Pipe

Pipe makes a round bar or a tube that follows a path: a drawer handle, a towel rail, a bent-wire hook, a chair frame or a channel for a cable. You only draw the path; Pipe makes the round section itself (Fusion: Pipe). For any other shape of section, use Sweep.

How to use it#

1. Sketch the path: joined lines, arcs or a spline. For a ring, close it.
2. Click Pipe (with Sweep and Loft under Sweep ▾ on a narrow screen), or press ` and type pipe.
3. Choose the Path sketch.
4. Type the Diameter, and a Wall thickness for a tube, or 0 for a solid bar.
5. Choose New (its own part), Add (joined to a part) or Remove (cut a round channel), and OK.

Tips#

• Common steel tube sizes are Ø19, Ø25 and Ø32 with a 1.6 mm wall; a solid Ø6 bar is a good wire hook.
• Round the corners of the path with a sketch fillet, so the pipe bends instead of meeting at a sharp mitre: a bend radius of at least twice the diameter looks like a real bent tube.
• A path that goes out of one plane needs a Sweep of a circle along a 3D path instead.

If it does not work#

• A wall of … fills a pipe. The wall is half the diameter or more. Make it thinner, or 0 for a solid bar.
• The path sketch has no lines to follow. Pick the sketch with the path in it.
• The pipe folds over itself where the path turns tighter than the pipe's radius: give that corner a bigger fillet.