Page 166 - Mastering SolidWorks

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Creating a Simple drawing 135

Create a vertical sketch relation between the origin and the centerpoint of the slot. Make
the slot 0.500 inches wide. One way to do this is to place a 0.25 inches radial dimension on
one of the end arcs, but a more interesting way to do it is to hold down the Shift key and
click both of the big arcs with the Smart Dimension tool. This will give you the difference
between the arcs. Continue to dimension as shown in Figure 4.24.

NOTE Using the add dimensions option in the Slot propertymanager can help you size the slot more
quickly. this does not require the enable onscreen numeric-input option to be turned on.

2. From this sketch, create an extruded cut .75″ deep.

3. Open a sketch on the bottom of the previous slot, and offset the slot to the inside by 0.110″.
Create a cut using the Through All end condition.

Creating Fillets and Chamfers
As mentioned earlier, it is considered a best practice to avoid using sketch fillets when possible
and use feature fillets instead. Another best-practice guideline is to put fillets at the bottom of the
design tree or at least after all the functional features. You should not dimension sketches to
model edges created by fillets unless no better methods are available. Several chapters could be
written just about fillet types, techniques, and strategies in SolidWorks. Chapter 7, “Modeling
with Primary Features,” deals with more complex fillet types.

Best Practice
do not dimension sketches to model edges that are created by fillets. although the previous best
practice about relations to sketch entities instead of model edges was a mild warning, you must heed
this one more carefully.

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. You can use the first icon on the left of the
pop-up toolbar, as shown in Figure 4.25, to help you select all four edges around the
part quickly.
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.