Hi Bill,

> How I did this is I started by drawing curves with points and
> then used the network feature to make the surface

So you do definitely want to draw curves to create stuff like this but try to focus first on the full overall surface contour that you want to have and then start by building a larger surface that has that overall form to it.

Then slice off pieces of that larger surface with other profiles in order to get the final outline rather than trying to generate surfaces directly to them right from the start.

It's a lot more difficult to get a good result by only using direct surfacing for everything.

Basically stuff that should be smooth to one another is usually best to be made up of one big surface instead of a lot of smaller fragments.

It's really hard to get good quality with the fragmented type approach - having a lot of extra edges in the patchwork is another thing that makes it much more difficult for filleting - areas where you have things like 5 or 6 edges all radiating out from a single point will also make for much more difficult corner patching situations for the filleting.

- Michael

Hi Bill,

Not sure what the dowel shapes on the underside of your object are, but here is an approach
to create a more uniform solid that will fillet more easily.

I traced a top view and created 4 contours that I lofted, then used the top trace to boolean intersect
with the lofted face. If you Show points on the result you can work with a simple cage to smooth if you wish.

3DM file attached....

HTH



EDIT: you have to be fast to post before Michael... ;)

Hi danperk, well more examples certainly won't hurt anything! :)

- Michael

Not exactly the same methods ;)

Wow what great instruction you guys are great and I really appreciate the help. Now all I have to do is work on doing it the correct way. I'm sure I will have other questions that come up but it is nice to know that this forum is so responsive and helpful.
Thanks again
Bill