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I Forge Iron

Blacksmith CAD?


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I am currently in a machinist training program and one of the things we are learning is AutoCad. by chance one of my instructors is also a blacksmith in his spare time and he has told me that he once saw someone selling a version of CAD that was made with blacksmiths in mind. I have searched all over for some type of software like this but to no avail. I am terrible drawing, even with graph paper, so being able to draw a design in some type of CAD would be very nice. Anyone ever heard of such a thing?

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Google Sketchup has several blacksmithing plugins. Sketchup is a LOT easier and more intuitive than Autocad. I dumped my version of Autocad a couple days after downloading the Sketchup free edition. The first plugin I saw was a materials estimator for scrolls. Estimating needed materials can be one of the harder things to learn and having a cad program that will do it at a button push is sweet.

Oh yeah, Sketchup is 3D and there are LOTS of drawings for free download if you want to start with something someone else drew. I often look at what's available for things that are close enough to modify. I've been out of professional drafting long enough I don't keep up with much anymore, heck Autocad was the coming THING when I changed jobs. So, I'm sure there are other cad programs that work better or are easily modified for smithing, I just don't know about them.

Frosty The Lucky.

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I have Autocad Lt which is 2D and okay for simple work. I also have Alibre Design which is 3D but I don't use it often enough to be proficient. I have used Google Sketchup but not lately and I would have to warm up on it again. Mostly I do hand drawn sketches which are kind of rough. I just took a basic drawing class at the local college to refine my skills and I enjoyed it. I'll soon see how it works out in the shop. I guess I should look into Sketchup again especially since I didn't know about the plug-ins. Thanks for the tip Frosty.

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  • 4 months later...

Hi guys, hope you can help me with this, as ive hit a pretty big wall and realy need some advice.

 

What im trying to do is take a flat template ive made in 3DS Max or Autocad (this is all done, taken from a gauntlet design I bought)

 

Apply the bends needed to cover the area (in this case its a gauntlet)

 

Layer the peices together (make an assembley) so they fit together, then add more bend lines and alter their angles to allow for perfect articulation while alowing me to go back and edit the design.

(constraints will be setup so the peices cant enter one another, and axis setup where the rivets will be so i can see the range of motion)

 

Then reflatten the design back to the now altered template for cutting (pepakura can do this, and export to a laser cutting format)

 

This all should be well within the capabilities of the programs im using ( 3DS Max, Autocad, Inventor ) but im having a hell of a time actualy doing it, as they are not presented to be used in such a fashion.

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Simon, yeah - those programs can definitely do that, but finding someone with the experience here is going to be a challenge - You would be much better off on a 3DS board asking specific questions on how to cut the faces, add verticies, etc for things you will need for this project.  To do what your asking you will not need a lot of smiting experience, but would need programming experience for people familiar with whichever software platform you decide to go with.

 

Not that I doubt any knowledge on this board, but the specific information you will need is way more "Software" related as opposed to hammering metal.

 

Just my 2c.

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Yes, ... there is a lot of "specialized" CAD software out there.

 

But AutoCAD is the Industry Standard.

 

You can use anything you please to generate designs, for your own use, ... but the first time you want to "share" or "export" a drawing, ... any "bastard" software will prove to be a huge liability.

 

Simply stated, ... in my opinion, ... all those "Mickey Mouse" CAD programs, ... are toys.

 

Why would you waste your time, on a substandard tool ?

 

 

 

.

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Yes, ... there is a lot of "specialized" CAD software out there.

 

But AutoCAD is the Industry Standard.

 

You can use anything you please to generate designs, for your own use, ... but the first time you want to "share" or "export" a drawing, ... any "bastard" software will prove to be a huge liability.

 

Simply stated, ... in my opinion, ... all those "Mickey Mouse" CAD programs, ... are toys.

 

Why would you waste your time, on a substandard tool ?

 

 

 

.

Autocad is a dinosaur.  Most programs these days are 3d solids based.  Inventor is Autocad's 3D program.  Some of the others mentioned are respected CAD programs. 

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Hey Plane,

Before I got into software design I was a mechanical engineer and spent a fair amount of my time doing 3-D mechanical drawings with AutoCad, Pro-E and SolidWorks. With the geometries of the pieces you are trying to create I can't imagine you are going to be able to do this without using something like one of those applications. The cheap or free Cad programs are probably not going to be powerful enough to do what you want.

it is also going to be a serious undertaking and learning curve to try to do this. If you haven't done something like this before I would expect it to take you at least 40 hours (and maybe longer) to be able to fully model this. There will be a ton of trial and error with creating each one of those pieces. With most of those CAD programs there are a multitude of different ways you create each piece and there is no "correct" answer for how to go about doing it.

If you have your heart set on doing this yourself go to ebay or search around the web for an education version of SolidWorks. It is probably the easiest to use professional level 3-D modeling CAD application. You can create each one of the pieces as a 3-D model then build an assembly of all of your models

Since I haven't been doing this in a while I don't know if you can import 2D models from another application and then bend and or extrude them into a 3-D model but I would bet SolidWorks can do it.

If you are able to get this working I would love to see the full 3-D rendering. You could render the whole assembly in a steel finish and add automation pretty easily once the model is built.

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intrex isn't kidding about the learning curve.  I bought a cheap 2D cad program and found it to be mind numbingly difficult to learn.  While I'm sure there's a logic to the way it works, it's not obvious and the one thing I hear repeated over and again is how necessary it is to put in the time with it.  I still can't comprehend why changing something I've already drawn is so much harder than just re-drawing it.  To me it's a lot like editing a picture in Microsoft word.  There's about a .0005% chance that the program will highlight the correct thing I'm trying to select.  CAD is worse.

 

I have taken manual drafting courses, the logic behind CAD software isn't geared towards imitating manual drafting tools.

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I have been using CAD for 15 years and I've tried the cheap,the free, parametric and the big name packages and I have settled on Rhinoceros Nurbs as the best package for blacksmithing, especially for  organic modeling. You can download it from McNeels site and try it. It gives you 25 saves in demo mode and is reasonably priced should you buy it.

Rob  K

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Simon, my first question is WHY?  

 

Is your problem a learning exercise in CAD driven by an interest in metalworking?  If so then go for it.

 

 Are you looking for a precision method of mass producing a product?  If so you should look into laser or waterjet cutting of templates followed by a CNC press break.  Related to but not inside the scope of typical blacksmithing work.  Analyze your potential market for a c**p load of product produced by these methods because pretty quick you will have gauntlets coming out of your ears.  If after super precision be aware that when you bend steel it stretches and just hammering it flat and measuring afterwards will give slightly larger measurements.  

 

Do you just want a nice pair of gauntlets because they are cool in and of themselves?  Or for re-enactment combat?  Take a very close look at your hands.  They are covered in converging compound curves.  Not easy to draw in 2d CAD or cover in sheet stock using only single axis bends.  But the round end of a ball pien hammer can replicate the curve of a knuckle in sheet metal with a little (a few hundred hours) of practice.  This practice will have the added benefit of gaining you the skills needed for repair.  When some thug dents your gauntlets you will be fixing them with a hammer, not your CAD program.  

 

When you look at historic examples of armor or the best modern replicas you see curves.  That is because the human body and it's motions are curved by and large. 

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Judson made a very good point that I should have spoken to also.  As an engineer you would do this in a fully to spec 3D model so that the final design could be handed of to a machine shop that could produce your pieces to exact specs. This means that you will have to precisely define every curve, how the curves meet, along with every dimensional aspect of each part.  This might not seem like a huge deal until you try to do it. You would also be pretty confident that your design would work because of your assembly fitting correctly in the model.  You could also do stress and strength test analysis depending on the materials you choose to use.  This entire exercise is usually geared towards mass producing something and you don't mind spending weeks of an engineers time (or thousands of dollars) building a perfect model of a finished product you are going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars selling.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I use to use autoCAD and some off brand 3D modeling programs. I was wondering especially from the folks experienced with SoildWorks would Solid works be able to track actions such as twisting angle Iron. It would be useful when designing larger complex furnishings if some things could be built in cad and displayed to the potential customer and also testing physical stress points.  I have never used SoildWorks or Inventor. I no longer have access to the CAD programs I use to use as they were provided by the company I worked for. Paying $5k for software wouldn't be worth doing a single $200 job but Would be worth it if it helped land multiple high hundred dollar jobs or thousand dollar jobs.

 

I know I have done some repair work on some other peoples work when CAD modeling might be have been useful. A table someone made wobbled due to a poor choice of design. Basically ended up creating large springs that allowed the table to title and spring. I was able to keep the heart of the design in the table but I took a lot of time drafting sketches to show the customer to see what she considered acceptable in the end. Then before I made the modifications to the table I built a model to test and make sure that the final design would fit all the requirements, primarily no shaking. If I had been able to do this in a cad like Solid works it might have saved me some time.

 

Also does anyone have any experience with FabCAD, or Rhinoceros NURBS?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I started with the 30$ version of TurboCad and have upgraded to the 150$ professional version. Get it off ebay or IMSI.com.  It has nurbs surfaces and all sorts of sheet metal unfolding tools designed for HVAC work, stairs, railings, lofting, etc. I use the heck out of the 2d functions for my little CNC plasma table. Pretty amazing- needing a quick bracket or whatever, drawing it up, cutting it out and holding it in your hands in a matter of minutes.  I will say any CAD capability you give yourself will help immensely with getting your point across to clients. Instead of wasting time making samples that get rejected, make a drawing of it instead. It's really helped my business be more efficient

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  • 2 years later...

I'm jumping in on this old thread with my personal CAD story comments. I've been using AutoCAD daily at my regular job for about 23 years. For about the last 10 years I have had a work laptop with AutoCAD, Inventor, Navisworks, etc. on it that I would use at home in the evenings when I wanted to design something. At home a sample of what I have used a 2D drafting program for are the following; Sawmill design, forged hinge layouts, shed design, 2x72 grinder design, jigs, book shelves, casting patterns, knife designs.

About 3 months ago I got tired of lugging my laptop back and forth to work every day and decided to revive an old XP computer that had been sitting in the corner for a couple years. One of the first things I started looking for was an inexpensive CAD 2D program. I have tried a bunch but what I really wanted was something that used the same commands and drawing steps as my work AutoCAD program. I also wanted it to be able to open my old AutoCAD files and save to the .dwg format so I could open files at work if desired. While I could learn a new program I am really really familiar with AutoCAD and I kept on searching around in the other programs looking for the equivalent AutoCAD command and at times there wasn't one and different steps were required for a drawing step. Well I think I finally found what I was looking for this past weekend. I downloaded a free copy of progeCAD 2009 and it works like AutoCAD. One final test was to open a ProgeCAD 2009 drawing file using my work computer and it opened just fine. I plan to use it for personal projects and so the free version is fine. It is a 2D program and that is fine. Another good feature is that it does not overload my old Windows XP machine.

Some of the programs that I tried and rejected are the following: TurboCAD LTE, LibreCAD, A9CAD, QCAD, DoubleCAD, DraftSight32.

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