Best workflow/tools for creating smooth compound curves on a ring (not blocky boolean results)

scott_matheson494

Hi all,

I’m working on a signet-style ring design that involves smooth compound curves (ergonomic band, tapered sides, subtle flats and bevels), and I’m trying to find the right modeling approach in Onshape rather than brute-forcing it.

What I’ve tried so far:

• Created a rectangular block
• Placed reference images of the ring on the top, front, and side faces
• Used remove extrude operations to carve away excess material

This technically worked, but the result was very blocky, and I couldn’t find a clean or controllable way to smooth it out afterward. Fillets alone didn’t really solve the underlying geometry.

I’m not looking for someone to model the ring for me — I’m happy to do the learning and work. What I’m hoping for is guidance on:

• Which tools/features are best suited for this kind of compound curvature
• Whether this should be approached with lofts, sweeps, boundary surfaces, guide curves, or surface modeling rather than solids-first booleans
• Any recommended workflow patterns for organic-but-controlled shapes like rings

This will eventually be 3D printed, so I’m also trying to keep the geometry clean and manufacturable.

If there’s a fundamentally better way to think about this shape than carving from a block, I’m open to rethinking the approach.

Thanks in advance.

MichaelPascoe

There are a few ways to do it.

Here is how I would approach it:

• Loft this shape as a solid using profiles similar to these rough sketches.
  You could offset these sketch faces as surfaces then mirror them so that you could do one large loft.

• Next Loft this surface and use it to Split the excess material off the side of the ring:
  
• Split the part here using a mate connector as a guide:
  
• Use a Sketch and offset this face for the indent which you can create with an Extrude.
  
• Sketch this shape as filled paths then use it to Split the faces of the ring. From there you can use the Move face tool to make the grooves.
  
• Use the Chamfer tool for this edge:
  
• Extrude remove a circular sketch to get the inside hollow: