Heywood Coupler Renderings....

[W.P. Rayner]

I've been working on a gas pump drawing for another member of this forum and becoming frustrated with progress on that, turned to what I thought would be the simple task of drawing up the parts of the Heywood Coupler. Two and a half days later and following many colourfully expressive moments, I completed the preliminary renderings below of the coupler body. For a seemingly simple part, it was actually quite difficult to draw in 3D. Next to draw is the "hook" (two versions: one lettered for Duffield Bank Railway, the other for Eaton Railway). Once complete the file will be sent for rapid prototyping in 1:12 & 1:6.





Paul

[EZnKY]

Very, very nice Paul.  I feel your pain with the digital modeling.  It's getting all the various fillets to work that trips me up.  I always seem to get to a point where the geometry falls apart or the computer stops being able to render the form.

[Frederic Testard]

In any case, the part is very nice.

[W.P. Rayner]

Thank you gentlemen...

It's getting all the various fillets to work that trips me up.  I always seem to get to a point where the geometry falls apart or the computer stops being able to render the form.

That's a frequent problem Eric. Proper sequencing of the application of unions and fillets is very important. Get the sequence wrong and the software won't complete your request, generate a totally unexpected form or, in the worst cases, will shut down completely. Through the years of experience I've learned something about the sequencing but every once in a while, such as with this part, I have to rethink the entire process to get it to work properly. One problem I had with a particular fillet application traced back to a faulty union which resulted from a difference in dimension of .0000001" between the mating surfaces! Since I normally work to a tolerance of .000001, I had to change tolerance preferences in the software in order to track down the problem. Dimensioning was showing the parts as being the same when in actual fact they weren't. It took ages to finally track that issue down...

Paul

[Chuck Doan]

It did come out well.

[W.P. Rayner]

Today I finished drawing the complete Heywood Coupler assembly. There are two versions of the "hook," one lettered for the Eaton Railway and the other for the Duffield Bank Railway. Renderings below show the two versions plus a view from beneath. Additional renderings can be seen at the Roughboy site. Next step is to have the coupler components (minus the pivot pin) rapid prototyped in 1:12 and 1:6 scales.







Paul

[EZnKY]

Wow - nice work Paul!

[W.P. Rayner]

Thanks Eric... Today I revised the renderings with improved textures and a few other changes. The new versions replace the old in the post below.

Paul

[Ken Hamilton]

Holy Crap.  Those drawings are amazing.

[finescalerr]

You are revoltingly competent. -- Russ

[pwranta193]

It's always so nice to see someone do so well with their first time use of the CAD programs  (I keep looking for the smiley face of me driving the rail spike through my temple).

Paul - these are some amazing images... looking at your page, I take it this is something that you've done for more than a semester or two.  These are beautifully done - and I ogle at the complexity of the fittings (organic shapes) and what they must take to do in 3D.

While knowing nothing about rail stuff, I'm digging the design work in your threads.

Paul (W.R.) 

[Chuck Doan]

I thought I noticed some texture...nice!

[EZnKY]

Even better Paul!

[W.P. Rayner]

Thanks guys...

Yes Paul, I have been doing this for a while  .  The good thing is though, just about every time I work on a drawing, I learn something new about the software and process or figure out a better way to accomplish what I need. Organic shapes are especially difficult. I think it took just about the same amount of computer time to draw the coupler as it did to draw the entire van superstructure. As with anything worth doing, the learning curve never ends...

Paul

[W.P. Rayner]

Getting back to work on the Heywood couplers... Here is a rendering of the two versions of the standard Heywood freight coupler, one for Eaton Railway, the other for Duffield Bank. I'm still working on the passenger versions which differ in their mounting as they were mounted directly to the bogie. These were originally drawn and rendered in Cobalt. I've just reworked them in Autodesk Inventor and rendered them in KeyShot. Next step is to separate the individual components and sprue them up in preparation for rapid prototyping.



Paul