Beginner FreeCAD Tutorial 14: Reference Document for Exercise 1

This tutorial focuses on modelling a deck eye plate. These items are normally made of stainless steel with some kind of galvanised coating to stop corrosion. They are used in many industries but are most commonly found around boats, ships, sail lofts and docks where they play an important part in marine industry. Finding their use in many applications, they are often wall mounted acting as lashing points for mooring and for tying down sails or canopies. They can even be used for domestic use around the house and garden, for example to anchor ropes, cords and lines. So if your into 3D printing your finished creations, you can make use of the finished result.  Disclaimer: The strength of the part will depend on the internal structure, settings of the slicer and the material it has been printed on.  This will limit its application as failure of the part, damage to property and injury is a possibility.  These items are normally made of steel and are tested to take a maximum weight before failure.  Please exercise caution when using anything you have printed that needs to be used under load.

This category of items are a great subject to model and offer much needed practice for anyone starting in CAD. Reference images and specification can be easily found by searching online for 'ship chandlers'.  You will find a large assortment of hooks, rings, plates, pads etc. that are available in a range of different sizes, shapes and styles. You will have a wealth of subjects to model and often come complete with their dimensioned detailed in the description. If your lucky, you may even have a technical drawings to follow as well.  Once you have finished modelling then you can also expand your learning experience by crating a technical drawing of the part using the TechDraw workbench.

Onto the tutorial itself.  You will be following two possible workflows; a part design revolve and a part design additive pipe. But there are many more possible routes, and you're not just limited to the part design workbench, the same part can be quite easily created in the part workbench.  Why not experiment with the different workbenches? You will be able to see how the workflows differ to create the same object.

The following document (which has been created in FreeCAD's Techdraw workbench) supports the video for the  Beginner FreeCAD Tutorial 14 located at : https://youtu.be/PRiyXU50fuw. Note this image can still be opened as a reference image in FreeCAD, the only difference is the video tutorial showed opening the SVG instead.

The measurements of the different sections of the part have been labelled with a character.  These characters appear in a table along with the measures.  This is a common design style when it comes to the technical documentation especially when used in catalogues and online shops. This allows the option of multiple groups of measurements to be documented for, say, a large, medium and small variations.  This is often seen in the automotive and mechanical industry for catalogues of universal parts but with variation for certain models or specifications need to be documented.