This article guides you through the intricate process involved in designing a kitchen sink using AutoCAD. The process includes adding fillets, mirroring the rectangle, creating the faucet and handles, and using various tools and commands for precision.
Key Insights
- The design process begins by adding fillets to the rectangle. The inner fillets are three inches in diameter, and the outer ones are 1.5 inches in diameter. These values are then converted to radius values for precise design.
- The 'mirror' command is used next to create a mirrored copy of the rectangle across a mirror line. This function is valuable both for flipping blocks or other geometry around and for creating a true copy of the original design.
- The last part of the process is to create the faucet and handles. This involves precise measurements and the use of several functions, including the 'scale' tool to adjust the size of the faucet, changing values in the properties window, and using the 'rotate' tool to achieve the desired angle for the faucet.
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The next step in this project is to add our fillets. And this is because after that, we want to mirror the rectangle over.
Before we mirror the rectangle, I would like to make sure that it is as close to being complete as possible. We want to add the fillets in this case, before we do our other geometry. In this case, the inner fillets are actually three inches, and the outer fillets are one and one half inches.
However, notice they are three inches in diameter, and one and one half inches in diameter, which we need to convert to radius values. So I will go fillet, radius, R, enter. And our inner radius is going to be 1.5, enter.
And that will be a polyline, P, enter. I'll choose this inner rectangle. I'll just zoom out a bit.
And let's put the fillet on our outer rectangle, which is a one and one half inch diameter, which will be a 0.75 radius. Fillet, R for radius, enter. 0.75, enter.
And that's also a P, enter for polyline. And I'll click this rectangle. Control S to save.
Now we can perform our mirror. Mirror is an interesting command that creates a mirrored copy across a mirror line. And we can draw that line in any direction.
In this case, it's a pretty simple mirror across a vertical line. But in some cases, mirrors can be done across diagonal lines for great effect. In this case, we can simply go mirror and pick the circle and this polyline, enter.
The first point of our mirror line can be either the top or bottom of our sink or 0,0. So I can choose the top midpoint here. And you can see as I move my mirror line, that angled mirror will appear.
But I want to lock this in vertically. I'll come down and choose the bottom midpoint and click. And then I see a preview of my mirror.
Notice in the command prompt, it says erase source objects, yes or no. Mirror can also be used to flip blocks or other geometry around. Sometimes your geometry is simply facing the wrong direction.
You can use mirror to mirror an object and erase the source. In this case, we do not want to erase the source. We want this to be a true copy.
So I will type N, enter for no. We did not erase the source and we have two objects. And we have both the original and the copy.
Now we can create the faucet and handles for the sink. And we can see that those are two and a half inches from the baseline here. And again, in the center and three inches to the left and three inches to the right.
The outer circles are a two inch diameter and the inner circle is a two and three quarter inch diameter. Let's use a quick trick to place these circles all in at the same time and then update the size of the middle circle. To start, let's go circle.
And I will specify using tracking, TRA, enter. From this midpoint, I will go up 2.5, enter. Enter to lock it in.
D for diameter. And this diameter will be 2, enter. And that is a different diameter than what we see on the handout.
But we'll see why in a second. Now I can create my copy using this circle, enter. And again, these are distance and direction.
So I will turn on ortho. Pick anywhere on the screen. I'll pick down here.
Moving to the left, 3, enter. And showing to the right, 3, enter. Enter to say that I'm done.
Now this middle circle is too small. I could use the scale tool to scale it up. However, I do not know what scale value I need to use to get from two inches to two and three quarter inches.
Remember that we can instead change values in the properties window. So I can select this circle, right click, properties. Over here, we see the radius and diameter values.
And on the handout, we see that we have a 2.75 inch diameter. I'll hit ENTER. And we can see that our circle increases in size.
I'll close my properties and hit escape. Control S to save. We can see that this faucet is drawn at a 30 degree angle, leaning towards the right.
And that it is an eight and a half inch faucet length and a one inch faucet top. However, it is easier to draw this faucet straight up and down and then rotate it based on this circle. Let's give that a shot.
Like we did before, I'm going to draw a line from the shift right click center of the circle here. With ortho one, I will go up 8.5, enter, and enter to say that I'm done. Now, we can offset 0.5, enter, to the left, and to the right, enter to say that I'm done.
Now, I'll turn ortho off and draw my line from the tangent here to this end point, to this end point, to the tangent here. Line, shift right click tangent from here, to the end point, to the end point, to the shift right click tangent. Enter to say that I'm done.
We can go in and erase the three lines that we do not need anymore. I'll pick them one at a time and hit the delete key, but before we trim, we should rotate our faucet. This is a perfect opportunity to practice our selection window.
So, I will go to the rotate tool. Notice the command prompt says to select objects, and in this case, I will go w enter for a window. Remember that the window will only select objects that are entirely in the blue rectangle.
So, I can start my window here, as long as I am above this line, and cross over until I have all of my faucet inside. Notice I'm crossing every other bit of geometry, except for the drain circles, but I will not select any of those pieces of geometry, because they are not fully enclosed in the blue rectangle. I can click to finish my selection, and enter to say that I am done selecting my objects.
Now my command prompt says to specify the base point, which again means click or type. So, I can shift right click, center of this circle, and now I can rotate by clicking or typing in a value. This value is 30 degrees to the right, and because that is negative rotation, I will need to type in negative 30, enter.
Now we can trim out this corner here, and the circle. So, I will go trim, circle, and notice that when I come into here, because I did not select cutting edges, I have to select this arc and this little line segment here, and hit ENTER to say that I am done. I can go ahead and zoom extents, control s to save, and we have finished our kitchen sink.
I will see you in the next video.
