Tutorial Fusion 360: Creating a Chess piece in fusion using Para-Solids.

Full Doc: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qejtN4OQ-DsWPlksuqVlvONeJp_Xaxqm/view?usp=sharing

Today we will be learning how to create a chess piece using fusion 360 the first thing we need to do is find or draw a 2d model  or orthographic view of the piece or pieces in this case I will be using a picture from the internet to create my piece. In most cases any side view of a part will allow you to create almost every piece in chess except the knight with ease so don’t be afraid to mix things up.

The piece I’ll be creating today is a Queen this will show you how to create a rook or king’s top with ease. I’m going with a very classic piece but don’t be afraid to try something different depending on your skill level.

Open

Alright having picked out a simple piece with a patterned crown we will launch fusion the first thing we should do is create a folder.

Open

Whenever you create a new job you should always create a folder and save the file before you start drawing this will allow fusion to create a history of all the work you do from that point on so you won’t need to stress if something happens.

Firstly you’ll need to load up your saved image to do this you need to go to insert

Then select: Attach Canvas

The follow dialog box will appear select Image and brows to your file on your computer. You will also need to select one of 3 faces depending on the images you have chosen you may even have more than one canvas at different angles for now select the right box in default this will set your canvas to the front view helpful later on for setting up and viewing your pieces.

After selecting you will see this dialog box in place of the previous

For now we aren’t going to edit the size that will come later. Just go ahead and hit okay.

To view your image hit the Home Button in the top right corner

When you mouse near the cube it will appear next to it.

Clicking home will fill the window will all objects in the scene. 

After doing this click Front on the cube, for the time being we will be working with sketches  to create our object. Make sure you are in the model tool bar.

Yours will look something like this however don’t worry if it’s not the same as it can be customized to each user’s preferences on the fly.

Before we start our drawing we need to go ahead and establish our scale. A standard Queen is around 3” or 76.2mm for our sake we will just round to 75mm.

In the side bar menus on the left you will notice the word “Canvases” click this and select “calibrate” This will turn your canvas a shade of blue select the top of the chess piece and the very bottom try to link your points as straight as possible for accuracy if you need help it is a good idea to draw a line on your image straight down the canter before loading it up this will roughly scale our piece to the correct size, a number will appear in a dialog box change that number to 75 and hit enter your image is now scaled up and you will want to refit it to your screen simply click the home button and front again then back out just a bit and we are ready to start.

Click on the Sketch dropdown and select line. Once you do this a box will appear in the canter of the screen this box indicates the face you are drawing on and allows you to choose others with the cube. We will be drawing on the Front face so just go ahead and click the square.

Draw a line down the middle of your piece this will be both how we define the core but also help us later on.

Tip*Holding the shift key will let you draw a straight line without entering in any values to the angle.

Once you’ve draw the center line we are ready to start creating our outline. In my case there is a slight perspective view I have to overcome to deal with this I’ll need to draw straight lines from all the steps or changes in the model out to the edge of the model this will help me flatten my view. Drawing straight lines down the sides of my piece will help me establish the length of the part as well.

Once I’m done drawing out my depth lines I can push on to my silhouette. 

Now that I know the depth of each line I need to create the details that will allow me to finish the main body.

Using 3-Point Arcs I can trim out most of the body each time you close off an area you will notice it’s color change this means the face is now solid. Now because the queen has a crown I will not be able to fully sketch this so for the time being I’ll simply draw out the body. In some areas you will encounter lines that cannot be done in one simple shape this is where splines come in an arcing path that allows you to change it’s shape to fit the curve you are attempting to draw. Now if you don’t like using splines you can opt to join several arcs together.

To avoid hard edges use the filet tool on the joint of the two arcs. Even a small curve will amount to a great looking line in the end.

Once you are done it’s time to delete the lines of depth.

The end result should be something like this.

Now it’s time to move to 3D. Select Stop Sketch. 

Now it’s time to see our piece in 3d and begin the final touches such as the crown. Under Create you will find a tool called revolve.

Using this tool we will select the inside line of our shape making it turn blue. In the dialog box select Axis, this is where our center line comes into play. Click Select axis and select the center line then doing a 360 angle press okay. Your drawing is now a 3d Piece.

Looks good right? But it’s not complete yet our Queen needs a crown. To do this part will require creating a new 2d Pattern that we will create on our front side again.

Using the same method as before we will create a line and then select our front view, this will put us back into sketch mode. Draw a single line you’ll have to turn off your 3d Model after you can do this by the drop down menu in the left called bodies. Select your only body and turn the light bulb off.

Now we can use the line we just drew to create the final parts of the crown.

Using this shape we will extrude it out and begin the final stages. Firstly before we do though we need to mirror this to the other side you’ll find this tool under the sketch menu. Select the two lines we drew then the center line as our mirror line. Hit okay and we have our piece to start.

Now extrude the model out as long as it’s bigger then your existing queen you’ll be fine in our case go ahead and extrude it out 10.

Now comes the pattern in order to get the piece to be the right size there are a few steps we need to take the first is sizing right now it’s not at the correct angle or size of the original Queen, so firstly we need make a copy of the Body1 file you can do this by simply clicking Body1 then right clicking copy and then right click and hit paste, this will create Body3.

At this point we need to turn Body1 off for a while.

 With body three we are going to modify it’s crown height.

To modify the crown height hit Q on the keyboard and selects the top face of the queen’s crown the side that we had made flat. This will create what’s known as an offset face.

Enter an offset of 5 and you will notice the face expand while keeping the curve of the original face.

Hit enter to confirm.

Now you will be left with a modified version of the original Chess piece this will become the key to forming our crown correctly, ensuring that Body2 is turned on go to modify and select combined.

Once combined is selected you will see a dialog box with several options but in this case we want to select intersection.

The yellow will become cut away and we will be left with the blue core.

After We will do a create pattern circle. 

For our project here 10 should be enough to create a smooth graft between the spikes of the crown.

After we’ve created the pattern we are left with a lot of bodies that aren’t connected to fix this we are going to go ahead and connect everything except for the main piece you can just drag over the parts to select them all or select them from the menu.

Once everything is selected you should see a nice blue crown make sure that join is selected for your operation.

Now we need to cut the crown a bit we will do this by drawing a circle dead center of our spikes but on the bottom flat side.

After hit E to extrude the face pull it up about -4 or more this will ensure it clears all the spikes but also set a Taper Angle of 35 degrees this will add some interest and really polish up the final look. For your operation ensure its set to cut.

Your end result should look something like this. Because we had the main body hidden all of this time none of our operations we did affected it.

It’s time to combine them turn Body1 back on and combine it with the remaining body to form a single parasoid.

If you followed all these steps you should have something that looks like this, your first piece.

I hope this tutorial was helpful in understanding how to build para-soilds that are great for 3d printing and helps you create your own.

*Final TIP
If you wish to improve on the design you can do so by adding fillets to all the hard edges to smooth out the overall piece and textures leaving you with something like this.