Fluted Columns in Woodworking Design Software
Cut Flutes in Board with Woodworking Design Software
A user of SketchList3D woodworking software emailed in asking if it is possible to cut flutes in a board surface.
Yes it is. The process is pretty simple and fast. First select the board at the board detail level. Then select the surface you want to flute. The image above shows the surface in blue. Click on non-round holes.
In this example the flute runs from bottom to top. That is a = 0 and height = board height. You might start the bottom at 6 and wrap the bottom of the column with some sort of footer. B is the distance from the left. Make it as wide as you like. For fun – make it almost as wide as the board: 14 inch board try a 8 inch wide flute.
Click contour edge and pick round over. Accept defaults. [It may be you need to edit this hole to set the contour.] Then you have flute number one.
Click the Edit / Clone Holes button while at the board detail level.
Enter the number of flutes you want to cut, check fixed spacing, and set the distance between the flutes. Pick “from the left edge”.
This is another post [2015] describing an over the top use of this technique. You can see it HERE.
David Rozewski
My woodworking love started in 6th grade in school shop class. I have a BS in Industrial Technology and an MBA. At my first job, I computerized a production accounting system – the results were positive, and I loved the challenges. I left the corporate world to begin woodworking full time and one of my first decisions was to use CAD for my designs. I found that CAD did not meet all my needs. I wrote a specification of what I wanted and turned it into a prototype. SketchList 3D incorporated in 2007. We completed programming and launched. Today thousands of woodworkers use SketchList 3D.
