Round groove for o-ring on tube surface

hi there. i’ve done reasonable due diligence and haven’t found a solution.

i’m trying to place a rounded groove for an o-ring on the surface of a tube. i’ve tried drawing a circle on the face of the tube, then tried to use the “follow me” tool but this approach seems to result in a missing section of material. see pic.

The most likely reason for the missing faces is the size and complexity of the geometry. If you are working very small and with a large number of segments in your circles, the faces will fail to form.
Scale up and use less segments or use The Dave Method.

A quick gif showing a method to create the cylinder and groove in one.
Oring

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hell yes! thanks DaveR (via Box).
yes, small item with many-faced circle. solution was just as described

  1. make whole thing component
  2. scale up 10x
  3. make component editable and add features
  4. all features turned out fine and are reflected in small version.
  5. delete jumbo version

thanks again.

YW @blakelock

FWIW, when I use the “Dave Method” I scale up by 1000. It generally makes it easier for me to convert dimensions as I’m modeling.

If you are modeling for 3D printing, check your slicer software. Will it let you choose the import units when you import the .stl. If so, you might just consider modeling with units set to meters. I’ve found for my use that works quite well. As an example I created this model dimensioned in meters.

Imported into the slicer using millimeters I got this. Fits perfectly on the 3/4 in. tube it needs to go on. These were the first quick draft printed by a friend to make sure they’d fit.

If this can work for you then there’s no need to scale anything up to do small details.

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