Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Overview:
This is a report documenting the modeling of a normal steel hammerhead, acquired at a 99c store. It does not have a brand name or model, only the words MADE IN CHINA molded into the rubber grip. Fig.1 below shows an isometric free hand drawing of the hammerhead. This report contains a lot of the gathered information, but not all of it. It is accurate but not enough to be a stepby-step guide to reproduce the work done, but rather a chronicle of how the SolidWorks model was brought to existence.

Figure 1: the hammer modeled.

Procedure:
After finishing some SolidWorks tutorials and sketching the free hand drawing, an idea of both what SolidWorks is capable of, and of the distinctive features of the model, was gained. However, a clear plan on how to use the former on the latter was not instantly evident, and so the approach taken was to iteratively take dimensions and try to model, and then go back to measuring if necessary. The loop will be repeated as many times as necessary.

Basic straight forward measurements:

The most obvious dimensions were taken using a Vernier caliper and added to the freehand

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 2:1st version of freehand sketch, final version is attached.

Free hand detailed views were added for the rectangular hole of the handle, and the underside of the tail of the hammer, the original of those is attached. A contour gauge was used to copy the necking groove between the hammer nose and midsection, luckily, the contour was the same all around the groove, which is where the contour gauge proved handy. However, reproducing the groove on paper was not easy nor accurate. The contour also seems to be a single arc from a circle, but attempts to determine the center and radius of the circle yielded conflicting results, so this part was abandoned for now, to be returned to later if necessary.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 3: the contour is the same all around.

The measurements collected so far seem enough to start modeling, which was initiated as follows.

Modeling:
Midsection: A new sketch was created, the intention is lofting three cross sections vertically to create the midsection of the hammerhead. A rectangle in the top plane (here used as the bottom plane) was sketched with its center being the center point. Two reference geometry planes were created above it. The one in the middle was to account for the slight increase in sides width of the hammerheads vertical profile. Which clearly is due to a draft angle required for casting a part. A ruler was used to determine the relative horizontal placement of the topmost and bottom cross sections. Their leading edge project on each other vertically. Vernier calipers were used to determine the widest part of the midsection, a felt tip pen and a ruler was used to determine the rectangle which will account for these bumps in the loft. All were dimensioned accordingly; the topmost (third) plane was inclined such that the leading edge was higher than the hind one with an angle . Attempts to create an inclined reference plane and projecting the sketch in the third plane on it consumed so much time and were fruitless. Next 3D sketches were attempted, and worked like a charm. For now.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 4: inclined 3D sketch instead of rotated reference plane

Finally, the mid-plane was drawn and the loft attempted. At first, the 3D sketch seems unresponsive to anything, whether it is surfaces or solids, a verity of venues were tried but none worked, the internet was not that helpful either. By chance after trying a solid loft a bubble appeared near the mouse pointer right after selecting the final plane(the one with the 3d sketch), which didnt show up before. That bubble allows you to select an open or closed contour, which worked with the 3D curve. However, two corners had to be removed from it so it can loft without twisting with the other sketches (four corners). The bottom end constraints were set normal to profile and applied to all. The hind side of the hammerhead midsection will be taken care of when the tail is modeled. With no idea how to measure the tangent length, the value was varied until the preview looked acceptable (settled on 0.5). As for the top end constraint, the option of normal to profile was not available, most likely because its a 3d sketch. Therefore, a normal vector is sketched at the corner and used as the direction vector for the constraint. As with the bottom end constraint, the tangent length was set to 0.7.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 5: midsection loft

The review looks perfect. When OK is clicked, SolidWorks gives a failed to knit surfaces error. Trying again does not fix anything. Google finds an answer that works; to use surface lofting and not solid lofting. Even though the hammerhead is solid and not a hollow surface, that can be fixed later.

Hammerhead nose: More dimensions were taken of the hammer nose using the calipers, mostly about its relative position to the midsection, an interesting method to find the horizontal distance between two features is by using the built in ruler in the contour gauge, which gives the distance between the pins. So its as simple as pressing the contou r gauge into the features while holding the contour gauge as parallel as possible to the axis the distance is measured on (setting them both on a table might help), then subtracting the needles distance readings. As for the vertical distance between the circle of the nose and the top and bottom planes; the hammer was laid on the edge of a flat table, with the handle vertically up (later repeated with it down), and the circumferential circular surface of the nose was put flat on the table edge. A ruler was then used to extend lines into the midsection with a felt tip pen as shown in Fig.6.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 6:extension of nose profile into the midsection with a green felt tip pen.

The hammerhead midsection loft was edited by replacing the topmost straight leading edge by an arched one representing the freehand sketch. An important detail which cant be seen in Fig.5.

Figure 7: making the leading edge of the middle section curved.

All measurements were added to the freehand sketch. The sketch was started by creating two parallel vertical planes, one for the circle of smallest radius in the hammer nose and the other is the beginning of the flat portion Page | 6

Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli
of the nose tip. Since the tip is flat, it will not be included in the loft, but extruded later separately to keep its angles and flatness. Lofting the two circles to the loft side is not possible at first, as the front face of the midsection is not really defined as a profile, after trying several thing it was possible toright click on the face and isolate it, with a button to isolate it hovering nearby, the loft was created without any problems, as a solid and not as a surface as well, the end conditions were not changed as it looked just fine. The nose thickness is extruded next, its draft will be added later.

Tail This part is the hardest part, not only is the shape irregular and lacking an abundance of standard shapes, but the biggest problem is the horrible finish of the surface, with some bits sticking out and others chipped off, measurement difference is bigger than usual. Selecting the SolidWorks approach to modeling this part with the minimum amount of measurements for less error, is not easy.

Figure 8: horrible surface finish, tail section.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli
General measurements taken before were double-checked and cross-referenced; some were added to the detailed view of the underside of the tail in the freehand sketch. Measurement methods included projecting the bottom side edge of the midsection into the tail to easily measure the depth of the tails tip, using a ruler and a felt tip pen. Also a double sided tape was used as memory foam to capture the end profile of the tail. As well as the contour gauge used to capture the upper and lower curves from the midsection to the tails tip.

Figure 9: one of the measurement method, point of intersection marked with a felt pen later.

Started in SolidWorks with a sketch in a reference plane below the top plane, since the lowest point in the whole hammerhead is the tails tip profile, which was sketched into the plane and dimensioned accordingly. Making a 3D sweep over the tails profile captured by the contour gauge would not work, because the cross sections of the two tail parts are not constant. Next a reference plane is made from which the tail will protrude from, a horizontal line is drawn with its respected distance from the top plane which splits the hind surface into an upper and lower part, then split it again vertically in half, and project the vertical line onto the hind surface.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 10: sketch for lofting the tail. the nose is hidden from here out.

After this, we split the physical hammer head into four parts for lofting. Part1 will be discarded for the time being and added later as a fillet, as it connects the two surfaces of the midsection and part2 with a simple curve of constant radius. Part2 protrudes from the midsection as a single piece. Part3 is split into two parts connected at a line, and part4 is fully disconnected.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 11: illustration of the 4 sections of the tail.

The right half is then lofted to the tail end profile, with a start condition of being tangent to the upper lateral edge of the midsection, previously converted into a sketch entity. The results are unsatisfactory, as increasing, the tangent length would not give the tail its inclined curve, and reducing or removing the tangency removes the curviness all together. After using a protractor with an arm to measure some angles to add for the start/end conditions, and adding angles of and 20 to the tangency vectors were added to the start/end constraints. The tail had an initially acceptable curve, but when lofted the cross section was all conflicted and twisted. The cross section of part2 and part3 have the same base width but different heights and both are symmetric with regard to the vertical axis, so drawing the cross section for part3 is easy by tracing the shared outline of part2 while sketching from a vertical view. The measurements are plugged from the freehand and the loft created. After isolating the midsection loft surfaces and creating the loft, it does not look acceptable as can be seen in (Fig.12)

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 12: unacceptable loft of the tail.

Therefore, it seems an extra profile sketch is needed to get a decent loft, so one is added in a reference plane separating part2 and part3. The profile is added to the existing loft and the results are much more acceptable, even great, compared to the previous one (judgment by eye). The second half of the tail is quickly done; un-hiding the cross section sketches (they automatically get hidden after being used in a loft), isolating the hind surface of the middle section, lofting the three profiles, untangling the loft, leaving the start and end constraints at default as the third cross section took care of the need for that, and thats it. The main features of the hammerhead are finished; we now attend to the small details.

Part1 of the tail, the fillet:

Since Laminar edges cannot be filleted as SolidWorks reports as it refuses to add a plane fillet or a solid fillet along the edge or between the surfaces. A work around is to measure the distance between the points tangent to the fillet circle, draw the points and make a reference plane out of them, sketch the fillet as a part of circle and sweep it along the edge. That workaround did not work for a multitude of reasons, least of which is unavailability of surfaces or their edges to sketch on. An arc sketched on the original front plane and swept through the under edge (which is a sketch and not a surface), is impossible to cover, fill in, trim or cut. Another approach is to draw lines in the top and side surfaces and project them on the surface then use their intersection with the curves to sketch single points. Insert a plane on the three points, sketch the fillet arc and sweep it through the intersection of the curves and not the straight-sketched line used in the profile for part3 in the tail. Loft it halfway through, now the filled surface works because the three corners and curves are definitely connected, select the loft and surface and mirror it about the front plane. Done.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Figure 13: half the fillet before mirroring.

Filling the inside of the midsection of the hammerhead:

Selecting the midsection surface and thickening it by .2cm as pre the freehand sketch. The result is unacceptable as the hole where the handle goes in is not uniform, and the thickness is not the same for all sides. Therefore, the thickness is removed while extruding the original cross section that was sketched horizontally in the beginning for the midsection, vertically downward. The edges are then selected separately as open loops using the selection manager. The two are lofted, with the bottom sketch having a constraint of normal to profile to account for the steepness of the hole sides, and set to the maximum possible value.

Figure 14: filling the midsection; extrude surface and loft open loop.

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Drafting the flat surface in the hammerhead nose:

SolidWorks draft feature was not easy to use or quick to learn. Extruding a plane from the draft edge and lofting it did not work either. This detail has been abandoned due to lack of time. Finally, the open surfaces in the tail were closed with planar surfaces. As was the bottom of the midsection. The extruded surface from the top of the midsection was sticking out through the loft, and was fixed.

Results:
Soft copy of the modeled SolidWorks part is available for 3D view and download on:
http://grabcad.com/library/hammerhead--1

Discussion:
When coming across conflicting measurements, it was important to define a criteria to differentiate between measurement differences which were meant in the original design and those which were not, but rather an error of manufacturing or assembly. The following affected the judgment of whether to neglect the difference or take it into consideration: Does the peculiar reading serve a purpose? An oval is easier to pull out a mold than a circle. Magnitude, usually if it was 0.3 mm or less it is ignored. Symmetry of some parts, which gives a context to the error. If the cause of the error is apparent to the naked eye, like bumps or inclinations. There is no 90 edge in real life, wear of edges should be taken into consideration.

Things I would have Done Differently:

In selecting the object to model, I would definitely have gone for a higher quality product than the one I did; which was dirty, unfinished and chipped in different locations. Drops of the glue used to hold the hammerhead with the handle had spilled on the hammerhead and were an eye sore and a hindrance to measurement. Removing them with a screwdriver is not as easy as it sounds and has cost me some skin. Irregularities in the design are hard to discern from manufacturing flaws, although symmetries came in handy there. In conclusion, a hammer that serves its practical purpose is not necessarily suitable for reverse engineering. In the Midsection; - Forget inclined top and add it later via extrusion. Dealing with a 2D sketch on a normal plane is much easier than with a 3D sketch. Especially with complex features/surfaces. - Instead of removing two corners from the six corner 3D sketch to match the rectangular 2D sketches and loft properly, I would have just added 2 dummy point corners to the 2D sketches instead. - I learned how to make a tilted inclined plane but a bit late, use the 3D sketch to create 3 points or two lines then use them as the references to your new reference plane. In the tail: - Make the underside groove (part3), by adding a curve and making it a guide curve to the two parts of the tail. Page | 13

Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli
Make more accurate measurements and modeling of the fillet (part1) and the surface covering its ends. Would evaluate the contour of the tail with more than eye judgment and reference geometry calculation.

Other remarks:
The item designed is a rugged power tool of simple design and functionality, it seems sturdy enough to fulfill its purpose, any further insight requires experience with hammers, which I do not have. However, imperfections in the design were noticed, regardless of whether they effect the functionality or not, those include; a clearly sideways tilted hammerhead with respect to the handle. Solid glue and wax here and there, the rough surfaces mentioned previously, and irregularities in the surface that strikes the nail. Vernier calipers are very good for testing two surfaces for flatness/parallelism. Solidworks usually crashes when you try to display a print preview of a drawing, and the margins are not set correctly. Surfaces are more versatile than solids, but less stable and predictable. Double sided tape makes for good memory foam:

Figure 15: profile impression on double-sided tape.

My skill level in SolidWorks is listed as having advanced command of the software. After this project I realized I barely know the basics.

Internet links I found useful: by order they were looked up

http://www.tresnainstrument.com/how_to_read_a_vernier_caliper.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqyey1MHjV0 https://forum.SolidWorks.com/message/288263 https://forum.SolidWorks.com/message/302653 https://forum.solidworks.com/message/282065

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Solid Modeling Project: Reverse Engineering of a Product and Documentation of its Solid Model By: Yussef Rikli

Attachments:

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