Howto use the Groove Tool in FreeCAD's Part Design Workbench

Contents

  • 00:00 Introduction
  • 00:56 Creating a part to groove
  • 02:03 Sketching the grooves
  • 03:18 Exploration of the Groove tool's options
  • 04:26 Grooving around other planes
  • 06:33 Grooving around a dateline

 

The Groove Tool allows you to create grooves around an object. The groove is defined as a sketch that is not limited to simple geometric shapes - although they tend to be in the work that we do.

Warning

The Groove Tool allows you to create grooves that are internal to an object. This as limited use within wood working projects because internal grooves are hard to manufacture in wood unless you are laminating several pieces of wood together to produce the finished product.

This is may be less of an issue in other manufacturing processes such as 3D printing so your mileage may vary.

The Groove Tool rotates the sketch around the plane or datum line that you specify which allows you to create grooves on an object that are aligned along a different plane than the object itself.

The Groove Tool can create a 360o groove around the object, but you can limit the angle of rotation. This gives you the flxibility to control the length of the groove; however, the Groove Tool will only create the groove around as much of the object that it is able to. For example, if have created a half round object (i.e. 180o) the Groove Tool will create a groove that has a maximum rotation angle of 180o.

Important

The Reversed option may appear to do nothing because the Groove Tool only creates grooves on the parts of the object that it is able to.

The rotation direction that the Groove Tool uses to create the groove is based upon the plane that the sketch has been created on. The Groove Tool defaults to rotating the sketch behind the plane. The Reversed option allows you to create the groove to the front of the plane.

Conclusion

The Groove Tool has many applications but may not be suitable for use in all types of manufacturing processes.

 

Writer, Editor, Producer: Geoff Glasson

Title: Esistential Belief Publisher: S.I. Publishing (SOCAN) Available through AUDIOHERO