Reverse Engineering: Making the First Piece!

THE WINNER OF THE REVERSE ENGINEERING SELECTION:

BEARGUY GUNDAM KIT! 

Difficulty 5/5 

For this project I decided to use my Limited Edition Golden Petite Bearguy as my model because who doesn't love gold right? Above is a picture of the kit put together and complete. Below is the kit contents and pieces before being put together.

Before I started anything in Rhino I decided on which piece to begin with. I chose to start on the small round "joint" pieces. I thought "hey this will be easy peasy" but oh was I wrong! This tiny ball joint took me over 2 hours to make, as it turned out to be a lot more complicated than expected, so the rest of the model will be a whole lot of fun. Here is part of my process for making this part.

Step one

First thing I did was take all my measurements with my caliper and wrote them down on the model kits assembly book beside the image of the part. This is to help remember the measurements and make it possible to check my notes after I make each part to be sure everything is the correct sizes.

Step Two

I made a circle and then used the Revolve function to turn it into a sphere. If there is an easier way to make a sphere I have no idea what it is so this was how I did it! haha

Step Three

This is where things got complicated...Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I left on "Both sides" to the extrude option which made my life hard. Oops! So, I made my tube through the middle to create the lip of the model and made the length equal to the size measured on my caliper from the top of the lip to the bottom of the sphere for the size. This of course left a big tube on the bottom of the sphere that I did not want there. While the bottom of the object is flat, its not THAT much of the bottom taken off so this was throwing off all my measurements. It took me way too long to figure out how to work around this and get rid of half of that sphere. 

I forgot to picture it because I was so confused. How I resolved this and took off part of the bottom took me far too long to figure out. I tried Split function about 1000 times but i couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work. I remember seeing something similar in class but couldn't remember how it was done. So I decided to make a Rectangle with a Extruded height of 0.01 and i was able to use that as a split object to cut off the bottom of that tube. Best way to do this? Not sure.

Step Four

I used the same Rectangle shape Extruded to 0.01 to chop off the bottom of the model with Split as well. It took me a while to realize that I HAVE to be in the "side" views with only the 2D info in Rhino in order to use the snapping options in the Move function. I snapped the center of the rectangle to the Quad of the sphere with Osnap, then Split it off and deleted the bottom section.

Step Five

The last thing I needed to do was add the hole. The hole in this model goes all the way through to the bottom of the sphere. Thinking about it now, I probably could have just avoided the previous step of chopping off the bottom of the sphere with the Split function, as making this hole though the middle of the sphere would have done the same thing without all the extra steps. Oops! Lesson learned. So many things I learn only after I have to look back on what I was doing. To do this I offset the circle, Extrude it all the way through the model and Boolean Difference from the sphere. For a long time this method just would not work and i couldn't figure out why! Turns out I really needed to Join and Boolean Union the model in order to Boolean Difference it properly without the entire model going wonky.

Step Six

Everything looks good but for this project its crucial to have very accurate measurements so I used the Linear Dimension function to double check all the different measurements to be sure it is accurate once I'm finished my model. I did keep checking after each step just to make sure I was on track, but its important to check it after completion also, just in case. I was pleasantly surprised to see all was exactly right! Woohoo!

Last Step

We are finished our first part! But, because this kit requires six of these models my last step was to Copy and Paste this model another five times and place them off to the side. We are now ready to move on to the next pieces! 

The original model piece and my end result of the Rhino made piece

BONUS

Another part started... (the base/stand) to be continued...

Again I had a series of extreme difficulty with this with certain commands not working properly like Fillet and Chamfer. I had to change the order that I did things and start over about 1000 times before I finally got it to work the way I needed it to.

Same process of Measure...

Draw 2D, Trim...

Extrude, Fillet, Chamfer...

(Top view)

Shell...And done!

(Bottom view)

Thanks for sticking with me for this process! I know it is a long one, but it will only get harder and longer the further i get into it. Wish me lots of luck! That's all for tonight, so goodnight and keep on crafting!