer shut off!

I like @beyoungjr's approach as it is quick and easy but I didn't like the top edge of the weld which is why I was pursuing Lofts

[beyoungjr]

Easy does it @john.vellek...

You are sending 2018 files and some of have suites that are not qualified for the update yet.  Can't open your version of the file.

[john.vellek]

Hi @beyoungjr,

I apologize! It was an oversight on my part. Here is one in 2013 format.

[john.vellek]

Hi @beyoungjr,

I apologize! It was an oversight on my part. Here is one in 2013 format.

[Anonymous]

Hi blyoung,

I used the loft tool to do it and I got this:

However I think I spent too much time using the loft tool. I also tried your way, using the fillet command and it worked like a charm and it was easier to use. I also used all tips you gave me and I thank you very much for everything.

[beyoungjr]

Glad you arrived at a good end.

The loft tool is great but is a strong hold-out from surface modeling techniques that surely solves complex issues when necessary.  The solid union techniques will yield a better model for generating 2D sheets with the Viewbase commands.  If you have not played with Viewbase you might give it a try.  If it becomes necessary to hold onto the components making up the solid model then you could store them on a frozen layer in the drawing and union a copied assembly.

The file I uploaded before will illustrate the difference between a non-union-ed solid and the union-ed one.  You can control visibility of the tangential intersection by selecting the view and editing the settings via the ribbon.  The major change you will notice is the omission of hidden lines due to the cylinder and flange being married together.

Have fun and thanks for the solution credit!

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

I agree the LOFT is much more work. I did have another way that might work well for you. I extracted the edge of where the cylinder meets the base. Then I swept it with a circle so now it looks more like a weld. This was a quick and easy process too.