Continue to Site

Welcome to MCAD Central

Join our MCAD Central community forums, the largest resource for MCAD (Mechanical Computer-Aided Design) professionals, including files, forums, jobs, articles, calendar, and more.

Register Log in

Modeling a Motorcycle frame?

N

nofalloff

New member
I'm trying to model a vintage motorcycle frame that I will hopefully make by bending tubing and welding together. I want to be able to create drawings of each individual member of the frame so I can plot 1:1 drawings to compare the parts to as I bend them. Would it be smart to model the frame as an assembly so I could do drawings of each piece, or can that be done if I model the frame as one part?
 
look at this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8exTmHo5IYQ


video made by "design engine"


smiley4.gif



//Tobias
 
that's a great technique, but I cant see what he's doing otherwisw because the image is so small theres no detail.
 
nofalloff,

you can view a 360 view of a variety of motorcycle frames at this site:
<a href="http://www.rollingthunderframes.com/results.html" target="_blank">
http://www.rollingthunderframes.com/results.html</a>

not exactly vintage, but you can get some ideas for a layout. It seems DE is suggesting the robust skeleton curve method to allow you to tweak the results. Makes sense to me...maybe I should model a bike like these:

http://www.v2revolution.com/en-AMDRanking.htm

M
 
magneplanar said:
nofalloff,

you can view a 360 view of a variety of motorcycle frames at this site:
Click to expand...

I have already measure the frame I'm planning on copying the geometry of. My problem is understanding the best way to go about building the model. I made one attempt creating a skeleton part using the DXF of 2D sketch of the elements of the frame taken by measuring the original. Then I created another part in the assembly and swept thin protrusions along the trajectories of the skeleton. This gave me the frame as one part. I need to make 1:1 plots of the individual frame members so that when I bend them I can lay the tubs on to the drawings to see if they are bent correctly. If the frame is one part I don't know how to do this. So I though that maybe modeling the frame as an assembly, where each component was created as it's own part may make it easier to do the drawings of individual tubes.
 
notalloff,
from production point of view it makes sense that you create assembly, since you will probably have welded piece (frame) made of steel tubes. You will need to bend each individual tube and then cut them to fit to the frame (each tube will be produced as a piece). In assembly, you can create skeleton to drive the geometry, otherwise this is a little bit hard to achieve (in case of one part) or is at least not very clear.
 
notalloff,

I would say the question you should think about is will you want to modify the shape or parts. If you do, then I suggest you build it as one part and copy geometry for each of the sub-parts. I would say many ID's are made from a model that you copy pieces of to split the original, and new parts for those that are not evident to the outside.

In your case, you seem to have dimensions and fixed details. It is certainly possible to build in the assembly then. I suggest you add extra length to a tube, for instance. Then use either copy geometry, or a cutout feature, to trim back the tube to match the next mating parts. You will then have a resulting part that fits exactly with the next part. I don't think you mean to manufacture this so you don't need alot of tolerance space built in. You would have significant inter-part dependencies which you would have to be careful of, even to the point of making the feature independent, in some cases.

show some screen shots so we can see your progress and imagine our own techniques to do the same.

cheers,

M
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Sponsor

Articles From 3DCAD World

Back
Top