Greetings everyone. This is my 1st post, so please be gentile.
I am borrowing a friends computer to teach myself Solidoworks in a serious CRASH COURSE.
I have a part I need to sand cast within the next week for a trade show. I will be machining the part from mahogany, and driving it to our local aluminum foundry next week "If I can get the model built in SW fast enough"
My friend, knew the basics of SW, and has been using it for a few years. I originally built this part in AutoCAD 3D myself, but quickly ran into all of AutoCAD's modeling limitations. So I opted to jump right into SW and get it done "right"
Well let me tell you, for never having touched SW before, this program has one hell of a steep learning curve.
Well, unfortunately, I blew right past my buddies skill level, and went straight into complex lofting.
I sat down for a week, and watched every lofting video I could find on YouTube, and jumped in feet 1st.
Within 1 week, I had the basic model built. Right now, I am fine tuning and tweaking the finer details of the model.
However... I am STUCK at the moment....
In the picture below, you can see the model I'm working with. What I need, is to be able to use the 3 bottom surfaces off the ribs on each leg, to create a solid 3D surface to support the entire part for the sand casting process.
The problem seems to be, the 2 sketches, and the 3D spline I used to create the loft, seem to be "theoretical" in space. Solidworks doesn't seem to be able to use the loft itself as reference material, to create another 3D surface from.
Somehow, I need to use the bottom surfaces, to make a NEW 3D surface/part. I have a mock-up model I made in AutoCAD, but it does not follow the same exact path as the SW loft. So I need to be able to do everything in SW.
I am adding a photo of the part, and a photo of the ACAD base I need to build in SW.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The surface I need to build in SW from the above loft surfaces
I have uploaded a copy of the part if anyone should want to take a closer look.
http://www.carveraudio.com/Downloads/BaseCopy.SLDPRT
SolidworksParts And Features