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

[Anonymous]

@jeff_strater, @oldtbone55

I have been watching the screencasts and you guys are making progress. I can't open Fusion on my ipad so I can't look at the files but one thing I need to stress, the rails must have the first tangent handle parallel with the neck surface in the transition from the neck to the peg head. If you don't the CNC leaves an awkward line in the work. It just feels wrong. It is completely resolved by simply snapping the tangent handle to the neck.

[cekuhnen]

@Anonymous@oldtbone55@jeff_strater

T-Spline would work if you would build everything in it but because the nature of both T-Splines and BREP

this is a pretty tricky business. On a side note any idea what is happening with the T-Splines loft curvature

deviation fields? They seem to do nothing when adjusting the values?

As I mentioned yesterday blending between linear to round is in general very hard. If you then later want to

also fillet the edges it will look rather messy - thus I would fillet the hard edges first and then blend via the loft

command.

obviously the way how the stem G1 flows into the transition is not ideal so for more control one needs profiles to guide

the loft code to do what one wants

if you want to control more how the fillet flows into the round stem surface then more sketches are needed to provide

the rails and Loft here needs to be able to have G1 G2 for the rails

this will help to model the transition like here:

[oldtbone55]

@jeff.strater @Anonymous @cekuhnen

Great advice and info guys. There's a lot here to digest and there are valid points all around. Being a hobbyist, the CNC process doesn't have to give me exacting results. I can live with doing a bit of fine tuning on the transitions with a rasp and sandpaper. There's also the way your hand 'feels' the contour of the wood when you finish by hand. Personally, I like to feel like I've put a bit of myself into the guitar and I don't get that from doing everything on the CNC. I do appreciate having most of the work done on the CNC because of the arthritis in my hands. As soon as I've gone through and understood the great information you guys have provided I'm going to try creating the transitions again and see what get. Be prepared for more questions is all I can say.

Cheers!

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

yeah no worries - I can see what you mean about hand and cnc while I have to say for the CNC you still need to make the proper model

and this is work too !!!

[mavigogun]

In Claas's T-spline example from post 18, I've found irregularities like this pucker are sometimes best confronted by cutting them out and performing a Bridge, or merely Welding  the vertices across the gap, as often such tension may be impossible to otherwise remove, with some vertices lacking tangent handles.    Pull and Flatten are both apt tools for achieving smooth transitions, but require a bit of forethought.    One of the great things about the Sculpt workspace is the ability to leave the space to create supporting bodies for such operations, then return to continue sculpting with the custom tools.

[cekuhnen]

@mavigogun

What would be killer is if the TS surface would be able to maintain a G1 or G2 alignment surface flow into target surfaces!

Then you could sculpt the T-Splines as needed and not worry about breaks.

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen, @mavigogun, @Anonymous, @Anonymous, @TrippyLighting

Hello All, I've re-worked the neck to headstock transition by adding additional guide lines as suggested by @cekuhnen to help with creating the curvature when performing the loft. I'm running into a problem now when trying to create a fillet and am getting an error message. I've attached a screenshot as well as the current file. Clauss, could you explain to me the meaning of G1, G2 that you referred to in your post? I'm assuming it's referring to the guidelines but I don't want to make an incorrect assumption. One other thing, when I performed the loft I lost two of the guidelines (one per side) that I had sketched. There should be a total of six but there are only four.

Thanks.

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

the fillet you try to do is incredibly hard because you fillet an edge to a point!!!

Look at my model you see that the there are edges of the head that are rounded and from those rounded edges

I further create / suggest G0 to G2 curves based on your need.

Also I can say it now officially but loft has G1 G2 for rails which will be very useful!

G0: two curves meet sharp

sharp transition

G1: an arc is tangent to a line 

ok transition but in surface highlights you can see the surface patch edges

line instantly flows into arc

G2: a curve flows smoothly into another curve

highlights are smooth

one curve continues the flow of the other curve before bending

here this images illustrates it well

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

Thank you kindly for the explanation. I will need to study this to make sure I understand it better. Should I fillet the long edges of the headstock on the underside then before I try to fillet the loft rails? When you talk about loft having G1 G2 rails is this in the loft command or do they get created when you perform the loft command?

Thanks.

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

I hope this video explains it better in depth

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byzv_NlyKp_2WDBsWHNLTURWQTA/view

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

Fantastic video! It really makes me realize that I've only scratched the surface of Fusion and how much more I need to understand and learn about it. I now see why creating the fillets along the headstock really helps when lofting. Am I correct that because of the way you did this there was no reason to create another fillet from the rails you used? Also, can points be sketched on the neck profile in place of the line sketches you projected? Sorry to ask more questions, I should really be concentrating on the stuff you've given me already.

I can't thank you enough.

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

Hello Clauss, I have a question about the video. How did you go from a solid body to a hollow body? to create the sketches you projected to the curved surface?

Thanks.

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

go to patch mode then you can un-stitch a face and remove it if needed in browser

you can also in patch mode select a face and delete it

both will open the solid model

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

"Also, can points be sketched on the neck profile in place of the line sketches you projected? Sorry to ask more questions, I should really be concentrating on the stuff you've given me already"

could you rephrase the question for me?

[oldtbone55]

---

@cekuhnen wrote:

@oldtbone55

"Also, can points be sketched on the neck profile in place of the line sketches you projected? Sorry to ask more questions, I should really be concentrating on the stuff you've given me already"

could you rephrase the question for me?

---

Sorry Clauss, what I'm asking is, could you sketch 'points' on the curved portion of the neck profile rather than the lines you sketched and projected to the surface of the neck profile. These are the points that you used to create the loft rails from the headstock to the neck. I believe it's around the 3:00 minute point of your video. By moving these points you were able to change the smoothness of the transition from the fillet on the headstock.

Thanks.

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

Thanks Clauss.

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byzv_NlyKp_2ZlpaOVRtTmFKWGM/view

this is a different approach using T-Splines and carefully using loopcuts.

[cekuhnen]

@oldtbone55

AH with sketch points you mean the loft target points?

That is what I was moving at min 3:00 in the video.

This allows you to adjust the transition or also twist lofts.

The problem however remained this being a hard edge which is why I made 3d sketches with rails onto split surface edges

for the transition

[oldtbone55]

@cekuhnen

Well Clauss, you've outdone yourself, again! A fabulous video and even with my little Fusion knowledge quite simple. Not only have you shown that using t-splines is not really all that difficult, but that you can achieve a much smoother transition when they are used properly. I can't tell you what I went through using t-splines to try and create the transition the first time. I totally overcomplicated the process. To me, this has provided the quickest and bests results so far. I will be working through this diligently to gain a better understanding of the process and commands.

You are an incredible mentor!

[TrippyLighting]

---

@oldtbone55 wrote:

@cekuhnen

Well Claauss, you've outdone yourself, again! A fabulous video and even with my little Fusion knowledge quite simple. Not only have you shown that using t-splines is not really all that difficult, but that you can achieve a much smoother transition when they are used properly. I can't tell you what I went through using t-splines to try and create the transition the first time. I totally overcomplicated the process. To me, this has provided the quickest and bests results so far. I will be working through this diligently to gain a better understanding of the process and commands.

You are an incredible mentor!

---

His name is Claas. Details matter, just as in designing a guitar 😉