Discover how to add strength to a scooter's deck through the addition of a rail, utilizing Fusion's construction and creation tools to achieve precise dimensions and profiles. Learn the step-by-step process, from creating the appropriate planes to using the offset tool to define specific lines and curves.
Key Insights
- The process commences with the creation of an offset plane in the construct menu, offsetting it back by minus 10 millimeters to ensure proper alignment with the scooter's front.
- After ensuring no other selections are active, the 'create sketch' command is used on the 'front of rail' plane. The handout's dimensions are adhered to, with a width of 60 millimeters and a height of 24 millimeters for the rail.
- The 'offset' tool is utilized to create the remaining lines, with a chain selection ensuring all three lines are selected simultaneously. This is followed by extruding the rail profile backwards by 580 millimeters, ensuring it remains its own entity by selecting 'new body' rather than 'join'.
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Let's give our scooter's deck some strength by adding a rail. I'll hide the deck here and we can see this rail. It's a metal rail that runs from the beginning of the scooter to the back.
Now we have a handout to help us out. The handout shows the dimensions we need to create the rail. We have a front view that shows the profile of the rail.
Then we have a couple of cutout areas, notches, holes, and fillets that we will add. Let's begin. We will jump right into the construct menu and we're going to go to offset plane.
I want to select this default plane that's right in the front of our scooter. I will click that and now I want to offset this back minus 10 millimeters. So minus 10 and click okay.
We will notice that right here in the construction folder we now have a plane 2. If I click on that I can call this front of rail. Click enter to lock that in. Now we have that.
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I want to make sure nothing is selected before we get started. So I will click out here in space or click escape on my keyboard and now in the create menu I can start the create sketch command. Now I don't want to pick one of the default planes.
I want to click this front of rail. I can select it visually or right here under the construction menu front of rail. Now I can draw in that front of rail profile.
I will zoom in to make it easier to see and I can follow the handout. So it's 60 millimeters wide so I'll start the line command. Now I want it centered so instead of creating the full 60 I want to find the center point.
So I'm going to zoom in a little closer until I can snap right to the bottom center of the deck. So I'll click one time and using a bit of math I know that to get a 60 width I want to go half of that would be 30. So 30 millimeters enter locks that in.
Now I can draw the height of the rail. So I'll click starting where I left off and draw the height. In this case it's 24 and I will click enter.
All right so now I've got the top and the side. Now I can delete the top. It was just there to get us to the correct location.
I will delete that line now and now I can draw the full 60. So I'll start on the top right, go across and type in 60, enter. And now I will go down again 24, enter.
Now I could draw the remaining lines or we can use one of the cool tools here in Fusion, offset. So I'll click on offset and that brings up the offset menu. Now it wants us to select the curves.
What does that mean by curves? Really we're just selecting the lines. I will select this line right here. It's already checked as chain selection.
If I click any line it will select all three. Super convenient. So I'll click it and I'll get this double arrow and I notice that it goes to the outside right now.
I want to pull that in to the inside which gives me negative numbers. I can type in the correct number I want which is minus four and click okay. A super quick way to get all the remaining lines.
And now I want to tie up the bottom two edges. I will start the line command and just draw a line to fill in the first one and a line to fill in the second one. And if I'm successful I will notice that everything turns a shaded solid blue to let me know the sketch is complete.
All right so with that we know that we're set. We can click finish sketch. On my view cube I'm going to return to the home view.
Zooms out and I might pivot my view to look underneath a little bit. Now I can extrude to create the actual rail. Under the create menu I'll find extrude and I can select my profile which is that rail profile here.
So I'll select that there and then I can drag it backwards. Now how far do I want to go? This is 580 millimeters. So 580 and it needs to be a negative to go backwards.
I will also notice that Fusion wants to join this and I don't want that. I want the rail to be its own entity. So instead of join I want to click new body.
So new body. If that looks okay we can click okay and there is our rail. We will know that we're successful if it's its own gray color which is the default steel here in Fusion.
And it goes really the full length of the deck. It starts minus 10 at the beginning and runs 580 back. So there it is.
Now let's do a little bit of housekeeping. We have a couple of things that are unnamed and I don't like to leave things unnamed because it can get confusing later on. Let's start with our sketches.
So right now we have sketch one. We'll click that and we'll call that deck. And then sketch two we can call that rail profile.
And if we want to be even more specific we can call this deck outline or perimeter. And we're all set with our two sketches. Now we have our bodies.
We have the deck and then body two. What's body two? It's the rail. We'll rename that and we're good to go.
It might be a good time to go ahead and mash that save button and we're all set.
