Unable to Fillet on a Loft

[Josh_K]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if someone could help me with a dilemma I've been having. I am designing a chair, and require to put some fillets on the ends of the arms, but it wont let me. I have narrowed the problem down to something to do with the rail that I am using for my loft to follow. The profile of the arm allows a fillet, as I have tested with simple extrudes and lofts, but as soon as I implement the rail for it to follow it doesn't allow the fillet.

Any one know why this is? Is it something to do with tolerances, eg: there isn't enough 'room' for the fillet to work, due to the direction of the rail. (that doesn't make sense, lol, sorry). I just don't understand.

Anyway, enough waffle, I'm attaching some files to help explain what I want and mean, also for the brave please find attached .zip of my current part (please forgive the messiness)

Thanks for any help in advance guys, really appreciate it.

Josh


edit: hmm couldn't attach or insert image or .zip. Sorry, I've uploaded them to my site if you can see them there, sorry guys just kept getting error messages.
http://joshuakeenes.co.uk/cadtutor/chair_fillet_explain.jpg
http://joshuakeenes.co.uk/cadtutor/Part4-to-show-jk.zip

[Bishop]

Okay, couple things:

First: yeah, your sketches are a little bit of a mess, but you already knew that. :p

Second: where the arm curls in to meet the outer side of the chair, you've got a small straight piece. This is one of your problems. It creates a narrow face that will cause problems when you go to do a fillet on the front of the arm. On all three profile sketches, go back and delete this straight line. You can use the EXTEND function to carry the arc from the arm to meet the spline. After the loft, go back and put a fillet on this edge.

Third: when you do your loft, check the box for MERGE TANGENT FACES.

Fourth: due to the scaling in your loft, the inside faces of the chair are not tangent to each other. You can fix this either with modifying the sketches or by adding a fillet. (I tried a 10mm fillet at both edges, successfully.) Also put a fillet on the inside edge at the bottom of the chair.

After doing these things, you should be able to get a fillet to stick on the front edges. I used 10mm for the ones mentioned above, and 30mm on the front faces of the arms. Worked just fine.

[Josh_K]

Hi Bishop, thank you so much for the quick reply. I think I understand what you have said, so I will be giving that a go when I get back to my desktop tonight and let you know how I get on. Thanks again I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.