Wanting to create templates which can be used for similar projects

[Anonymous]

I've been using Fusion to design some electric guitars and was thinking earlier, it would be really nice to be able to create some geometry templates that could be stored discretely and then brought in when I start a new design to establish some general relationships between the body, the neck and it's angle relative to the body, the scale length, which is the measurement between a nominal point at the middle of the bridge and the fret side face of the nut. It would basically be a rectangle of construction geometry to give me a bounding box within which to create the body, and let me play around with the depth of the resulting solid and note it's impact on the other aspects. 

This may be an organizational issue as much as anything, I think I have a good plan to create the sketches. I was either going to create a rectangle for the body and one each of a design featuring a 24.75 scale length, a 25" scale length and a 25.5" scale length, or create each scale length sketch in the same design and toggle them on and off to select. There would be a point on the scale length line which I'd use to create a coincident relationship  and then have an angle relationship to one of the rectangle sides. 

My question then is, what's the best way to do this, to maintain the pristine nature of each template and go about importing it into each new design without irrevocably altering it in its original file? It's just I'd rather have a baseline to work with each time than worry about getting my dimensions and angle right at the onset of each new design exercise. Also, I still don't have a good breakdown of the language with regard to components, parts, assemblies. Would a better understanding of that help me formulate a plan, and if so, can someone explain to me what differentiates a part from a component? I understand what an assembly is, but not how components and parts interact differently within one. 

Thank you!

John

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

Welcome to Fusion.  There are a few of us that are using Fusion for guitar design, search around on the forum and you'll probably find a few threads.

Your idea of a basic design template is a good one.  I haven't gotten organized enough yet to use a technique like that, sadly.  Probably the best way to approach it would be to create a separate design that had some sketches and work geometry in it with all these critical measurements.   Then, as you start a new project, just insert this template into your new design.  You can use sketches and work geometry from an inserted design to create new features directly, or you can project sketch curves from your template into new sketches in your design, etc.  It's not quite as clean as I suspect you had in mind for a true "template" concept, but it should work well for you.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Jeff