Modelling a water jet drive. Joining sculpted form to solid bodies?

[mark]

Hi All,

I'm trying to learn Fusion 360 so I can design a water jet drive for a Kayak. At this point I've no idea if this project will even work, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it 🙂 Right now (after watching a lot of howto videos) I've managed to create a couple of flanges at right angles. One is rectangular, the other circular. I've tried various ways to create the body to bridge them. So far my sculpted form seems the best option.

The problem I have now is how do I join this sculpted form to the flanges? The rectangular flange and the sculpted form aren't lining up exactly... (I've tried a few options but am a bit stumped now).

Screenshot of what I have so far. I've tried adding thickness to this and doing combine but I think the parts are too far apart.

[PhilProcarioJr · Accepted solution]

@mark

You need to use the match tool under the modify menu in the sculpt environment. Go Modify -> Match and set your target edge from your sculpt and your target edge from your solid and click ok. Do this for both ends of your tube and everything will line up.

Results in something like this:

I would also like to take a moment to warn you just in case you don't know. Read up on components and assemblies because right now it looks as though your setting yourself up for a lot of headaches down the road.

[mark]

Thanks, that sounds like what I am after. I'll give it a try.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things at this point 🙂 I haven't gotten as far as components vs assemblies. I'll have a read up.

[PhilProcarioJr]

@mark

If you wanted to achieve this in the patch environment you could cut each end back and do a loft from the ends of the tube to the flanges. Although this method would work just fine I feel it is not the best approach. If you were going to do this you would have been better off just doing a loft between the two flanges with guide rails from the beginning, but ultimately the choice is yours. I should have a video showing the first method here in a few min.

[mark]

That is very cool, thanks!

I did start off with a curve thinking I could loft along that but it wasn't co-operating. More to do with my lack of knowledge than the software I suspect.

So are you saying it is possible to loft with guide rails from one shape to the other? Do I have to create more than one guide rail to make that work (i.e. top and bottom extents)? That definitely sounds like the way to go. I think I'm going to give that a try as well. 

[mark]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So are you saying it is possible to loft with guide rails from one shape to the other? 

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That would be a yes.. It even shows it in the tool popup!

[PhilProcarioJr]

@mark

"So are you saying it is possible to loft with guide rails from one shape to the other? Do I have to create more than one guide rail to make that work (i.e. top and bottom extents)?"

If you are using guide rails (At least in this particular case) I would use at least 2 but more then likely 4. Or I would use multiple profile shapes and one center line. Really all of this just depends on your design intent. Learning the software is only half the battle, the other half is design intent. You have to consider the possibility that your design could be a failure. So IF it does fail how hard is it going to be to modify to make it a success? What are the possible modifications you will need to make and how will those modifications break your original design method in Fusion. Some people might argue that your case is one where the sculpt environment is not the way to go. I for one prefer the sculpt environment for stuff like this. Why, because it makes fast iteration possible until I nail down a working design. Then if I feel the need based on already known parameters I will create the final parametric design. In the end you need to get a feel for what works best for you and your style of thinking, after all your the one that will need to fix the model in the case of a failure. Model in a way that doesn't make you want to pull your hair out.

Cheers

[mark]

I ripped it up and started again (I wanted to make a few changes anyway) to try a lofting as well as patch matching.

Lofting was nice and quick once I'd got my head round using rails. But in the end, the result just wasn't quite right.

Went back and sculpted the funnel again and did the matching at the edges which worked a treat. I then thickened the result which left the edges a bit weird. I did another round of matching on that new edge and that tidied it up nicely. I think sculpting works better for me (and in this use case)  and edge matching makes life easy (much nicer than having to weld vertices one at a time).

Thanks again for your help.