For my final Fusion 360 project, in keeping with the theme of musical instruments, I decided to model a bugle, the brass ancestor to the trumpet:

Since there is much less tubing in a bugle than there is in an Alphorn, this project should prove to be much easier than the Alphorn, or at least easier to print. But first, I had to do some research.

Research

Since much of this information was researched while completing the Alphorn project, there is little additional research that needs to be done. First, I needed to figure out the fundamental frequency, or the lowest note, of a bugle. Historically, bugles were designed in a variety of different keys; for simplicity’s sake, I will use the fundamental frequency of a Bb Trumpet, which according to this Wikipedia article, is the note Bb3. Using Wolfram|Alpha, I found that this note is equivalent to 233.082Hz, which needs tubing that is 1460mm long. Still much larger than what the 3D printers are capable of printing, but also much more manageable than the almost 4 meter Alphorn. Luckily, there is a way to get this project completed in one print.

Design

To get this design to come together in as little prints as possible, it would need to be designed just like any other bugle would be designed: by coiling the tubing around. First, in Fusion 360, I did a simple sketch of what the bugle would generally look like, mostly to get the length down correctly:

In order to get the wrap correct, I discovered the “3D sketch” feature that allows you to sketch on a 3D plane rather than sticking to 2D. By doing this, I prevent making the coiling of the tubes much more complicated than it needs to be.

It is hard to see here, but the plot points have been moved off of the 2D plane to create a 3D sketch.

Next, I made the sketch into a pipe body to get most of the bugle.

It would feel natural to pipe the entire instrument and thus completing it. Unfortunately, pipe will do nothing for the bell. This can easily be countered by sketching the bell flare and sweeping a body out of that. What proved difficult about this part was getting the bell flare to be exactly how I want it. Even in the final product, the bell flare is not perfect, but it is good enough for the instrument.

Printing

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, I do not have access to the 3D printers at JMU in order to print the final product.