Spiraling a string around a spool
 

Hey guys. I need to spiral a string around a peg, for a guitar. I am totally stuck. I tried last night for about an hour with a Toroid and various tools but I couldnt figure it out. Can anyone help?

Humm ok this one isnt to hard. Make a spline and twist it around your peg at the average distance the string will be. Then rail extrude a 6 point poly from one end of the spline. Subpatch and adjust. When you rail extrude you will have to adjust the number of segments a few times to get it right.

...

I have my spline pretty much set up the way i want it but for some reason the rail extrude button isnt highlighted. Ive never used rail extrude before. Do I have to select my spline a certain way?

your spline needs to be in a background layer!!!

Spline in backround layer Polygon in the foreground. You should have only these two items (one in each layer) nothing else. You should have the polygon faceing away from the spline lined up.

Thanks for the help guys. I think it worked out well.

http://astro.temple.edu/~bforce/stor...tar/string.jpg

But any tips on getting rid of that 6 sided poly at the end of the string?

Also how to make the string thinner to accomedate for the different gauges without having it scale inwards causeing some of the string to be hidden inside the peg.

To remove the six sided poly... Delete it and then go into wireframe shade mode.
Then make two Four-sided polygons out of the six vertices.

For the string you can only rail extrude one thickness. If you want to make some parts thinner then you have to do it manually.

If you want a sharper edge on the end after you make two four point polys then knife it once. Looks good.

Makeing the strings smaller without scaleing isnt to easy. I would adjust your spline closer and do another rail extrude with a slightly smaller polygon.