We'll be using 2X4 lumber as the material for our tumbler. You can find 2X4 at any home improvement store. 2X4 just means that when the wood is cut from tree logs, it's cut into pieces that are 2" thick by 4" wide with varying lengths. However, after the wood dries out and is sent to home improvement stores, it actually shrinks to about 1.5" X 3.5".
Now that we know the size of our container and the dimensions of our material, we can determine the size of each part for the tumbler.
In the design I sketched out initially, I have 4 legs, 4 connectors and 4 wheels.
Now let's design the parts in Fusion 360!
Legs
Our legs will be 1.5" thick X 3.5" wide X 12" tall
I decided the height of the legs to be 12" so that the tumbler would be high enough off the ground but not too high so the stability of the tumbler can be kept.
- Open up a new design in Fusion 360.
- Make sure you are working in inches
- If you are in mm, switch to inches, then open up a new design to start working in inches.
- Make sure you're in the "Model" workspace.
- Click on the "Create" tab
- Choose the "Box" option
- Select the top plane to create the box on.
- Click where you want the corner of the box to be.
- Move the mouse to the dimensions of height and width of the leg (3.5" X 12") then click.
- Next set the thickness of the box which is 1.5".
- Lastly, rotate the piece 90 degrees to stand upright. To do this, right click on the object and select "move/copy". Then click and drag on the rotational interface to rotate.
Appearance
Now we have our legs dimensioned correctly!
Let's add some wood texture to the surface to make this more realistic.
- Switch to the "Render" workspace
- Click on the "Appearance" icon
- Scroll down the list of materials to wood, unfinished, then select what ever wood you want to use.
- Drag the material onto the object.
The Leg Connectors
To hold the legs of the compost tumbler in place we will need to create some connecting pieces that will attach to the legs.
Two of the connectors will be 18" long to correspond with the length of the container and the other two will be 10" long to correspond with the diameter of the container.
Now go ahead and create these connectors as new designs following the steps from above.
Page last edited March 08, 2024
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