Shell keeps failing on simple loft object

[jeffUGFRY]

Hello.

I've spent literally hours over a couple of days trying to discover any rhyme or reason to this refusal to create a shell on an object I've created using the loft command. I've gone through so many iterations so this screen recording only represents one. Why is it so hard to hollow out a shape like this?

[wmhazzard]

It would be best to attach an f3d file of your model. Just a guess, there is a problem with the top curved edges causing self intersection. 

[laughingcreek]

usually comes down to geometry.  but can't tell with seeing a model.  try adding small fillets to the profile here-

[jeffUGFRY]

thank you for the reply. I'm attaching the file, but keep in mind I spent hours and hours so I got to a point where I didn't care anymore about fully constraining sketches and such. I finally figured out it was this piece giving me the trouble, but I'm just not sure I understand why. I see another suggestion is to add fillets so I'll give that a try too and report back.

[g-andresen]

Hi,

please do not attach a project (f3z) but a design f3d. The project file first requires a complex upload and saving in the data panel.

günther

[TrippyLighting]

Would this work ?

 

[jeffUGFRY]

@TrippyLighting Yes, that would work. I played around a lot last night with the fillet suggestion and it didn't get me anywhere. I went back and got rid of the extra bodies I created below the main body and played around some more. Finally, with the hint being those corners, I created a rail on each side with a straight line and finally got it to work. 

Again, still not understanding what is getting in the way of a 1mm thickness there. It seems like there is plenty of material. But at least it led me in the right direction.

[jeffUGFRY]

My apologies. I do want to be a good citizen. I didn't even notice the difference in the extension. Can you link me to instructions for saving the design file please? In export I only see the archive and in "Save as..." it just lets me save within the native dialog but no extension or computer file system.

[TrippyLighting]

The file you attached was a .f3z, which is an assembly. When exporting an assembly Fuiosn 360 basically exports the assembly file and all linked components and packs tose into a zip file, which is what a .f3z basically is. 

In this case, it would probably have better to delete all the linked components as they were not needed to address the problem.

Attached .f3d files are the easiest to handle.

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

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@jeffUGFRY wrote:

Again, still not understanding what is getting in the way of a 1mm thickness there. It seems like there is plenty of material. But at least it led me in the right direction.

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The surfaces you created through lofting dd not lend themselves well to shelling. This isn't a matter of the presence of enough "material" 😉

If you upload the file I attached to my post to your project folder and "walk" through the timeline step by step ten you can see how I created the geometry in my screenshot.

[jeffUGFRY]

Thank you so much for the help.