Sandcastle Tutorial

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This is a SOLIDWORKS Tutorial on how to create the perfect sandcastle model. The tutorial involves designing the castle from the outside, this means creating the bucket mold first. By the end of the tutorial you will have the sandcastle bucket and a sand casting created with the Intersect tool.

 

All the extrusions and cuts had to be drafted in this model all drafting up in one direction to avoid undercuts. also layered extrusions had to telescope smaller. To create the brick texture on the castle towers, each sketch had circles cut away from the edge in a circular pattern. This pattern was alternated as the extrusions got smaller. After the first tower was created, circular pattern was used to pattern 3 more towers around the castle.these were all combined as one body. The circular pattern was also used to pattern the windows and the castle battlement design.

Once the castle design was finished, Undercut Analysis under the Evaluate tab was used to test the model for any undercuts. this was tested from the top of the design. If any red faces appear in the analysis this would mean that undercuts were present. In this case the model was fine, and could be shelled from the inside creating the bucket mold.

After applying a new plane on the end face of the bucket, the Intersect feature was used with create internal regions ticked, this created the inner cavity of the mold into a sand casting. The small brick details were accentuated on the casting, and the filleted details came out smaller.

Moving the casting out of the bucket, and adding a handle to the bucket (which is available to download below) appearances were added top the final design including sand and high gloss plastic. An animation of the final design was created in SOLIDWORKS Visualize which shows the bucket being flipped over and the bucket lifting to reveal the sandcastle. I hope you enjoy this tutorial, and have fun creating your own sandcastle designs.

The Spade and Bucket Handle seen in this tutorial are available to download here!

 

Jade Wilson

Jade Wilson

I am a 3D Designer and SOLIDWORKS Blog Contributor from the UK. I am a self taught SOLIDWORKS user, and have been using it to inform and create my designs since 2012. I specialize in the design of Ceramics, Home Accessories and Wooden Toy Design.