How to get a loft to follow a helix.

timothy_diller

I am making a tapered thread for an extruder. Material goes in the one end and gets pressed toward the other end where the thread needs to be narrower. I can get the sweep tool work from both the  beginning and the end  thread profiles using the helix as a guide but I cant get the loft tool to follow the helix.

Loft 1 is the one concerned in this studio, https://cad.onshape.com/documents/766b91957a463111a20e9813/w/a3642791f2c2fbcd4742184a/e/e42168ef3db3ea1cc101be48

timothy_diller

I constrained one vertex of each successive profile to the helix but it still wouldn't follow.

timothy_diller

Do I need to make a guide for each vertex?

NeilCooke

@timothy_diller you are going to have to do it in a number of smaller lofts. There is a trick with variables and patterns you can use to reduce the size of the profile on each turn, then use those sketches to drive the lofts with the path as the helix (with a large number of sections - also note the fixed constraint in the sketch which must be used due to a limitation with patterning a sketch feature). Not ideal, but should get you where you want to be with the least number of features.


https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e61f5e66a8899fdbc918ff5c/w/86eb2b6c8f097ffedfd15e66/e/1271a00f83144e5d8b074ccd