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Spiral handrail


D Wood

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I am trying to make a spiral handrail.

I have made the handrail profile (filled rectangle) and a spiral path. The spiral turns 270? in plan from bottom to top.

However, when I use Extrude Along Path, the resulting handrail profile twists as it rises, so it is correct (horizontal) at the bottom but vertical at the top.

Anyone know how I can stop this happening?

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A sweep works really well for this.

Draw the handrail profile.

Set a 2D locus where you want the center of the spiral to be relative to the profile. (this step may not be necessary for all vintages of VW... I don't remember how it worked in 12)

Select both. Model > Sweep...

Set the pitch to be what the height would be if it went 360?.

Set the sweep to 270?

Play around w/ the segment angle to get the desired smoothness.

Doesn't matter if you get it wrong. You can keep adjusting in the OIP.

The only bummer is that the sweep will be created lying on its side. You have to rotate it up to the correct orientation.

I think you could also get it to not "lean into the corner" if you used a loft object. But for this a sweep is faster.

hth

mk

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Michael

Thank you, the Sweep tool worked!

I had tried it earlier, but didn't have the 2D Locus in the correct place, for some daft reason I thought it had to be in the centre of the profile. (I had searched the forums and found a thread about creating a spiral ramp, and that showed the locus in the centre of the ramp profile)

When I followed your instructions I realised what I had been doing wrong.

Incidentally I drew it in front view, ie not in plan, with the profile at the start height, so the rail was created the right way up, then I switched to Plan view and moved it into position. It renders just fine in 3D so I am very happy, thank you.

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The problem is probably the height field.

Not sure why, but he height field changes the height of the profile object (and not the height of the sweep.) There is no similar field that changes the width of the profile object.

The height of the entire sweep will be the pitch height x (arc angle/360). Think of the pitch as how high one sweep will be.

You probably want the stairs to be 9'5 1/2" high and not the railing profile.

Change the height to something much smaller and the pitch to something closer to 9' 5 1/2" and you will see a better result.

hth

mk

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