Glass shade retaining clips - I'm clueless

[griff701]

Could someone please give me some pointers on the best way to make the 2 metal clips in the picture below? I've tried everything I can think of. I'm assuming it has to be a swept circular profile along a spline, and its getting the spline in position thats the problem. (The rest of the model is already made).

 

I've tried 3d skeching with splines (fiddly and imprecise), Spline on surface (also messy, especially towards the ends), and trying to project the shape (won't even go there!).

 

 

Am I missing something obvious?

 

Thank you

[JD Mather]

Intersection of two 2D sketches for the 3D sketch sweep path.

What version of SolidWorks are you using?

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/content/DSG322/SolidWorks%20Tutorials/SolidWorks%20Tutorial%207.pdf

[griff701]

SW 2013/14 Student

 

Thank you - now I've got some idea of what I should be doing that'll make life much easier !

[griff701]

Ok, so I now have a curve, on the shade, that looks like something I can use.

 

[solved

Firstly, I want to put the curve into a new part, but SW wont let me copy it - 'object cannot be copied to clipboard' - is there another way? (I tried making a new part to contain the curve, but if i do that I get an error trying to project the curve ' Please select from the solid body of the component you are editing') ]

 

Secondly I need to increase the size of the 3d sketch, so that when I sweep a 1.5mm radius circle along the path it doesn' 'sink' into the glass. As its a 3d sketch offset entities wont work - would a scale operation be the way to go?

 

Thanks again.

Edited February 6, 2014 by griff701

[JD Mather]

Are you familiar with using the Surfacing tools?

 

Create an offset surface from the solid and project the curve onto the surface.

 

Attach your *.sldprt here if you can't figure it out.

[griff701]

To be honest, the surfacing tools are not something I've ever used.

 

I'm learning SW, but I also like to attempt various modelling 'challenges' from around the net. The more I can push myself, the better. The downside is there's areas of .... 'basic' knowledge I'm missing.

 

Thanks again for your help

 

http://www.filefactory.com/file/1rsuzviwgvc5/n/test.SLDASM

Edited February 6, 2014 by griff701

[griff701]

Took a while, but finally got it figured out - Thank you for the pointers Dr.