Patch Environment Design Help - Guitar Neck

[oldtbone55]

Hello Out there,

I've been working in the Sculpt environment on a guitar neck but ran into some issues and am now trying to design it in the  Patch environment. I'm actually hoping that I can get some of it done in Patch and then switch to Sculpt for the finishing touch's. I've been able to create the surface bodies for most of the neck and headstock but there is an area where they join that needs to transition smoothly and I don't know if it can be done in Patch. The area is on the underside of the neck where the headstock and neck meet (it's called a volute). How should I move forward from here? I've attached my file.

@jeffstrater

@cekuhnen

@Anonymous

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55 No worries  

i am happy the two videos showing each process and their ups and downs are useful.

as a tip never force a shape through one process or tool

Cad is a lot about compromising 

[oldtbone55]

@TrippyLighting I stand corrected. Claas it is. Can't get anything past you Peter

@cekuhnen

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

Hello Claas! My apologies for misspelling your name. Maybe I should give you a nickname, Obee-Wan-Knobee comes to mind as you are a Jedi master at this stuff. I think the t-spline approach is the way to go. I've been working on the neck to headstock transition based on you video and it looks to me like this is the way to get real control of the shape you want and it's actually easier. After some t-spline manipulations I think I've achieved the shape I was looking for. I've attached my file for your perusal and for feedback when you get a chance. Have we slayed the dragon?

Have a great weekend!

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55 No worries - I was called many things. Last time at Wendy's my name was Guss hahahaha

Even when I tell somebody it is Claas (stretching the a) many then respond with Claus (AU cause I am German) or Class because of how similar Claas is to class.

So back to your padawan quest: 

“Mind what you have learned. Save you it can.”

Those edges you have creased have again you?

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

Creasing edges you want to stay away from!

Already know you that which you need.

Truly wonderful, the effect of loopcuts is.

[jeff_strater]

I have not been able to keep up with this thread, unfortunately.  It's good too see all the collaboration.

I went back to hack at this again.  I noticed from the picture that @cekuhnen posted, which shows some interesting edges in this transition:

so, today I tried to generate these effects.  It looks like the plane of the back of the headstock is extended down even beyond the nut end of the neck.  So, I tried an approach where I over-build this transition, then hack it off.

I created a dividing surface.  You can see that I was not able to make it quite a plane, because of the angles involved, and the thickness of the headstock.  

That may not be exactly the transition you want, but it's close to modeling what Claas' picture shows.

Jeff

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

Yes Master, listen to you I will. I will 'De-Crease' my creases. Still learning about them but much better than my first try. Those loop cuts really do the trick. Time for some tweaking.

[oldtbone55]

@jeff_strater

Glad to see you back Jeff. As you can see, we've made some progress. You're right about the transition going a bit beyond the nut as is shown in Claas' picture. That is what I'm trying to achieve but I was trying to make things a bit simpler for myself in order to learn how to approach the design with the tools in fusion. Your method looks good and it's achieving the result. The big thing for me is that I've learnt so much about what can be achieved when you understand what each command/tool will do and when to choose the right one. Hopefully, now that I'm getting closer to what I want I can try making some test models to see how it looks. I'm definitely not finished with this yet so stay tuned.

Thanks.

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

the more you gain experience the more you will see where solid surface and t-spline modeling all have advantages possibilities

but also down sides.

T-splines is ideal for organic shapes, but can be labor intensive if you want to fore the surface into a wireframe of curves

T-splines edge crease works in some cases like creased the edge of a cylinder so that the other side of the cylinder will be round

like the shape of a bullet yet like in your case creasing one edge on top of the neck to sharpen the transition between neck and head

will make it difficult to maintain then smooth results around the bottom area of that transition.

surfacing this is possible but you also see the struggles one can experience to get this right.

so if one can let go of that shapr edge onto possibly additional loop cuts can do the trick and to make the soft transition below

smooth one has to gently adjust were all the additional edges of the loopcut were positioned.

to sculpt that smoother you can also use curvature graph along edges to see how they flow.

[Anonymous]

Good News the new update add some features we need for the neck  to body transition:

"

G1/G2 Continuity for Loft Rails

Previously when you lofted a surface, there wasn’t an option to control the continuity for rails, and when you applied a Zebra analysis on your loft, you could see a break in the seam. Womp womp. Now, the continuity can be controlled independently for both profiles and rails in the surface loft command, by selecting what kind of continuity you want for each rail. Selecting Smooth will make your surface G2. A very welcomed improvement. Huzzah!"

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/august-8-update-whats-new/#Sketching

I am still catching up from 2 weeks of vacation. I'll be back to this thread soon.

[Anonymous]

@cekuhnen That taught me a lot. Thank you so much. I have not lofted since the update. I am waiting for some glue to dry so I thought I would take the time to review this thread. The transition from the center of the neck to the edge of the peghead actually looks good to me. It leaves a little art behind that is pleasing. Still the fillet to the round of the neck shaft is a little "nervous". (I like that word by the way.) You have done some things here that I have struggled with in many fewer steps and I appreciate the time you took to make this screencast. I did not understand how to us the tangent feature in loft rails and I was having to make my own tangent rails on separate sketches.

[Anonymous]

"Loop Cuts" is not a term I have heard. What does it mean?

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen, @Anonymous, @jeff_strater,

Hello Guys, Been working away at the neck to headstock transition using several different approaches and drawings to try and refine the process. My conclusion is you can come up with as many approaches using Fusion as there are stars in the sky. Each time you try something different you get a different reaction/result. I've attached one of my files for you to have a look see as I got a strange result trying to apply a fillet after creating the headstock to neck transition using t-splines. The command worked one way on one fillet and totally different on the other. I can't figure out why and was hoping you guys could help me out. I tried to keep the number of creases to a minimum as they seem to cause all kinds of problems when converting over to a B-Rep.

Thanks.

[cekuhnen]

@Anonymous

Insert Edge aka Loop Cut

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

Check da fillet values! they are inverted!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byzv_NlyKp_2REZ0NXRlTUhxRTg/view

[Anonymous]

@oldtbone55I opened this file and there are some spots that will show in the CNC cut product, the curvature analysis shows them. Int the past I would have tried to pull the points around with move but Claas has made me rethink fixing things as opposed to making them right to begin with. I deleted some lines and then needed to pull some facets back to your guide rails. For some reason the shape is not symmetrical and I have not sorted out why. I attached the edited file for you to check out.

[cekuhnen]

@Anonymous

the yellow edges aint horizontal thus the map is uneven !

[Anonymous]

The problem with making a fillet on the peghead back face is it is only broken very slightly after final sanding. The sharper that edge stars the cleaner it looks. The only reason to break it at all is to keep the buffing wheel from rubbing through after lacquer is applied. One of the things I have done is to put the fillet in the model and then never cut that fillet in the CAM code. It surprisingly works pretty well.

[Anonymous]

@cekuhnen Good eye! The top and bottom peghead sketches are just slightly out of line.

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

To paraphrase Homer, "Dohh!" Boy do I feel like an idiot. I'm going to blame it on fatigue, but I'm glad it cracked you up.

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

My apologies Clauss, I'm not sure I understand what's going on. I see that you've highlighted in yellow two horizontal lines at the bottom of the headstock but don't understand how they aren't horizontal. The first yellow line coincides with the end of the sketch of the bottom of the headstock. The second yellow line was created in the sculpt mode from t-splines. Are there any other yellow highlighted lines that I'm not seeing? Maybe time for new glasses.

Thanks from the old timer.