Quicker Better Fillets in FreeCAD With This Simple Tip A must for Beginners

[@pzwolski]

Forget the fillets. The 2:35 Sub-Object Shape Binder was the most interesting! 👍

[@semiCph]

This tutorial was definitely a twofer

[@simduino]

Actually there's another video about that, just look it up as it's not the goal of this excerise.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

That tip has been so popular 😀

[@HansBaier]

Definitely. Donated.

[@smportis]

V 0.22 may reduce the subshape binding need. I forget the feature but it gives the outline a thickness

[@lrochfort]

That sub-shape binder offset is brilliant

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thought I throw that one in for a bonus 😁😁

[@herrgerd1684]

Damn I always hated that there's no "offset" function in the sketcher. Now this tipp will save me tons of time when making casings!

[@simduino]

Fillets are the most finicky things to use in freecad, they kind of lead a life of their own... If it doesn't work in one way you need to redo it in a completely other way to get what you want. I love your videos because of that, they show other ways of doing things. Very educational.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I did a video a while back of why fillets fail and the most common causes. For some reason that gave me a bit of relief from the fillet problem, in that I got something out there to help others. Next project I did, had hit about half the fillet failure I was talking about, so I had a good cry lol. CAD is hard but I love it. Great to see your enjoying the videos, thanks for the kind comment.

[@simduino]

@@MangoJellySolutionsYou're welcome, and I did see that video too as I really enjoy the way you explain everything. When I started with freecad I made a mess using the parts design wb and the sketcher, couldn't get my head around getting how it works. My background stems from ages ago using AutoCad even before windows arrived. I was a professional designer for shapes and routines using a graphic tablet and I had some knowledge of isometric design. So yeah the sketcher isn't all that strange to me, but getting it to work in 3D was another thing. Now I'm much more comfortable with it and I learned a lot from your videos. I started out with freecad leaving the fillets for last, but now I know better. Keep up your excellent work, it always helps.

[@loughkb]

I have to go look for that video on why fillets fail. It is the most frustrating thing for me and trying to learn freecad. Just today I was going to make a part for Morse code key. A platter about 2 mm thick with a nice fillet edge. Drew a centerpoint circle in the sketch, closed the sketch, did a pad of 2 mm, clicked on the outer face and selected fillet, clicked okay and got a message that said job not done and body is not a solid. Sigh....

[@daomingjin]

this video helps to understand how to fix one particular kind of problem of Shelling in FreeCAD. Shelling/Thickness is one of the things i find that breaks most of the time in FreeCAD

[@RobCCTV]

Amazing. I am fairly new to the world of CAD. With FreeCAD, the possibilities just keep expanding. I now have a library of various filament types and colours to feed to my Dremel 3D45. Videos like this just pull me ever further into an absolutely fascinating hobby... and allows me to file my patent for a device that I have high-hopes for.

[@GapRecordingsNamibia]

Really good tut, a 2 in one the sub shape binder had me sitting up going ..... HUH?!

[@jimbooth2010]

Me 2, wtf?

[@SpaceMarshalGyorni]

Same here! I think a collection of KZbin Shorts with little stuff like that would really help Mang0 increase his views.

[@jimbooth2010]

Plus, if u listened closely he mentioned the "selection setting". I should have figured there was a setting for that, but i have struggled trying to select a line before, but no more!!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I really really want to do that but I have been struggling with the phone format for the size of the screen. Must revisit that.

[@jimbooth2010]

@MangoJellySolutions maybe zoom in on some of ur favorite settings in the preferences for your shorts, but yea, i see the issue with a screenshot tutorial in a vertical mobile device.

[@briansrcadventures1316]

That Sub Shape Binder is a very quick way to make a pocket with consistent width rather than doing a sketch on a face then use that to create a pocket!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

I thought I throw that in for a bonus 😁,

[@dtaggartofRTD]

Having that pointed out, it's obvious in hindsight. Simple and handy tip.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Yep when I was taught it I thought the same but as my old Design and Tech teacher used to say: It's only easy / obvious if you know how 😊

[@HansBaier]

The offset tip with the shape binder was awesome! Donated!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you so much for donating, the shape binder was a extra I added just to wake people up if they started nodging off lol

[@clausziegler5720]

Great Tip!! Both the sub shape binder and the fillet

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thanks, I thought I throw in a bit of a bonus tip to get the blood going to help recovery from the Christmas break. By the looks of it quite a few people rewound that bit to watch it again 😊

[@KenRossPhotography]

Thanks for this! You really cleared up an area I've been frustrated by on several models.

[@petebuttons210]

Really learning allot with your tutelage. Thanks.

[@noanyobiseniss7462]

You should mention to add filets and champers after the model is done to keep the noobs from running into the reordering bug and make them aware of it. This bug is so frustrating that it will drive somone away from the software faster than anything else.

[@SpaceMarshalGyorni]

You're talking about the topological naming problem. That's not a bug, it's an unsolved mathematical problem. Other CAD-software has this too, they just hide it better by making what amounts to educated guesses under the hood. Even if you work in professional CAD packages, you will break models if you don't understand this problem and implement proper workflows to ensure stability. However, once you do that you might as well use FreeCAD, because with proper understanding and best practice, it's simply not a problem anymore.

[@simduino]

That's not always the best practice. If you have a model lets say a union from two parts and you do the fillets last changing one of the two parts may break all of the fillets. While if you made the fillets per part and the union last you'd only need to undo the union instead of all the fillets. I know this from experience because I started like you say and later found out it isn't always the most practical way.

[@HonoredMule]

@@simduino people also say to never do your fillets in sketches (presumably as derivation of "do them last"), but I implement them there whenever possible because that's so much more reliable. It's much harder for the toponaming problem to affect sketch details and there's no guessing how convergent fillets will be interpreted (or fail). Then at least what does break is smaller in scope and thus easier to manually fix. Also, I think it's fair to classify FreeCAD's toponaming handling as a bug when it does it _so_ much more poorly than every other CAD program. 80% of the time the correct remapping is unambiguous and FreeCAD's inability to do so is purely rooted in its technical debt and architectural limitations - not math.

[@simduino]

@@HonoredMule Indeed, rounding off corners in the sketch is way easier than doing a fillet later on. Using tangent arcs after extruding or padding you can even do fillets on the sharp edges of the arc while this is impossible to do on the sharp edge of an extisting fillet, freecad just won't do that.

[@hanbanaroda]

I am adding them throughout the modelling as when the number of edges or faces change, fillets are the most tedious one to redo. Sketches are usually just placing them on the right new face but clicking through fillets again and again is very tedious.

[@СергейПетров-ц3ъ]

You are the best!

[@lscottex]

Super helpful! As I followed along, on my own, all my fillets on the inside of the pocket were fine, but on the outside rim I kept getting everyone's favorite "Recompute failed!", even though the sketch looked fine and again fillets worked fine for the pocket created via the offset binder from the same sketch! The hint about tangency was the key, as I had one sketched fillet that wasn't tangent, despite looking fine visually (and passing sketch verification, as usual). Failed fillets are one of the biggest issues I run into on my models, so this was very helpful - and now I need to go watch your other video on fillet failures. :-) As always, another great and helpful video, thank you!

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Great to hear this video was off use and glad to see your going to have a look at the others. Thank you for writing back, greatful for the kind comments.

[@YouGenom]

Me here was thinking that FreeCAD doesn't have offset feature like other proprietary CAD tools. But here you show in a few seconds that this is indeed easy! It is not even the topic of the video. Such an overlooked feature.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Hi, so there are offset tools in part workbench for 3D and 2D offset but that is for solids and surfaces. Sketcher wise there is no offset (yet) unless you use the installable macro which has as few issues. But I went through the features of 0.22 which is in dev and they do have a offset tool coming to freeCAD :)

[@claren8236]

Beatifull lesson thank you.

[@robdotreynolds]

your last few videos have really helped me find solutions to my designs, I've sent you a drink, but remember it is "dry Jan" :) and love the Shape Binder again, makes drawing so interesting and quicker

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you so much that's very kind of you. Lol, a cup of tea it is then. Glad the videos are helping, much more to come.

[@philb2334]

I couldn't get this to work at first & found that if you create a Part / Body / Sketch & do it that way it complains about a cyclic reference to unnamed part. Do it via create Body / Sketch & it works. Thanks for the video

[@sjn8099]

Great. Thank you 🙂

[@ManfredBrauchle]

8:53 thanks for making this one

[@waynedollery9946]

Soooo how long have you bugged my office? Last night I was struggling with fillets. Your video really helps me think about how to apply fillets.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

It's not your office.... But have you checked your basement back at home. 😬🤣🤣

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Also check out another video in my collection called "why fillets fail". Some useful tips in there.

[@bananasba]

Thanks!

[@radderek007]

Very nice.

[@Ntak.]

Hello! You are awesome, a big Bravo!!! I have watched almost all your videos! I would like if you could show us a video on how to make an lure bait for fishing Thanks.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you, great to see your enjoying. That is a great suggestion as the curves and shapes all differ and depending on what your making will require different techniques. I used to fish myself and tie my own flies and have made a few spinners in the past. I think that video will be an enjoyable one.

[@-Keith-]

I found this out through trial and error while working on a dive tower model that has a lot of radius edges and compound curves. The order that you apply fillets can be the difference between a clean result vs the program just completely crashing.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you for adding that, that so helpful as people will come to the comments with questions. Thanks once again.

[@gregwoolley]

Super!

[@melect7940]

@MangoJellySolutions You are an excellent teacher my friend and your knowledge of freecad seems to be at a very high level. I'm wondering if you have written any instruction books or if you have any books to recommend to help learn more about free cad?

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you for such a kind comment. Book wise I have unfortunately no recommendations but I am in the process of a new series and hoping to create a book with it.

[@melect7940]

@@MangoJellySolutions Thank you for your reply. I will be looking forward to the series. I will also be looking forward to you possibly creating a book. As mentioned, you are a fantastic teacher, and you have an incredible knowledge of FreeCad. Thanks again for your work.

[@MarcLuscher]

brill !

[@Liberty4Ever]

I've done a lot of experimenting to try to determine what rhyme or reason there may be with fillets and chamfers. For simple objects I get the basic geometry correct and then chamfer and fillet at the end. Sometimes, a fillet or chamfer is part of the geometry that I want because I'm too lazy to sketch the angle or rounded surface, so I cheat and use the chamfer or fillet tool on a 3D primitive. Then I use binary operators such as fusion, cut and intersection, and when I want to use chamfer or fillet on the resulting object to soften sharp edges, FreeCAD can throw up all over that and Part Go Bye Bye. Fortunately a uniform radius fillet to finish a part looks best so in most cases I can finish the basic simple geometry, select the resulting part, select fillet, then select all edges rather than the fussy and time consuming job of selecting edges manually one at a time. Fillets can be as large as I like, up to the point where one fillet overlaps with another. If the smallest space between two edges is 5 mm, a 2.499 fillet creates the most rounded part.

[@pjvenda]

Would you use fillets to round box edges or corner radius on the sketch for padding?

Is there a way to keep the sharp corner and have the fillet in the bottom round off nicely instead of two fillets meeting in it? Modifying the part isn't always an option but adding fillets often is beneficial to the strength if 3D-printed parts.

[@saveriog.825]

I think it's physically impossible... 🤔

@@saveriog.825 I know, geometrically it would need to add something to the bottom of the corner, but at least having it taper towards the rim if the part would be better than changing the geometry of the part completely.

[@the-mush]

@ I think the only way to get what you are describing is making some sort of cone on that corner? With an equal fillet along the corner, you get a section of a cylinder. So if you have a non-zero radius on the bottom (a "round bottom") and a zero radius on the top, that sounds like a cone. One way I think you could do that, although way too complicated for my taste, may be to make two sketches, one for the bottom, with the radii on the corners, and one for the top, with sharp corners. Then you do a subtractive loft between them.

[@saveriog.825]

@@the-mush that's a smart thought😯

[@jothain]

I'm not 100% sure if I understood your wording. But you could draw desired rounding shape like to one of the sides, kinda like tool. Then use that sketch profile as cutting tool for path, which is the objects perimeter.

[@jc84com]

Tangency tangency tangency. Thankyou.

[@redheadsg1]

3:36 Why pocket and not "extrude" (pad) and cut the shape ???? Just get rid of pocket button and use extrude for both processes. It is just one of many confusing things in FreeCad. Also why is binder instead of offset in sketch ???

[@JustinDeane222]

offset tool will be available in a future version; Already in dev version. if you prefer subtracting an extrusion, just use Part WB

[@sh3riff]

Are you able to add a fillet to just one edge? If so, how?

[@kokodin5895]

why not press m to create the tangent arc from multi polygon tool without going for other tools ? anyway this is a great toutorial for begginers because many of people make things manually and it sneakly include some tools from the set not many of peoplr know how to use, like shape binder but even after 2 years i think of using this program i still struggle with fillets sometimes or rather i make them break the part when i do them out of order one thing to note freecad can get very confused with picking segments of fillet or champhers when you use 2 dimensions, sometimes aplying depth and width interchangably to hilarious monster effects and tangent edges are sometimes the only wy to fix it

[@keeptrying7640]

Very informative into transitioning of corners, but you've never done a video where you design a pocket with a logo inside that pocket at twenty millimeters deep and the model is inside the stock at the end

[@alexandr-spb]

как сделать скругление на дуге, не делая скругления на касательных ребрах?

[@stoffel89]

You seem to know allot about this program. Who teaches you? I get the basics. Its not that difficult. But every now and again you pull a rabbit out of that hat of tricks of yours. And there seem to be no end to the ammount of rabbits you are hiding. I sometimes struggle to make an exact copy of a part with allot of curvature incorporated in it. I tend to take 2d siluette images of the part, use the curves workbench and make the part, like your tutorial about the sportscar, but the part never comes out the way i need it to be. It gets hard sometimes.

[@MangoJellySolutions]

Thank you, I don't have a teacher but I do read the source code to figure out what some of the less documented features do. I also came from a number of other 3D programs in the past which have helps with problem solving. I have a whole Warren of rabbits awaiting escape!