Cannot create sketch on mesh face

[jasontaylor190]

I have a pair of tongs that I have downloaded from thingiverse (free downloadable) and I want to attach an SVG that I created to the face of it and extrude off the outside flat faces of the tongs. The problem is I can never get Fusion 360 to select the flat facets of the mesh to allow me to apply the sketch and extrude. It seems to only allow me to insert the SVG image directly onto X, Y, or Z plane. I've tried just with a basic sketch image as well (to avoid the SVG variable) but still cannot even put a simple circle on the flat edge of the tongs.. Can you help tell me what I'm doing wrong. Face groups on the mesh doesn't help. Not does trying to convert the mesh into an object... which I don't need to do anyway. Thanks and apologies in advance if this a newbie question.

[ben.lorimore]

Hi @jasontaylor190,

Thanks for posting on the Fusion 360 forums!

While you cannot sketch directly on a mesh or make an offset plane from one of the triangles, what you can do is create a 3 point plane from a mesh face, then you can sketch from that plane.

The steps are as follows: open mesh workspace > 3 point plane from desired mesh face> sketch on that plane.

See attached screencast below:

Let me know if this helps!

Best,

Ben

[laughingcreek]

Here are my thoughts-

1-Fusion is not particularly good at handling mesh files.  If you plan on doing a lot of this type of thing, then learning how to use a program that is good at editing mesh files would be a good idea.

2-however, that is a pretty simple file, so it would probably convert to a brep body.  Then you could use regular solid modeling tools to do what you want.

3-did I mention that the model is fairly simple?  You could probably use the stl file as a guide and rebuild from scratch in a few minutes, which would be even better.