A Curved Crest Rail?

Copy and Paste yours. ROFLOL :) !!!

-- Rick

Hmmmm…... Interesting. :-D

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

I had a good, long look at that picture.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Uh-
I haven’t a clue. Not the first idea of where to start.
YOU WIN!
I’l patiently await the revelation.
d

-- If a man says something in the forest and there's no woman to hear it, is he still wrong?

Hi Don,

I didn’t mean this to be a contest. I just wanted to get folks thinking.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Just kidding, Dave.
Just kidding.
I’ll still wait to see how its done. I can’t even think how to get going on it.
d

-- If a man says something in the forest and there's no woman to hear it, is he still wrong?

I call you and have you do it for me!

-- Paul Sayre Creativity is a drug I cannot live without. Cecil B. DeMille (1881 - 1959)

You guys know all the tricks. :-D

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

At the moment I have a totally flat crest rail. Still trying to figure out how to bend the thing

-- Use the fence Luke

Doug, that’s an excellent place to start. All you need is the next step.

FWIW, I’ll repeat that this wasn’t meant to be a contest. I really do hope to get all of you thinking about how to approach things as you are working in SketchUp. I believe you can actually teach yourself a lot about drawing with the program as you try to draw difficult things. It really is the same with woodworking. As you push yourself to try new things, you will likely discover other applications for what you are learning. It’s also a good thing to know how to make use of the resources available to you.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Got it! At least the basic how-to. My current endeavor is loaded with artifacts but i got it far enogh along to think I’m on the right track.
1) Draw an arc
2) Draw a rectangle about an inch taller (both edges) than the crest rail and as thick as you want the rail
3) Extrude that rectangle along the arc to make a curved plate
4) Draw a flat rail with the radiused ends and top curves. I did one half then copied/flipped so both halves were symettrical then moved them together in the center
5) Push-Pull that flat one thrugh the curved plate
6) Intersect with model and start deleting the excess junk

-- Use the fence Luke

Doug, that’s a good description. Could you post a screen shot as an example of the result? Does it look like what you might get if you were making it from a piece of wood?

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Well I goofed and exported 2D pics and didnt think about the screen shots but I think this gets the jist of it, My rail shape isnt the same as your’s and my fore/aft curve is shallower too but I think you could do it the same way??
Create an arc for the fore/aft curve and a rectangle to extrude along the arc. Make the arc longer than your final crest rail and te rectangle taller

Extrude the rectangle to create a curved panel

Add some guidelines for where the flat (front view) rail profile needs to be drawn

Draw a rectangle for one half and start making the curved portions

Finish the shape and delete the surrounding rectangle

Copy/Flip that half

And move it to join up with the opposite half

Delete the vertical centerline between the 2 halves the push/pull it through the curved panel

Intersect with model

Start deleting the unwanted portions

Course Dave’s going to show us how to do this with 3 keystrokes and one hand tied behind his back:-))

-- Use the fence Luke

Doug, that’s pretty good and actually an excellent technique for some things. Try it with a deeper front to back curve just for fun.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Dave,
Would you kindly, yes patiently, explain what I did wrong here?

-- If a man says something in the forest and there's no woman to hear it, is he still wrong?

Don, I’m just guessing but since it happened to me in an example sent by a friend, you drew the straight line from right to left. Did you draw the straight line and the original component so the length was parallel to the red axis?

Draw the straight line from left to right working away from the origin. If you don’t the down arrow key will reverse it once you activate the script.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Try it with a deeper front to back curve just for fun.

I’m guessing that wont work out with the same method? Probably has the thickness at the ends tapering down to points instead of a constant thickness thru the whole raiil?

-- Use the fence Luke

It would get pointy at the ends, Doug. Here is an upside down version to show it more clearly.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Hmmm.
Would this work instead of push/pulling a single flat face through the curved panel ?

Push/Pull that face into a flat profile slab at least as thick as the overal depth on the curved panel.
Scale the back face of that so that the back face is wider than the front and the ends of it are angled to the amount needed to make an angled cut on the curved panel?
Move that flat slab through the curved panel and intersect it.
The ends of the curved panel would then end up angled and make the thickness constant instead of angling to a point?

-- Use the fence Luke

Might.

Seems like a lot more work though.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.