SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Chapter 4: Creating Simple Parts, Assemblies, and Drawings

Best Practice

Do not dimension sketches to model edges that are created by fillets. While the previous best practice about

relations to sketch entities instead of model edges was a mild warning, you must heed this one more carefully. n

FIGURE 4.13

Applying automatic relations to a circular edge

To add fillets and chamfers to your part, follow these steps:

1. Initiate a Fillet feature, and select the four short edges on the part. Set the radius
   value to .600 inches. Click OK to accept the Fillet feature.

Tip

When selecting edges around a four-sided part, the first three edges are usually visible and the fourth edge is

not. You can select invisible edges by expanding the Fillet Options panel of the Fillet PropertyManager, and

selecting the Select through faces option. When you have a complex part with many hidden edges, this setting

can be bothersome, but in simple cases like this, it is useful. Figure 4.14 shows this option in action. n

2. Apply chamfers to the edges of the angled slot through the part, as indicated in
   Figure 4.15. Make the chamfers .050 inches by 45 degrees.

Chamfers observe many of the same best practices as fillets.

Tip

Feature order is important with features like chamfers and fillets because of how they both tend to propagate

around tangent edges. Although you can turn this setting off for both types of feature, it is best to get the cor-

rect geometry by applying the features in order. n