Alternative to Shell?

larry_athey

Apparently, the Shell tool isn't what I'm needing, but the attached screenshot will show what I'm wanting to accomplish. Yes, I'm still a newbie to the CAD world and have only been "trying" to learn this for a few months now. What would be the alternative to the Shell tool in order to take the ends out of this extruded cross?

mahir

Shell should still work fine. The Shell feature lets you select more than one face to remove.

mahir

Shell should still work fine. The Shell feature lets you select more than one face to remove.

PeteYodis

@larry_athey You could copy the part, perform a scale on the copy to get your wall thickness, then modify the copy to suit (move faces).  Finally perform a boolean subtract between the modified copy and the part you want to subtract from.

larry_athey

Thanks Mahir! I didn't realize that you could actually do that. Yep, I'm still learning. :-)

PeteYodis

or what Mahir said... the advantage of the copy part method is that you currently get different wall thicknesses in different areas if needed.

larry_athey

I'm just making something that I can quickly 3D print to hold cardboard dividers together at the top. How does anybody ever remember what all of these tools can do?

thomas_kozak

You can select the end faces as well as the top face when you're setting up the Shell feature, which will leave you with only the angle walls being raised. There are other ways as well, such as Delete Face.  Edit: should have refreshed page before answering.

billy2

Larry-

I avoid shell on complex models and rely on building the inner & outer geometry. It's actually faster to build it manually on complex parts than using the shell command.

I think with your geometry, you'd fine this approach much more rigorous/tedious. I agree with mahir and would stick with the shell command. For what you're doing, it's best.