Hi there! I’m pretty new to SketchUp and 3D modeling in general. I’ve created a cylinder and extruded shapes along the edges of this cylinder. Without getting into too much detail, this part is supposed to slide into another cylinder. While it fits, some of the hard edges are getting caught on fabric on the inside of the outer cylinder. I’d like to round out the edges (and I’ve figured out how to do this with a normal cylinder), but I’m having trouble getting this to work with my extruded shapes. I’m including a screenshot as well as the SKP file. Thanks in advance!
I presume you are modeling for 3D printing. Is that right? I would suggest setting SketchUp’s units to meters and use meters as if they were millimeters. This will allow you to use more segments in curves and avoid issues with missing faces.
If I were modeling this thing I would start by making the cylinder with the rounded top first. The easiest way to do that in SketchUp Free would be by drawing a profile and using Follow Me with a circular path. Then draw the shapes for the features on the bottom (I inverted it for the screenshot) and use Option+Push/Pull to extrude the faces of the slots through the top. Don’t be stingy with the extrude length here. Longer will be easier to select to delete. Then select the geometry, right click on it, choose Intersect Faces>With Selection. After the intersections have been created, erase everything that isn’t the cylinder with the grooves in it. Right click on one of the white faces and choose Orient Faces followed by creating a component or group and confirming it’s a solid in Entity Info.
Yes. You could draw the profile with a radius on the top and bottom corners. Draw the shapes of the opening slightly above or beow the extrusion making sure you have faces to extrude up through the cylinder with Push/Pull, then proceed as above. Alternatively you could model the cylinder at half its finished height and then use Copy with the Flip tool to make the other half. Just remember to delete the edges at the seam line so there’s no internal face.
