AutoCAD to Fusion 360-Electric Guitar

[angusstevenson123]

Hi,

The project I am doing is drawing an electric guitar.

The guitar is an unusual shaped guitar. I drew the main body of the guitar in 3D using AutoCAD and the sides/ curved parts of the guitar in Fusion 360 (sculpt environment).

I opened up the AutoCAD drawing in Fusion 360 (from the data panel) - then drew some sculpted parts - and then tried to combine the two parts.

The problem is I could not get the parts to combine to make one solid guitar body.

The reason I drew the central part of the guitar is I find AutoCAD easier to draw accurate things like pickup pockets and neck recesses - and then I find Fusion 360 easier to make the nice 3D curves for the sides of the guitar.

Is there a better way to do this? Should I stick with Fusion 360 for the whole guitar? Any tutorials to help with this type of project?

Any help/ suggestions are much appreciated - thankyou.

Angus

[jeff_strater]

well, I am admittedly biased (being one of the Fusion developers), but I think that you should stick to Fusion 360 for the whole design.  If you can draw well in AutoCAD, you should be able to master Fusion sketching easily.  It's not exactly the same click-for-click, but the you are working with the same entites (lines, arcs, splines, etc).  Fusion is a constraint-based sketcher, whcih means that the sketch should be easier to control.  The main advantage, though, will be having everything in one system, and being able to edit in one design application.

Regarding your question about combining sculpted parts:  You can combine the parts, but it depends a little on what you did.  Sharing the model here or at least screen shots can help.  You can combine sculpted bodies, as long as they are in the same Form feature.  But, the workflow is a little complex in Sculpt - it involves welding vertices together, and can be a pain to get right.  I wouldn't recommend it.  If you put each in a different Form feature, then, you can combine them, but as solid bodies, after you get out of Scuplt mode, using the Combine tool.  Again, it's a little hard to recommend a solution flying blind - so, show us what you are trying to do.

Fusion has quite a little collection of people doing guitar modeling.  Some for just modeling fun, some for the goal of manufacturing an instrument using CNC machines (including me).

Check out @donsmac's strat model on the Fusion Gallery:  fender-strat.  One of the earliest jaw-dropping models I'd seen created with Fusion.

This thread:  beginner-question-arch-top-guitar-model has a lot of the guitar crowd participating.  There are other threads, if you search the forum.

Jeff Strater (Fusion development)

[angusstevenson123]

Thanks Jeff for your detailed reply.

After checking out the guitar forums - and the awesome models - I will
stick with Fusion for the whole model. I might put up some screen snaps of
what I was trying to do - but I am convinced to stick with Fusion.

Thanks again,

Angus