Thread: TurboCAD drawings of a rocker side rail

MidgeCad.

One minute to produce, but the learning curve is more than 50 years, (and you need a drawing board!)

Nice work Rocker, can hardly wait to see the final animated rendering with the shadows moving!

Regards,

P (Keep this up and you can be my CAD man any day!)

Midge,

The only problem with MidgeCAD is that I believe it lacks accurate dimensioning facilities, and requires a separate drawing for each view; but I take your point that a good pencil-and-paper draftsman can produce a serviceable drawing far more quickly. However, people like me, who are totally lacking in artistic talent, can now aspire to produce drawings of publishable quality with the help of CAD. Meanwhile, it is keeping me usefully employed and entertained until it is cool enough to work comfortably in the shed again.

Rocker

Now I feel sad.

Never confuse artistic talent with merely having the ability to draw!!

P
(Happy again!)

Originally Posted by Rocker

Midge,

Meanwhile, it is keeping me usefully employed and entertained until it is cool enough to work comfortably in the shed again.

Rocker

Perhaps you might call it "farting around"!

Very nice Rocker you are getting the hang of it. Did you sort out the ACIS settings you were having problems with?

Originally Posted by DPB

Perhaps you might call it "farting around"!

Touche!!!

Dang it, SilentC, you took the word out of my mouth - but being a bit anal, I was going to spell it "Touché"

David,
Yes, I resolved the ACIS problems, but I am still wrestling a bit with workplanes and coordinate systems. Now that I am a fair way up the learning curve of TurboCAD, I have to say that, for 2D drafting, which is all that is needed for designing cabinets, I prefer AutoSketch, which provides much more useful information in its Edit bar (the equivalent of TurboCAD's Inspector bar). Admittedly, you can find out the same information from TurboCAD by measuring distances, angles and radii, but it is less easily available. However, TurboCAD Pro has lots of powerful 3D features which make it excellent for producing illustrations of publication standard.

I have also found some limitations in TurboCAD; for instance it does not seem to like rounding edges that consist of splined curves, such as the back legs of my rocker - I think I shall have to draw them by lofting a set of profiles. Also most of the woods in TurboCAD's Materials look pretty unrealistic. Probably they could be improved by some judicious tweaking of their parameters, but I haven't yet got round to trying. I am wondering if it is possible to take digital pictures of timbers and include them as custom items in TurboCAD's materials.

Rocker

Midge,

Whilst I agree that MidgeCAD is quicker for producing 3D sketches, it falls down seriously on dimensioning. I drew this design for a DVD cabinet (a knock-off of gold leader's recent post) in AutoSketch in about 20 minutes, and was then able to compile an accurate cutting list for all the parts by reading the dimensions off the screen. I was then able to determine with the aid of a calculator that the 7.5 m of 200 x 25 blackwood that I have in stock would be sufficient to complete the cabinet.

Rocker

MidgeCAD

I've heard that MidgeCAD is full of bugs. It can also be difficult and it's behaviour is a little cantankerous. Freight is brutal when you order one over the net. MidgeCAD is not recommended.

Rocker (and Grunt!),

But I haven't told you about MidgeCadLite2d!

Attached is the actual working drawing for the recently almost completed Fumping Bench, you'll see that one can make amendments on the fly, and there's no need for a cutting list either!

Dimensioning is problematic rather than automatic, but the result was almost square!

It works like this:

1) Prepare concept in MidgeCad (35 seconds)
2) Measure Stock on hand and modify MidgeCad Drawing (2 minutes)
3) Prepare cutting list in the margin, don't use a calculator as errors will assist with that genuine "hand made" look.
4) Cut out the bits in a flurry of activity, then come back in a year or so and assemble without reference to the drawing!

Like all software, you just need a "feel" for it I guess!

And Grunt, the freight is really modest when you consider the amount of personal training that comes with the package.... plus you get to use your own dongle! (You sure as heck aren't touching mine!)

Cheers,

P

Midge, that is a more detailed plan than the ones I work from.

I usually prepare the concept plan in my head during commercial breaks while watching TV and just jot down the cutting list when I get to the workshop. No such complex drawing stage.


Peter.

Originally Posted by Sturdee

Midge, that is a more detailed plan than the ones I work from.

So can I interest you in the software then??



P

Rocker,

Like you I'm trying to learn CAD. I have Ironcad.
These took about 90 minutes.
With the woodgrain finish you should be able to load up numerous types as they are only an image file tiled similar to windows desktop.

regards

Darren

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

So can I interest you in the software then??



P

By all means send me the demo version for evaluation as long as it works on a real computer.

I'll give it a try and if I like it I'll get our resident computer whiz ( my daughter) to reverse engineer the code and work out the crack to make it a proper version.


Peter.