[wykesy75]

Wondering if anyone knows of a good cad program for designing rifle stocks ? Rhino seems to be more than I need and Autocad more than I want to spend. I have V-carve pro and have been playing with Aspire but not sure of its 3d capabilities. I have 4axis and would like to use this in the machining process. Any advise or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

[awerby]

Take a look at the Cubify products: Cubify Design Cubify tutorials- everything you need to know about Cubify Design and Cubify Sculpt Cubify tutorials- everything you need to know about Cubify Sculpt. Neither is expensive, and together they give you the ability to design hard-edged parts to specific sizes, and to do some organic sorts of modifications on them so they better fit the hand. Aspire and V-carve are good for making reliefs and things like signage, but they're not really intended for designing full 3D parts. For the 4-axis carving, once you've produced your model, try DeskProto http://wwwdeskproto.com .

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[wykesy75]

Thanks Andrew, not one I've heard of but I'll definitely take a look.

Cheers
Sam

[victorofga]

you can go with a subdivision modeler, like hexagon, silo blender .... and using the cnctoolkit you can getaway about 100 dollar..

if you feel its too much expenses, then you can go with gmax, what actually 3d studio barebone version..
made by autodesk.. it is free..

with cnc toolkit you get a toolpath what very few programs can make..

the continuous toolpath with popular ""wrapping a model"" not possible.. additionally with ""wrapping a model"" you cant make objects that their surface falling ""behind"" centerline.

you have to wrap a vector around a real model..

The CNC Toolkit

MaxScripts by Rab Gordon


I could add up for this draftsight what makes real cad drawings.. with draftsight youre not locked to zero Z height.. you can draw freely in the Descartes cordinatasystem..
with draftsight you can draw a vector on object edges or in ""valleys"" simulating a pencil milling what only expenses camprograms can produce otherwise..

draftsight otherwise a ""clone"" of autocad..

trough on pdf import -export you can transfer drawings between corel and other programs that using only beziers..

its up to you... using abacus is simple, easy and affordable..
however some folks definitely like computers, what is not easy to use :-)

[mmoe]

I'm pretty satisfied with Viacad 2d/3d V8, but would also add Bonzai 3d to the list of excellent 3d modeling software. No matter what you get, you'll be in for some learning. There really isn't something that's going to be automatic. The tutorials in Viacad might make it an excellent choice to get going.

Cubify is OK, but the problem is that you will likely want more than just and STL output, so if you get the Geomagic that is capable of this, you may as well have gone with Bonzai 3d, which I feel is a much more capable modeling product.