Add Curves and Notches to a Non-Planar Face

[MacNichol]

Hello,

I am new to CAD/CAM. I may have some of the terminology incorrect, but have done my best to describe.

I am looking to make a small stock item, which is an acoustic guitar saddle. Please see the below the attached images, 1 Waves.png and 2. jpeg, which include red arrows showing the waves/notches I refer to later.

I’ve been able to do almost all the above CAD, plus fillet the top radiused section in Alibre Atom 3D, but don’t see a way to add the waves onto the top section. Please see the attached 1 Alibre Atom.AD_PRT for my Alibre Atom file.

I found the attached step file at GrabCAD, which is very similar to what I'm trying to do. I was able to open the .step file in Alibre, but when I click on the notches, Alibre says that it's a non-planar face and thus unable to edit.

Could you please point me in the right direction on how to do these waves/notches?

Any other suggestions welcome, too.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[MacNichol]

Here's my Alibre file.

 

[Ken226]

You'll have to create some workplanes in various locations and at various angles to make the necessary extrude cuts.

One example: I create an angled plane



Then offset that plane in the Y positive direction to a point above your model.



Then you can create the desired sketch geometry on that plane, and extrude cut into your model.








As for the waves, I'm still not sure what you are talking about.

 

[Ken226]

Here is a video I made awhile back on various methods of creating work planes:

 

[Ken226]

For the waves, is something like this what you had in mind. A modification to your original sketch?



Then added some filets to soften the edges, blending into tangencies.




The redo your filet, by dragging filet 5 to the bottom, and edit it to add the additional edges.




Resulting in:





Obviously, im guessing as to which faces you wanted the waves added to. But this could have been done to any of the models faces.

 

[MacNichol]

A ha!

That points me in the right direction!

I had briefly read about additional planes and had a hazy idea how to use them, but your images and video clears everything up. By "waves" I was just referring to the notches. I wasn't sure whether to call them waves or notches.

THANK YOU!

 

[Ken226]

A ha!

That points me in the right direction!

I had briefly read about additional planes and had a hazy idea how to use them, but your images and video clears everything up. By "waves" I was just referring to the notches. I wasn't sure whether to call them waves or notches.

THANK YOU!

No problem. Happy to help.

If you'll browse through Alibre's training section on their site, you'll find some pretty good videos.

Also, myself and others have posted up a few videos in the tutorials and tips section of this forum. When you get time, check them out. The simple things like being able to put a workplace literally anywhere and at any angle, opens up alot of possibilities.

Also, check out the media gallery on this forum, you'll get a good idea of what this software is capable of.