Measuring an Exhaust Flange

[Lugy]

Hi all, I've been given a job to create a CAD drawing of an exhaust flange I can give to a laser cutting guy.

This is the gasket in question..


What is the best way to measure this without the use of a CMM? I've thought about squaring it up and clamping it to the table of my VMC and using a 3D taster probe plus calipers to work out the positions/dimensions of the features.

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

Lucas

[jjclear]

I wasn't able to see your gasket, but I recently did a simular job. I scaned half the gasket on a flat bed scanner and imported that image into my CAD program. I then traced it, and mirrored the image. (the flange was symetric and my scanner wasn't big enough) It took a couple of trys cutting samples, using my CNC mill to get the proper fit, but it worked out pretty well. I used some scrap 1/4" laminate flooring for the sample parts and test fit them on the engine before sending the file to the laser cutter. I did use measurements for bolt hole locations, but for outside contours and ports the scanned image worked out good.

J.

[Lugy]

Cheers, that seems quite a logical solution, especially if I can find the free raster to vector program I found a while ago again.

Unfortunately this one isn't symmetrical but I'm sure I could work something out.

[Kiwi]

I would scan in flat bed scanner.
May need two takes. Put some marks on gasket to help matching together
Join pics together and bring into background of drawing program. I use SW.
Scale and trace.
To confirm drawing is correct, print and match with gasket.

[John Bennett]

With autocad you could take a scan, picture or drawing and place is on one layer, on a different layer you place measured points that are critical, then you a function called "align" that lets you pick the point on the picture and point to the actual scale point on the drawing, you can pick multiple points (the more the better) this then adjust the drawing and scale to exact measurements, then trace. I have not found this function on mastercam.