- [Instructor] To get started with SOLIDWORKS Sheet Metal,
the first thing we need to do
is to add in the sheet metal tools.
So to get started, let's go ahead and head up here
to the blank sheet of paper at the top
and start a brand new document.
And you can go ahead and choose the basic Part here
if you're using the Novice Toolbar
or switch over to the Advanced Toolbar
and choose one of the basic templates
you already have loaded.
And you can also add in additional tabs
at the top here if you wanna add the templates
from the provided Exercise Files.
But, in this case, let's go ahead
and switch back to Novice,
choose Part, and click on OK.
Alright, once we're in the SOLIDWORKS environment,
notice up here we have the ribbon bar
and we have the individual tabs
with the different tools there,
and we don't see sheet metal.
So to get to the sheet metal tools,
right click on any one of those tabs,
come down here to Sheet Metal,
and make sure you turn that on which will add
the Sheet Metal tab.
We also have the option of using this little drop arrow,
or this little fly out arrow here at the top.
If you come all the way over here to the little pin,
you can click on that and it'll stay out.
Then you come down here to Insert.
Come down to Sheet Metal.
And you should have all the available tools available
to you right there as well.
There's a couple additional ways to do this.
If you come over here to the gray area here
where there's no icons,
right click and you can come down here
and turn on the Sheet Metal Toolbar,
which will drop it right over here
or somewhere else on your screen,
and you can move that around to anywhere you'd like
on your screen.
And when you're done with it,
go ahead and click on the red check mark
to remove that toolbar.
Now, there's a lot of different sheet metal tools,
I'm gonna be going through most of them
in the course.
And there's also multiple ways to get to them.
And, in fact, beyond the individual toolbars,
we can also add those things to our shortcut bar.
For instance, if you use the S key on your keyboard,
it will bring up individual tools over here.
Now, notice there are no sheet metal tools on there,
but you can customize some of the shortcut bars
or the mouse gestures to add in the sheet metal tools
if you're using them all the time.
SOLIDWORKS has a full set of tools
for working with sheet metal,
as well as some handy tools from converting to sheet metal.
The key thing to remember is for the best parts
start them as native sheet metal parts.
So load the Sheet Metal Toolbar
and let's get started.