Hi All,

I am trying to create a simple protrusion on a sheet metal design.

I can add and remove material on either side of the sheet metal part separately, but NOT at the same time.

(I did this by using combine or by pulling identical surfaces / shapes on both sides of the sheet metal surface).

Nevertheless, this is counter-productive and error prone.

Is there a way to introduce a protrusion that affects both sides of the sheet metal simultaneously?

Thanks in advance.

Hi Nick,

 You can always turn sheet metal on or off at any time if you are trying to make changes that might not be the norm when working with sheetmetal.  If you were trying to make a symmetric protrusion on either side of the flat, I would turn sheet metal off and sketch on the midplane of the sheetmetal piece, and then pull in both directions and add at the same time.  Please let me know if this is clear or you are still having issues.

 Regards,

Roman

Hi Roman,

Thanks for your reply and clever tip.

I was trying to make a protrusion / pull / add on one side of the sheet-metal and the equivalent depression / push / cut on the other side, as if the metal was hit with a punch or hammer.

Using a mid-plane sketch, cutting on one side and adding on the other, is a good and fast work-around.

Nevertheless, being able to do this while keeping accurate sheet metal thickness on the edges and controlling bend properties, would have been great.

Maybe in a future revision?

Best regards,

Nick

In such cases it might be worth considering to model the protrusion separately, overbuild it's border delibartely at the negative side, then place it on/in the sheet metal, combine the two and fill the excess faces that are created at the downside, then add a fillet. This has the advantage of not interfering with the sheet metal status of the part during creation of the punch, as well as the punched element being reusable, up to creating a library of standard protrusions. Best regards, Martin P.S.: If we could upload files or at least images here, I could post a step by step slide show and a sample.