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Sherliker Limited is a specialist marine consultancy providing a service to production facilities which need to contract in design, drafting, project management or project planning.
Chris Sherliker who heads up the company can draw on twenty years of experience primarily in the marine industry. After training as a yacht designer, Chris initially worked hands-on, building several composite race boats and carbon pre-preg components before working as a designer for many of the marine industry’s innovators and luminaries before setting up his own company.
Sherliker Ltd. offers a very comprehensive design service ranging from hand drawn annotated sketches to fully rendered 3D models of complete assemblies and computerised databases of detailed construction drawings for production building.
“One of our prime objectives is to use the right tool for the job” comments Chris, “computer aided design, CNC routers and 5-axis milling machines have revolutionised the composites build industry and offer tremendous time savings and significant increases in accuracy. The software we use more than anything else is Rhino. Because of it’s ease of use and because Rhino doesn’t force us to work in a particular way means that we can get into 3D very early on in the conceptual stage of a project. Rhino is also supremely accurate, however, and we can produce production ready data when necessary.”
CAD work is usually started as a 3D model which develops into an accurate and potentially fully detailed representation of the product. It is very easy to visualise the final product with a fully rendered model which can be rotated on screen. This can be generated form the client's brief or developed from existing models or traditional drawings. The 3D model is the definitive reference for all subsequent work.
From the 3D model further models can be developed to suit CNC machining of plugs with flanges and alignment blocks. If hand built plugs are deemed the most appropriate method then deducted surfaces and frames can be generated for either CNC cutting or plotting at full size. Traditional lines plans and multiple rendered images are also produced to aid comprehension by the workforce.
The geometry of the internal structure and fit-out can be established using the base model allowing parallel building of the main shell and the internal structure and furniture to reduce build durations. Large items of equipment can be modeled and fitted in their required locations to establish what will fit where at this stage of the design.
Where a new product is being developed the final cost of tooling and prototyping can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, investing in design and project management up front is very appropriate as it safeguards the investment and can lead to significant savings during the development and throughout the production.
www.sherliker.co.uk
