Please, can someone help me with my design

[harryfreeland]

Hi there, I’ve spent a while trying to design this model.

I’ve been trying to make it smooth on the corners but struggling with that, however, I’ve been trying to cut a nice round edge from the circle on the bottom upwards into the model but can’t seem to get it right without it leaving a sharp 90-degree cut. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong, would really appreciate it thank you!
prototype3.skp (341.2 KB)

[DaveR]

Is this the sort of thing you want?

[harryfreeland]

Yes, exactly that! thank you so much

[DaveR]

I made a “cutter shape” as shown below. Then I used the Solid Tools to trime the other part.

It could be refined a bit so you don’t have the corner between the flat part and the arch.

Are you planning to 3D print this thing?

[harryfreeland]

Yes, I made this model below, it would have a round light in the ring in the middle, with two branches coming off, which would hold a suction cup on either side. I’ve struggled to make something look sleek, so if you have any ideas it would be greatly appreciated. The end goal is to 3d print it.

[DaveR]

I see. The first thing I would do is set units to meters and model this thing as if meters equal millimeters. That will help you avoid the tiny faces issue and allow you to use more segments in curves. When you export the .stl do it with units set to Meters in the Option window. Import in Millimeters into the slicer.

I might consider modeling half of the branch first. Sometimes having that flat centerline can be useful.

Think about the volume that you want to remove and model that to use as a cutter for the Solid Tools.

I would also model this thing centered on the origin so you have the origin and axes as easy references

[DaveR]

I don’t know if this is the kind of thing you want but I made a little change to get rid of the sharp corner.

First, I filled in that area.

Then I made another cutter with a profile, a circle centered on the tube, and Follow Me. Then I used Trim to cut away the waste on the branch.

[harryfreeland]

Thank you so much! That looks great, I really appreciate you helping out. I understood what you said and I have been practicing almost doing everything the opposite if that makes sense ha.

Would you be able to share the skp file with me if that is okay? thank you for all the help

[DaveR]

Here you go.

prototype3dr.skp (603.9 KB)

Sometimees the opposite method works, too.

[slbaumgartner]

There are times when modeling in SketchUp that it pays to think like a sculptor not a potter: subtract the stuff that “isn’t part of the statue” rather than add a handle as an attached part.

[DaveR]

That’s a good way to say what I was describing.

[harryfreeland]

Thank you so much!