Hi Ryan, so here is an example of what I mean by making larger pieces more all at once.
I started with this curve setup, which I built by mirroring your original path curve and then using Construct > Blend to make a smooth connecting curve between the pieces, and then Edit > Join to glue them together into one combined curve object:
Then I selected these 2 curves as the profiles:
And did the Construct > Sweep command to sweep those profiles along the rail to build this result:
Now that is ready to be converted into a solid (Sweep will automatically convert some kinds of things into a solid by capping the ends of a tube, but in this case it's more like the "sides of a tube" actually so this one you need to cap with one extra step) by selecting it and running Construct > Planar which will cap off planar open holes in an object, which results in this solid:
That's a file attached here as RyanModel2.3dm if you want to look at the geometry.
Now that you've got a piece built as a solid it can be more easily combined with other pieces by using booleans, like for example here I drew a polyline in the Front view:
Now you can select your solid, and run Boolean Difference and use the line as a cutting object to cut it into 2 pieces like this:
And then delete the piece you don't want:
But one of the main ways to kind of speed things up is to try and invest more time in the initial curve setup and try to build somewhat larger chunks of your model at the same time if possible.
You can kind of get an idea that if you do this with several pieces, you can form components and then combine the components together with booleans...
Hope this helps!
It takes a little while to get used to how to think strategically about how to build your model with fewer steps... One big tip though is to try to spend more time thinking about getting curves arranged and accurately placed as the starting point.
- Michael
