Jeff's Blog

Sheetmetal Tip - Creating cuts in bends

I've seen this come up a lot in various SolidWorks forums, so I figured I'd go ahead and post a little something about it.

When you need to insert a cut on a bend in sheetmetal, you need to use the Fold and Unfold commands, not the Flatten command. If you use the Flatten command, your cut feature will end up suppressed when you unflatten the part. To unfold a part, simply click on the 'Unfold' button. A dialogue box will pop up requesting a fixed planar face and the bend(s) you want to unfold. Click on a planar face, then the bend(s) you want to unfold. You can also have SW grab all the bends automatically. Once done, hit the check mark and your part will unfold and you'll be able to create your cuts. When you're finished with the cuts, hit the 'Fold' button. A dialogue box will pop up asking for the same stuff as the first one. Simply make the same choices you made when you unfolded the part, hit the check mark and you're done.

I hope this helps!

Administrative Images

Do you have multiple seats of SolidWorks? Are you maintaining them individually? Silly Admin, create an image! It doesn't matter if they're network licenses or not, maintaining them through an administrative image is the way to go.

We only have four seats of SolidWorks, but I maintain my three seats of Office Premium (the fourth is a stand-alone Office Pro) through an admin image. It doesn't take too much more time on the front end to get everything set up, but the amount of time it saves you not having to deal with service packs individually is worth it. Even setting up batch files to install Cosmos, SolidWorks Explorer, or PDMWorks (enterprise) is fairly easy. I know virtually nothing about HTML, API, or any of that stuff but, with a little help, I was able to do it.

As a CAD Administrator, you owe it to yourself to learn how. Click here to get the basics. Have more questions? Contact your VAR or you can email me.