Suggestion or help - Trying to remove material on a sphere with a drafted cut

mj_powers

Hello,

I'm trying to model a hamster ball and I need to cut out air/drainage slots.

I need to remove material with a draft.

I thought I could create a surface and then thicken it to use a boolean subtract - but the thicken has no draft.

Any suggestions? I will also need to pattern the feature around the spherical surface

thanks,

Matt

PeteYodis

@mj_powers There should be several ways to skin the cat here.  I might model a body/part that represents the removal and use a draft feature to make the draft as you want.  Next, boolean subtract the removal part.  Next, face pattern the faces.  

john_mcclary

I agree with Pete except for the face pattern.

I would create a tool to "stamp' the contour (like Pete said) but then "Part - Pattern" that around the sphere with the "remove" option selected.
That should save you a feature on the tree and a bunch of selections. It will also make your pattern update properly if you modify the tool body by adding fillets or something later on.

mj_powers

Thanks - got the feature worked out by creating a stamp - cut - pattern.

But, honestly if the Thicken feature had a loft option this would be a no-brainer simple way to make drafted cuts and holes in curved plastic surfaces.

Just wondering if adding draft option to the thicken command is already in the "feature request" section???