Offset for manual router templates

daniel_splawski

I'm building a bench wooden bench for my young niece for Christmas.  I don't have access a CNC so I'm planning on 3d printing templates and using a combination of flush trim router bits and guide bushings with standard router bits to cut out the parts.   Last night I cut a few test pieces and I had a lot of difficulty with using the flush trim bits to do the final cuts, likely because I was forced to cut the entire 3/4" depth of the piece at once.  I did my roughing cuts using guide bushings and everything went smoothly, so I'm hoping to re-print the jigs to eliminate the flush trim bit.  

In the attached model, I'm running in to trouble offsetting the outline of the text to create the correctly sized jig.  I've tried using both the sketch offset tool, the move face tool and the offset surface tool, but they either fail or it takes an incredibly long time to find a process that works for each part.  The problem likely stems from the font that I've imported via the dxf file, but I'd prefer to find a solution that doesn't involved manually sketching all of the text.  

Who's got ideas?  

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/9d327086a2b2f1b17ed3489e/w/b8837c370037e255fe865427/e/25dd386b5f27363def767265


This link shows how the guide bushing works. 
http://dimar-canada.com/products.php?m=56&idp=98

kevin_o_toole_1

For this I would suggest the thicken tool (with either the add or subtract option, depending on which way you want to do your offset).

It's possible that the resulting geometry you want has some self-intersect issues (causing the failure in some of the other methods you tried), but the thicken tool is a little more robust and, if it fails, it will highlight the problematic geometry so you know what part needs fixing.

(Great design, btw. Clearly made with love!)

kevin_o_toole_1

For this I would suggest the thicken tool (with either the add or subtract option, depending on which way you want to do your offset).

It's possible that the resulting geometry you want has some self-intersect issues (causing the failure in some of the other methods you tried), but the thicken tool is a little more robust and, if it fails, it will highlight the problematic geometry so you know what part needs fixing.

(Great design, btw. Clearly made with love!)

daniel_splawski

The thicken command worked perfectly, at least in the model.  Thanks Kevin

owen_sparks

Nice work!

Owen S

rex_hanson

I've got a similar problem. I imported a CAD model from Grab-Cad and then created some geometry to interface with it. I then performed a boolean operation to create perfect mating parts. I'm going to print the mating part with a 3D printer so I wanted to add a very small offset. If I add the offset to the boolean operation it fails. So then I tried using the thicken tool. This seems to work, except it leaves several really small lips of material around the edges. I also tried creating offset surfaces and then using the replace face option but that had similar problems. Not sure what to try next. Here is a link to my model. https://cad.onshape.com/documents/9e862dc61083856716a3b568/w/9518ac2e5bf0597d55ad12a6/e/05def64b3ee0bd111485c700
I've suppressed the last two features which are examples of my efforts to remove 0.015" of material. The boolean operation is near the top of the model tree.

MBartlett21

@rex_hanson
You can use delete face on the small lips that you want to remove

lana

@rex_hanson
Move face here works 

rex_hanson

Thank you!