Design software for form 1 design

[Nikwho]

Hello all,
I have been lurking for the past 10 months or so reading, searching and trying to learn as much as I can. In this time I have been practicing basic skills on a lathe. I feel as though I am ready to start putting my pages of notes that I've taken over the past ten years into an actual design on my computer. I do not have much in the way of design experience, but I am looking to learn as many new skills along the way as I can. I am looking for a free (probably not!?) or "relatively" inexpensive software to help put my ideas and notes into a visual design that I can submit to the community here at Silencer Talk for scrutiny. I have recently purchased Corel Draw for other purposes (to design logo and marketing material for my business) & have only scraped the surface of learning to operate it. I'm not sure if this has the capability to do what I need to do or not. I was curious if there is some software that you knowledgable folks here might reccomend for an inexperienced guy like myself. I'd rather not scan hand drawn ideas, but rather have the ability to change things as the design is tweaked along the development stage.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Nik

[propeine]

Hello all,
I have been lurking for the past 10 months or so reading, searching and trying to learn as much as I can. In this time I have been practicing basic skills on a lathe. I feel as though I am ready to start putting my pages of notes that I've taken over the past ten years into an actual design on my computer. I do not have much in the way of design experience, but I am looking to learn as many new skills along the way as I can. I am looking for a free (probably not!?) or "relatively" inexpensive software to help put my ideas and notes into a visual design that I can submit to the community here at Silencer Talk for scrutiny. I have recently purchased Corel Draw for other purposes (to design logo and marketing material for my business) & have only scraped the surface of learning to operate it. I'm not sure if this has the capability to do what I need to do or not. I was curious if there is some software that you knowledgable folks here might reccomend for an inexperienced guy like myself. I'd rather not scan hand drawn ideas, but rather have the ability to change things as the design is tweaked along the development stage.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Nik

I would opt for a student version of autodesk inventor personally but I'm biased as I use the full version 40hrs + a week already.

[T-Rex]

You can design and fabricate everything for a form 1 suppressor from a 2d drawing.

I, too, use Inventor everyday.
I would recommend a free product like Draftsight, for your needs.
It is made by the folks who created SolidWorks.

Your time is better spent on the machine than banging your head on the screen.
Trying to use a program, like Inventor, as infrequently as "now and then" will be a learning curve I don't wish for you.

If you would like to be well versed in a 3d package, then by all means, get a student copy and some coffee.
Make sure to sign-up over at AutoDesk's forum site, to get much needed information.

[Nikwho]

Thank you both for taking the time to reply with your thoughts! I will take a look at both draftsite and inventor. I appreciate both of your guys' time spent in helping me!

Nik C.

[speed6]

I used Creo 2, but it is quite expensive. I believe there are free 2D and 3D CAD options on Linux (ubuntu specifically) but I haven't had a chance to try them out. Might want to download the live DVD ISO, put it on a USB stick with live linux creator and check them out. For design calculations (minimum wall, threads etc.) I made a pretty elaborate excel spreadsheet and integrated sherline's custom thread calculator spreadsheet. You will have to unlock it since it's password protected. Look up "unlock password protected excel" and google will show you how.

After all that I ended up sketching out the baffle design I used on my first 22 can on some scrap paper. It works great, BTW .

[L1A1Rocker]

I use window Paint. My QA muzzle brake I drew (as the poster above said) on a small note pad and then scanned in for safe keeping and posting capability.