Reverse Engineering: Game Plan

October 13-20: Progress Report

 This week I dedicated my time to labelling the parts of the clarinet for myself to refer back to later. I wanted to plan out which parts I would like to do first. I determined I should definitely challenge the hardest parts first. For the clarinet there are only two really complex part and then the last three, four if you include the reed, are far more basic and will be good filler parts to work on when I get overwhelmed by the complex middle pieces. 

To ease myself back into Rhino and not rush to the complicated stuff I started with this circular key that is found 6 times on this particular part of the clarinet. 

These four pads appear to have the same dimensions but after some measuring with the caliper it became apparent that they varied in sized by mere millimetres. However it seems that all the components of the pad scaled appropriately along with the diameter so once I had once pad done I would simply have to scale up the pad to the diameter of the others. 

Along with those four pads there are also 2 smaller pads at the top of this piece. These ones, fortunately, are identical in dimensions. 

Here is how I have labelled off the parts.

I took some notes and sketched simultaneously as I figured out my strategy in Rhino. 

Since these pads were round I chose early that the revolve funtion would be my best option for making the shape. Here is a screenshot of the original shapes I made next to the revolved result. 

Unfortunately this week there was more thinking and less doing. I only anticipate my work flow will get faster each week. Drawing things out really help me envision the order in which I can construct all the different components moving forward.