SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Chapter 29: Using SolidWorks Sheet Metal Tools

FIGURE 29.26

The FeatureManager of a forming tool part

Placing a forming tool

To place a forming tool on a sheet metal part (forming tools are only allowed to be used on parts

with sheet metal features), you can drag the tool from the library and drop it on the face of the

sheet metal part. Forming tools are limited to being used on flat faces.

From there, you can use the Modify Sketch tool or horizontal and vertical sketch relations to move

and rotate the forming tool. It may be difficult to orient it properly without first placing it, seeing

what orientation it ends up in, and then reorienting it if necessary because of the limitation men-

tioned earlier with not being able to edit the orientation sketch to give it some sort of direction

identifier.

Configurations cannot be used with forming tools like they can with library features, although you

can change dimensions by double-clicking the Forming Tool icon in the sheet metal part

FeatureManager. Forming tools are suppressed when the part is flattened.

Special techniques with forming tools

One application of forming tools that is asked for frequently is the cross break to stiffen a large, flat

sheet metal face. SolidWorks has a cosmetic cross break which I discuss next. Cross breaks are

clearly not something that SolidWorks can do using straight bends, but a forming tool can do it.

You can create the forming tool by lofting a rectangle to a sketch point on a plane slightly offset

from the plane of the rectangle. This creates a shallow pyramid shape. Open the part from the

material on the CD-ROM for Chapter 29 called Chapter 29 – Cross Break Sheet Metal.

sldprt to examine how this part was made. Figure 29.27 shows the Cross Break forming tool

applied to a sheet metal part.

Cross Breaks

Using a forming tool to create a cross break is overkill for most situations. You may need to do it if
you need to actually show the indented geometry. The Cross Break feature is essentially a cosmetic
cross break, and it enables you to specify the radius, angle, and direction used to create the cross
break. It does not actually change the part geometry at all, but it does add two curve-like display
entities.