- Once you have a starting sheet metal part,
the next logical step is to add some edge flanges.
We can do that by either selecting the tool
right up here on the sheet metal toolbar,
or we can pre-select the edge you'd like to bend,
and then go ahead and choose the tool.
Notice I can drag that up to wherever I like,
click, and it's automatically going to give me
a representation of exactly what I'm selecting.
Notice up here, Edge 1 is selected,
I have the thickness, notice I have the bend radius
already pre-selected here because it's using
the default bend radius from the sheet metal part
that we started with.
If you move a little further down,
we have the angle, and you can use the up and down arrows
to change that bend angle here,
and if I zoom you can see a little easier,
so I can just easily use up and down arrows,
or I can just go ahead and just type in a value here.
So I'm going to type in 60 degrees,
and it automatically updates, or if you want
to switch back to 90 degrees, you can easily
type that in there.
If you move down a little further,
notice we have a blind condition here,
and I just have a random value that
as I grab this arrow here I move it up and down.
That value does change inside of there,
but of course you can also just type in a value,
so say like one inch, and if you
are going the wrong direction,
you can click on this arrow here to flip it back
the correct direction, so you have
a lot of control that way.
And then, you also have how you want to define
that one inch.
So in this case here, I'm using the outer virtual sharp.
We also have the option for using
an inner virtual sharp, or the tangent bend.
So, most sheet metal shops prefer this outer virtual sharp,
so I generally keep it clicked on that button there.
So that's a one-inch flange from that outside virtual sharp.
Let's go a little further down here,
and look at the flange position.
So I'm gonna zoom in right at that corner
so you can see what's happening,
and the very first one is material inside.
So notice the end of the sheet metal stops right here,
and the flange begins right at that seam ending point.
Now, if I switch over here to material on the outside,
notice it shifts that material to the outside,
so the inside edge of the sheet metal is now aligned
with the end of the original base.
I can also shift the entire bend region
outside of that, so you can see here the bend
starts at the end of the original sheet metal,
where I have a couple of option down here
for bend from virtual sharp, or tangent to bend,
but that's normally used for more funny-angle bends,
like something like a 45 or a 60 or some obscure number.
But for a 90-degree bend, they don't really do much,
so I would stick with the material on the inside,
material on the outside, or the bend
outside flange position.
So, there's a couple different options there.
You can also use trim outside bends,
and in that condition here, notice I'm flipping things
around here by clicking on them,
but trim outside bends doesn't really work in this situation
because I don't have any other bends,
but offset does, so click on offset
and notice you see, we can offset that flange
all the way out here, and I can move
these things around if I'd like to.
But if I go back, type in one inch over here,
I can then come over here and type the offset
of maybe half of an inch, and you can see where I'm
pushing that flange out.
You also have the ability to go back up here
to the edge flange parameters, and choose another edge.
Now, watch what happens when I do that.
It automatically creates an entire new bend
with the same offset, and it creates this miter
at the corner, which does a whole lot of work for you,
so you can actually do all the edges if you'd like
to click over here, and here, and quickly,
we are able to create a really complicated part
just using this one edge flange tool.
So, a really powerful tool, you can do quite a bit with it.
But keep in mind, every one of these flanges
does have to use the same exact parameters.
They're gonna have the same length,
they're gonna have the same offset.
So if you wanna make different offsets,
or different lengths, you're gonna have to create
individual edge flanges for each one of those.
Down here at the bottom is the option for
a custom bend allowance, or a custom relief type
if you choose any one of those, it allows you
to specify the k factor, bend adduction or bend allowance
for that, you can also do the same thing
with a custom relief type by choosing
instead of an all-brown, maybe the rectangular tear,
but generally you probably will not be using these
unless you have some obscure angle
that is only specific to this one bend.
And then you might want to come over here,
instead of the k factor, choose a bend adduction,
and then type in the correct value
for that feature.
But in this case, let's go back to k factor
so it doesn't mess anything up.
And then click on okay.
So, those are the basics for using
the edge flange tool inside of SolidWorks.
You do need to start with a base, a flange or a tab
so you have something to add that flange to,
and you have a whole bunch of options
as far as how you can add and work with this tool.