Lofting Two Diameter Pipes Together To Make a Coupling

[cmoher3]

Nothing at Home Depot....time to make my own on my 3D printer, in ABS.

I have drawn up two diameter pipes and separated them via the offset plane method. I now want to put a 45 degree transisional between the two pipes. I think 45 degrees is a threshold between needing supports, (scaffolding), on 3D prints, which is always a mess to clean up and a lot more printing time. Something to avoid whenever I can. 

I did my due diligence with an online search. I came up with the idea that using the Loft tool is the way to do this, but I couldn't figure out how to use it without deforming my starting pipes. It seemed the tool would only allow me to select the facing edges but then generated errors stopping me from actually creating the loft. I want to maintain the originating spherical pipes as is and not have them affected by the transition. Attached is what I have and wish to preserve.

You help is, as always, greatly appreciated.

[davebYYPCU]

Loft is correct, but can’t do hollow profiles. (donuts)

Two Lofts or Loft and Shell.

Select the outer and inner circles for the 1st Loft, on each pipe.

Select the inner circles for a Loft Cut as 2nd Step.

Or Select the 2 Inside faces of the solid and Shell to similar thickness, 

Might help....

[cmoher3]

I'm sorry Dave, you really lost me there. A donut is a torus. Did you mean to say pipe ? You say select outer and inner diameters of the first pipe.... I don't follow that as I'm trying to get from one smaller pipe to another.

[davebYYPCU]

I can not download the file - no desktop internet my end - so can’t see how you started.

So many ways to do the job, Revolve Sweep with Rail, Extrudes, Pipes,

so,

I presume you start with a pair of circles for Extrude, on each pipe.

For a Loft, you would need those sketches to be within the gap, extrudes going outwards.

If we are on the same page so far, for each end of the Loft, you have to create a solid joiner, then second step make it hollow.

For me, from scratch, I would sketch the inside profile for a Surface Revolve, then Thicken to right wall thickness.

Might help....

[cmoher3]

I'll maybe try the revolve method as loft is not going anywhere for me

[wmhazzard]

Make a profile sketch and revolve. 

[HughesTooling]

@cmoher3  The problem with your design and loft is you have no sketches and loft doesn't allow selecting body edges for some reason!

General advice is avoid using the primitive shapes, sketches and extrudes give you more control. The revolve method is probably the best method for this but see attached file demonstrating using lofts.

Mark

[wmhazzard]

If you absolutely had to use a loft, you can loft an inside surface and an outside surface, then do a boundary fill between the two surfaces to get a solid. Combine the three bodies and use an offset face to thicken the angled area because it will be thinner than the top and bottom pieces.

[cmoher3 · Accepted solution]

Yes indeed, I got nowhere with the Loft menu so I refreshed my memory with a great tutorial on Revolve - and I'll add it  here, in case some other newbies stumble upon this post - and it went off like magic. Thanks gang !!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynt9Pn7JSQA