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A regular coffee glass or cup has a handle to prevend you for risking burns. That’s why a normal glass is not suitable for hot coffee. The Danish company Bodum found a solution for this problem. They developed a line of double walled design drinking glasses.

The glasses are provided with an insulating air chamber between the inner and outer glass surface. This prevent you for hand burns. It’s also an advantage for cold beverages with hands that are temperature sensitive. Besides the excellent isolation it also looks great when the glass is filled with liquid.  I thought it would be nice to show you how to model a double walled drinking glass like the Bodum glass in SolidWorks.

In this tutorial you will learn how to use the following functions:

• 2D sketch
• Insert a photo
• Change Transparency
• Revolve
• Fillet
• Shell

Enjoy it!

PhotoView360 visualisation of a double walled Bodum glass

Open a new part with model units set to millimeters

Go to: File > New > Part

Create a 2D sketch

Select the Front Plane in the feature tree (menu at the left side) and create a

sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

The display changes so the Front plane faces you.

Insert a reference photo

For this tutorial we use a photo of a Bodum glass to approach the nice shape as good as possible.

Download the photo here and save it into your SolidWorks folder

Go to: Tools > Sketch Tools > Sketch Picture 

Go to your SolidWorks folder and select the photo “SIDEVIEW_BODUM_GLASS.Jpg”

Click: Open

Change the dimensions and position of the photo with the menu as shown in the picture.

Select ‘’Full image’’ in the Transparency tab and change the transparency into 0.50

Click OK 

Click at the Sketch button in the upper right corner close the 2D Sketch 

Create another 2D sketch

Select the Front Plane again and create another sketch by clicking on the 2D Sketch icon 

Draw two centerlines

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Centerline or click at the Centerline icon 

Draw a vertical centerline that starts at the origin. 

Change the length of the line into 61 mm by clicking at the dimension button 

Draw a horizontal centerline that starts at the upper endpoint of the vertical centerline

Change the length of the line into 26 mm by clicking at the dimension button 

Draw three solid lines

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Line or click at the Line icon 

Draw the three lines as shown in the picture

Change the lengths of the lines by clicking at the dimension button 

Draw a spline without midpoints

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Spline or click at the Spline icon 

Draw a spline as shown in the picture without a midpoint

Right mouse button > Select

Change the curve of the Spline like the picture

Click at the Top point of the spline > The grey arrows of the Spline appear

Click and drag the round endpoint of the grey arrow as shown in the picture (the orange dot)

Click at the Lower point of the spline > The grey arrows of the Spline appear

Click and drag the round endpoint of the grey arrow as shown in the picture (the orange dot)

Try to create the curve of the glass as shown in the picture

Draw a second spline without midpoints

Go to Tools > Sketch Entities > Spline or click at the Spline icon 

Draw a spline as shown in the picture without a midpoint

Right mouse button > Select

Change the curve of the Spline like the picture

Click at the Top point of the spline > The grey arrows of the Spline appear

Click and drag the round endpoint of the grey arrow as shown in the picture (the orange dot)

Click at the Lower point of the spline > The grey arrows of the Spline appear

Click and drag the round endpoint of the grey arrow as shown in the picture (the orange dot)

Try to create the curve of the glass as shown in the picture

Add a tangency relation add the end of the spline

Click at the orange dot as shown in the picture

Select the Horizontal relation in the Spline menu bar at the left side 

The endpoint of the spline is fully tangent now

Create a Revolve

Go to Insert > Boss/Base > Revolve or click at the Revolve icon 

Click at the vertical Centerline to define the Axis of Revolution 

Use the One-Direction option 

Set the Revolution Angle to 360 degrees 

Click OK 

Create two Fillets

Go to: Insert > Features > Fillet/Round or click at the Fillet icon  

Click at the blue edges as shown in the picture

Change the Radius into 1 mm 

Click OK 

Create another Fillet

Go to: Insert > Features > Fillet/Round or click at the Fillet icon  

Click at the blue edges as shown in the picture

Change the Radius into 5 mm 

Click OK 

Change the transparency of the glass

Select an arbitrary face of the glass

Click at the appearances button 

Click at the Part name 

Click at the dropdown menu called ‘’standard’’

Select the Transparent option

Change the color into white

Click OK 

Create a Shell

Now it’s time to convert the Solid glass into a double walled glass. We will use the Shell feature for  this.

Go to: Insert > Features > Shell or click at the Shell icon 

Change the Thickness into 1 mm 

Click OK 

Congratulations, you just finished your own double walled drinking glass!

Feel free to leave a comment below or to share this tutorial

Click here to download the Photo and SolidWorks file of the Double Walled Bodum Glass