stopped flutes and rosettes

[Mike Seisser]

Once you are in the Part Editor, click the Contour Mode icon.

[Mike Seisser]

We're going to be using (x,y) coordinates again, and I've written a small worksheet in MS Excel that does all the math for us. It's included here, along with a screenshot.

It's pretty self-explanatory, you only need to input your numbers in the top row. The other cells are all results of the formulas that use your input.

I've decided to make 5 flutes that appear as though they were plunge routed instead of eased. Because our tool is 3/4\" W, we need one half of that width as our Ease Length to achieve this. Any shorter and it looks as though the flutes started 1/2 into the board, any longer would result in eased or 'bullet' flutes. (If that's what you want, play with the Ease Length until you get the desired effect.) For now, we'll make them look plunged.

Please note that in the Excel worksheet my Cube Depth is equal to our desired cube, and width as well. (As opposed to how we reversed them when we first made our Display Cube at the beginning of the tutorial.)

[Mike Seisser]

Once you are in Contour Mode, and have used the Excel worksheet to determine your coords, it's time to input them.

Select Line Mode.

[Mike Seisser]

Use the input box at the bottom of the screen to input these coordinates:

10 1/2,7 (enter)
10,7 3/8 (enter)

10,7 3/8 (enter)
10,89 5/8 (enter)

10,89 5/8 (enter)
10 1/2,90 (enter)

Then return to Part Editor.

[Mike Seisser]

Once we're back in Part Editor, choose the Path tool by clicking on it's icon.

[Mike Seisser]

Because our ease path is so short, we'll need to zoom in to select it without selecting anything else. Zoom into the bottom portion of our display cube, choose Chain from the options at the bottom of the screen, then select the end of our ease path.

[Mike Seisser]

Here is a shot of our path properly selected. Once it's selected, it's highlighted red and green, and a Next button appears at the bottom of the screen. Click the Next button.

[Mike Seisser]

Next, from the resulting popup menu, choose the tool (.tol) file we created earlier. Doubleclick it when you select it, or single click it and then click the View button on the menu as well.

Because we created our tool to work horizontally and centered it's plunge on the X axis, we can create our flutes anywhere on the side of our display cube by simply changing the Plunge Depth on this popup menu.

Refer to your Excel worksheet for the Plunge Depth of our first flute, in this case, - 1 1/4\". Enter it in the Plunge Depth input box, click the Apply button, then click the OK button.

At this point you can preview your flute by clicking on the eye icon and rotating the display cube. Below is the result of our first flute.

[Mike Seisser]

If you previewed the result, then click on the arrow icon to get our display cube back with the blue path along the edge.

Next, select our path the same way we did the 1st time, select our tool again, and input the Plunge Depth for the 2nd flute (refer to the Excel worksheet again) in this case -2 7/16, click Apply, click OK.

Repeat selecting the path, tool, and inputting your plunge depth using the Plunge Depth from the Excel worksheet until you have completed 5 'passes'.

The result is shown below.

[Mike Seisser]

When you're done, click Return at the bottom of the screen, click Yes to keep the changes.

Once back in the Cabinet Editor, select the display cube, right click, choose Rotate Item, and rotate it 270 degrees on the Y axis.

[Mike Seisser]

We're finished.

Now you can treat it like any other display cube:
Export Selection and make it a Display Object
Save it as an assembly
Associate to a cabinet
etc.

Below are a coupla shots of the rendered results.

[Mike Seisser]

Again, apologies for not posting this earlier, I'm remodelling my own house as my wife and I are expecting twins and just haven't had much time to dedicate to eCabs lately. (Not to mention a pretty major HD crash here last week which left me with my original computer to run eCabs on - not pretty.)

If I've not been specific enough about certain steps or if I flat out missed something or f'd something up, please let me know here or via email.

I hope this adds some zing to everyone's drawings, and thanks again to the fine folks at eCabs for such an amazing piece of software!!

Mike

[DanEpps]

...Not to mention a pretty major HD crash here last week which left me with my original computer to run eCabs on - not pretty...

Ouch...back to 32bit eh?

Great instructions Mike! Something else that is good about these instructions are that they illustrate how to shape the side of a display cube--something that almost everyone finds confusing at best.

Again, great instructions.

[Mike Seisser]

...Not to mention a pretty major HD crash here last week which left me with my original computer to run eCabs on - not pretty...

Ouch...back to 32bit eh?

Great instructions Mike! Something else that is good about these instructions are that they illustrate how to shape the side of a display cube--something that almost everyone finds confusing at best.

Again, great instructions.

Thanks buddy, that means a lot comin' from you. (Holy crap I almost called you Mr. Epps) It helps that I got my 64bit machine workin' again....

[DanEpps]

Thanks buddy, that means a lot comin' from you. (Holy crap I almost called you Mr. Epps) It helps that I got my 64bit machine workin' again....

Why? Don't forget that you've had to help me with the part editor before (remember my double-arched dilemma)

Like most folks, I had a hard time grasping it when I tried to do something that was more than cutting out a shape or profiling a straight edge. As you have done here, you were able to clearly the steps to accomplish what I wanted, thus rescuing me from the old "it just can't be done" demon