SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part VII: Working with Specialized Functionality

Parting Surface

The Parting Surface in SolidWorks works best on planar parting lines that are convex all the way
around. That is to say that it will work okay on a part with a parting line that looks like an “O”
from the direction of pull, but may not work optimally on a part that looks like a “C.” In fact, it
might be safe to say that the Parting Surface feature is in many cases unusable for any but the sim-
plest parts. The part that I have been using as an example for this section is too much for the
Parting Surface feature for two reasons: it is non-planar and the parting line has two concave areas
(corners where handle intersects the housing).

There are not enough options with this feature to make it work in situations in which it doesn’t

work by default. What this boils down to is for 70 percent or more of your Parting Surfaces, you

will need to create your own manually, which I show you how to do in the next section.

Just to show an example that does work, I have created a very simple part and brought it to this

point using the Mold Tools process. When the process works as it should, and even when you

have to create surfaces manually, you will wind up with one complete surface body in each of the

Mold Tools Folders — Cavity, Core, and Parting surfaces. From this you can see that the Parting

Surface and Cavity Surface define the top side of the Cavity block. Likewise, the Parting Surface

and the Core Surface define the top side of the Core block.

In Figure 32.24, the Parting Surface is transparent so you can see both the Cavity and Core surface

bodies. The grayscale image may not show this distinctly, but if you open the part from the

CD-ROM, it will become obvious.

FIGURE 32.24

A completed Parting Surface