Part VI: Using Advanced Techniques
Insert Part is used in many situations, some of which are covered in Chapters 11 and 28 in the sec-
tions on skeleton techniques and Master Model.Working with Secondary operations
One commonly used technique has to do with secondary operations. For example, you may have
designed a casting that needs several machining operations after it comes from the foundry. The
foundry needs a drawing to produce the raw casting, and the machine shop needs a different draw-
ing to tap holes, spot face areas, trim flash, and so on.You can use configurations to do this by using Insert Part is another way. This has nothing to do
with multiple body techniques, but this is the only place where Insert Part is covered in much
detail. One of the advantages of using Insert Part is that you no longer carry around the overhead
of all the features in the parent part. It is as if the inserted part were imported. The configurations
method forces you to carry around much more feature overhead. Of course, the downside is that
now there is an additional file to manage, but this can be an advantage because many companies
assign different part numbers to parts before and after secondary operations.Starting point
Looking back to the mouse shown in Figure 26.1, the main part has been split into several bodies.
You can use Insert Part to insert the whole mouse into a new part where all the bodies except one
are deleted, and then the remaining body serves as the starting point for a new part. Many addi-
tional features are needed on all the bodies that make up the mouse, such as assembly features,
cosmetic features, functional features, and manufacturing features.Managing Bodies
Managing bodies in SolidWorks is not as clean a task as managing parts in an assembly. As you
work with bodies, you may discover some surprises in how bodies are managed. This section pre-
pares you for the challenges involved in managing bodies in SolidWorks.Using Body folders
The top of the FeatureManager includes a pair of folders: one called Solid Bodies and the other
called Surface Bodies. These folders are only there if you have solids or surfaces in the model, and
they reflect the state of the model at the current position of the Rollback bar. As a result, the fold-
ers can change and even disappear as you roll the tree back and forth in history. Figure 26.20
shows the top of a FeatureManager that has both solid and surface body folders. Notice that the
number in parentheses after the name of the folder shows how many bodies are in that particular
folder.An odd fact about these folders is that you are allowed to rename the folders, but the name
changes never remain. If you go back to rename the folder again, the name that you previously
assigned will display.