Hi folks. I'm having difficulty getting this to look right and then produce a watertight model for 3D printing.

Here is the original model without the blend



Here is my poor attempt at a blend



There are strange overlaps and it refuses to boolean together to make a solid. Thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated.

cheers,

Chris

PS-I tried to post the 3DM file, but at 15mb it just gives me a 500 error. :(

Hi Chris, you might try zipping the file to make it smaller, or also since your question is about a localized region of the object if you deleted all the faces that were not in that general area that would make a much smaller file. If it's still too big you could use a cloud based file sharing service like Dropbox to host the file and then give the sharing link to it here.

It will be difficult to give advice without seeing the .3dm file though.

- Michael

Thanks Michael. I had this realization just before reading your message. It's late. LOL

C.

Hi Chris, one tip that I can give without seeing the file here is to hide your new blend for a moment, then delete the existing faces in that area opening up a hole, and then show the blend and select it and your main object and run Edit > Join to glue them together.

Boolean operations are going to try and intersect the objects together which is going to be complex with pieces barely skimming over each other like that.

Join will only glue things together where they have unattached edges touching each other. Join won't do any intersection or attempt to removal material like booleans do.

- Michael

Hi Chris,
your problem is the top upright width does not match the base see photo.
I have amended it in the attached file. Also to achieve a good blend I rebuilt
the curves of the upright into one so the blend could be done in one.

Hope this helps.

Barry

Thank you Barry! Sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes.

Chris

Voila! An SLA print of the design in question, plus a few friends.

Cheers,

Chris

La vie du Rail! ;)