Form a Part to a Curve?

Sky777

I am creating bristles for a roller brush, and I need to be able to form the Part shown below (Part 2, the toothed Part) to the curve shown below (Curve 1, The Helix) I cannot find a tool to do this. The main reason I need to do this is to be able to make the Part look correct in an assembly in OnShape, so if there is a way to do this in the Assembly tab, then I will do that instead. I cannot find a way or tool to do either. Is there perhaps some way to bend the Part?

Alex_Kempen

You're not going to be able to bend the existing part onto the curve, but you should be able to model the brush following the path of the curve fairly easily. Start by sweeping a sketch profile of the main body of the brush along the curve, then use a curve pattern to pattern a single bristle along the helix as well.

The Sweep feature help page
The Curve pattern feature help page

shawn_crocker

I would try searching for a custom feature.  There are people doing some amazing work with featurescript and I am constantly amazed at the extra functionality that is just waiting to be used, offered up by wonderfully open, smart and sharing individuals.

Sky777

shawn_crocker said:

I would try searching for a custom feature.  There are people doing some amazing work with featurescript and I am constantly amazed at the extra functionality that is just waiting to be used, offered up by wonderfully open, smart and sharing individuals.

@shawn_crocker Ok, Thank you very much! I have found some great custom features, I just don't know what to search for on this one. Will continue looking. Thanks for your input!

Sky777

Alex_Kempen said:

You're not going to be able to bend the existing part onto the curve, but you should be able to model the brush following the path of the curve fairly easily. Start by sweeping a sketch profile of the main body of the brush along the curve, then use a curve pattern to pattern a single bristle along the helix as well.

The Sweep feature help page
The Curve pattern feature help page

@Alex_Kempen Thank you! I am not quite sure what you mean by using a curve pattern to pattern a single bristle, though. Could you expound upon that statement? Thank you very much for helping!

MichaelPascoe

Like @Alex_Kempen said, Curve pattern will work well for this.

Try something like this:

• Sweep the profile you want along a curved path (Make sure the profile is normal to the path)
• Extrude a single bristle template at the start of the path. 
• Curve pattern remove the bristle template along the path (I extended the path by one bristle with Extrude so that the curve pattern will not end on an empty space)

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/acd30775f1fefc24c74eb340/w/5daa7369b967b85a76dfff92/e/5809ca462f0b6a94ebe96528

Sky777

@MichaelPascoe Wow, thank you! I did not think of this before. I will use this method. Thank you very much!