Your First Sheet Metal Part: a Base Flange from a Sketch

Your task

Make this mounting plate in SolidCraft 0.21:

1. In a new design, open Sheet Rules (Sheet Metal tab), choose New rule… and make the rule Steel 2mm: thickness 2 mm, bend radius 2 mm, K Factor 0.4, Active rule ticked (as in Lesson 1).
2. Create a sketch on the XY plane.
3. With the Line tool, draw an L from the origin: 120 mm wide, 80 mm tall, each arm 40 mm wide (the corner cut away is top right).
4. Add three 8 mm holes with the Circle tool (C), centred at (20, 20), (100, 20) and (20, 60).
5. Finish the sketch.
6. Click Flange and click inside the L (not inside a circle). Type should say Base. Click OK.
7. Click Flat Pattern (Sheet Metal tab › Flat) and read Flat size.
8. Make a second rule Steel 3mm: thickness 3 mm, bend radius 3 mm, K Factor 0.4. Untick Active rule.
9. Double-click the flange in the timeline (or right-click it › Edit Feature), set Rule to Steel 3mm and click OK. Open Flat Pattern again.

What to write down

• The two first numbers of Flat size (width and height) for the Steel 2mm plate.
• The last number of Flat size for the Steel 3mm plate: that is the thickness.

Type them below and press Check. If a hole is missing in the flat pattern, see the Common mistake in the video: you picked a circle as well as the plate.