Shelling A Body

[StellarFusion]

Hello... Fairly new in F360.  Learned a lot, but have a long way to go.

I've read several post/solutions about shelling issues, but I don't know exactly what my problem is compared to what issues others have been faced with.  I've attached my model and you'll see see multiple bodies, but 3 primary ones.  I was able to create a shell for Body127 successfully with a 3mm thickness.  However on Body124 & 125, I'm only able to apply a shell no greater than a .1mm thickness.  If I attempt to make it any thicker, then I get an error "The operation would cause a large topology change".  Can someone please take a look at my model and see why I can't achieve a thicker shell?  Please be patient with me... I'm not pro's like a lot of you 😁

Thanks!

[etfrench]

One way to shell difficult models is to split them into smaller pieces.  I'm not showing the other two bodies of #124.  #125 shelled with no problem.

[StellarFusion]

Thanks... I'll try it out.

[StellarFusion]

I split Body124 into 3 pieces because Shell wouldn't work for me by splitting in two pieces.  The new bodies to the left and right shelled to 3mm fine, but I still can't shell the middle body which is highlighted in the image.  How did you split in two and get shell to work (assuming you split into two pieces)?  I even tried splitting it in two pieces along the Y plane (lengthwise for the model)... wouldn't shell.

Thanks

[etfrench]

Sometimes you have to keep splitting at any acute angles or faces less than the desired shell thickness.

[StellarFusion]

That worked.  That was quite a bit of extra work.  Is there anything I could've done in my modeling to have made this easier in the long run?

Thanks!

[etfrench · Accepted solution]

The main thing that jumps out is the sheer number of Moves.  Generally moves should be avoided as each one has to be recalculated whenever Fusion 360 does a compute and it does a compute every time a change is made.  It's much better to use joints to position objects. 

You could try the Thicken command on the faces when you create them, but I don't know if this would work for all of the faces or if it would be more effective than using the split body method.

Now that you have the design more or less finished, I'd recommend starting fresh and only using the necessary sketches.  Redrawing a model goes surprisingly fast compared to first creating it.

See Rule #1.