I am having no luck creating a solid from a loft. I start with a two profiles and two sweeps. Each form individual solids. I then use "loft" to connect the two solids. Loft works perfectly to fill the gap, but, the gap formed by the loft cannot be combined with the two solids to form a single solid. I need to form a single solid from each sweep and the loft for further processing. Does anyone have any suggestions? Boolean Union does not work.

Hi Bob, I don't see the Loft that you mentioned in your attached file - how are you constructing that loft, is it in some individual surfaces kind of piece by piece?

If so then you would want to use the Edit > Join command to glue those pieces together into a solid.

Boolean union is meant to be used more for cases where 2 objects are kind of pushing through each other and some material has to be cut away from them.

If you have surfaces that touch each other edge-to-edge then it's often better to use the Join command for that (particularly if you've got a bunch of individual surface pieces, since booleans are also focused on working on volumes as well) - the Join command is focused on gluing together surfaces that touch at common edges and does not try to slice away any material like booleans do.

But in order to use the Join command the edges that you want to be join need to be unattached to other surfaces.

So for example in your case here there are some end caps on the ends of the sweeps, like this one here highlighted in yellow:



While that end cap is in place there you won't be able to join the side sweep surfaces to some connecting loft surfaces because the side sweep surfaces are already joined to that end cap. So you would want to remove that end cap (just select it and push Delete to delete it) so that the end was totally open and looked like this:



With those edges all open like that you can then use Join to glue some connecting loft surfaces to them, and once you have glued all open edges together you will then have a solid.

If you're still running into problems, could you please post a model version that has the loft surfaces in it as well so I can see what kind of connecting loft you are constructing?

- Michael

When you choose loft on those 2 shapes, be sure to select "exact" as an option....

Another method would be to loft each profile after joining the edges to make curves,

make sure you have Cap ends checked in the Loft options which makes the Loft a solid and the Boolean union will work.




Cheers
~Danny~

Good Evening, Everyone....

Thanks to all who have responded. I am attaching 4 examples. Shape 1 is the original.

Shape 2 is where I have selected the curves on each half and joined them without removing
the end cap. It worked when I selected "cap ends" and I Boolean=>Unioned. Each section was recognized as a solid. Great! Apparently the "cap ends" choice was the difference.

Shape 3 is where I removed the cap ends, joined the curves and ran loft. None of the sections was
any longer recognized as a solid nor could I Union them.

Shape 4 is where I experimented with turning "Cap ends" and determined that was the culprit.
I've left Shape 4 as a candidate for lofting where I have joined both curves. I did not remove
the end caps before I ran the loft. It was the option "Cap ends" that determined if the result
was a solid or non-solids. You can simply use the Loft option, select the two curves and make
sure "Cap ends" is selected. Voila! perfect.

Thanks Everyone....I can now engrave the shanks with text as solids.

Hi Bob, yup if you want to use boolean union you will want to form the various pieces as solids, since the booleans are oriented towards working on solids.

It can sometimes not be quite as easy to make each piece a solid though, particularly if the end profiles of your shapes are not planar - the end cap option in the various surfacing commands like extrude, sweep, loft, only know how to automatically cap planar ends.

So if it is not easy to make the connector piece as a solid, then you can use the other technique that I described above where you can glue 2 surfaces that touch each other along an edge using the Join command. If you're using this technique then that's when you would delete any end caps because the Join command joins together open edges that are not already attached to something.

Does that make sense?

Working with solids at each stage can often be a convenient way to do things though, so yes if you plan to use boolean operations to combine things together you'll want to form each piece as a solid meaning having the end cap option enabled when you create each piece.

- Michael

Thank You, Michael...

Each time I work on a new project I learn something new and each time it becomes a bit easier.

I do appreciate all of the time you and your forum members take to help those of us who are
beginners. I can always count on someone coming through with a tip or trick to make the
task easier or solve my problem.

Thanks everyone...Bob