SolidWorks:HEARD! - Episode 429 - Woodworking With SolidWorks Revisited

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Woodworking With SolidWorks Revisited:

This podcast is a quick update and replay of episode 266 from March 21, 2010 when I covered how to use SolidWorks as a woodworking tool.  The show covered how to automate aspects of woodworking from trim and molding to complex joining techniques.  

Original Show notes:

- Using Weldments for trim (base, crown, casing, shoe, etc.)

- How to create a profile library for Weldments

- Building Library Features for joints (lap, tongue & groove, mortise & tenon, pockets, rabbets, etc.)

- Creating Smart Components for inserts, biscuits, dowels, hardware, etc..

- Common pitfalls

- Using DriveWorks for design variation

Back in the Midwest, my family's business is carpentry and I grew up building homes and doing finish work for many summers.  I also have used SolidWorks for years to do all types of building and woodworking projects of my own and found it to be very powerful.  SolidWorks has some great tools for building the woodworker's library to assist in complex joint operations, standard millwork libraries, and find assembly problems.

For years I have built tools using the Library Features (even in the old days of the Feature Palette) that would add a dado or cut a biscuit joint but there was still much to be done.  In the past 5 years, SolidWorks has added Weldments and Smart Components which can automate cultists and the insertion of hardware with fasteners and drilled holes in adjacent components.  

Even though much of this is not "out of the box" and requires users to build that library up from scratch, the payoff is huge for those that want the power of CAD behind their designs.  Once a baseline is set, I have found design automation (DriveWorks) to be a more reliable way of varying a design to avoid in-context references and multiple rebuilds to get changes to propagate.

This past week, Digital Dimensions moved our offices across town and with packed, moving and getting all our systems setup I just ran out of time to prep a show and record.  So I apologize for missing my first show in the 7+ years of podcasting.  

In prep for this week I had started digging into the new update to eDrawings for iOS but there was a glitch that was discovered with the camera in the new Augmented Reality (AR) feature.

So as a favor to Rick, I decided to push the show till next week so I can get some hands on time before talking about it on the show.  So since the show must go on, I started looking back through the catalog and looking for a topic that had not had airtime in a while.  I really enjoyed the show on Woodworking so I hope it finds you well.  ~Lou

Check out the SolidWorks:Heard! Blog and follow us on Google+, Twitter, Facebook and THE HEaRD!

SolidWorks:Heard! - Episode 266 - Woodworking With SolidWorks

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Woodworking With SolidWorks: 

This podcast covers the tools in SolidWorks that can help automate many aspects of the woodworking industry from trim and molding to complex joining techniques.  Topics covered:

- Using Weldments for trim (base, crown, casing, shoe, etc.)

- How to create a profile library for Weldments

- Building Library Features for joints (lap, tongue & groove, mortise & tenon, pockets, rabbets, etc.)

- Creating Smart Components for inserts, biscuits, dowels, hardware, etc..

- Common pitfalls

- Using DriveWorks for design variation

Back in the Midwest, my family's business is carpentry and I grew up building homes and doing finish work for many summers.  I also have used SolidWorks for years to do all types of building and woodworking projects of my own and found it to be very powerful.  SolidWorks has some great tools for building the woodworker's library to assist in complex joint operations, standard millwork libraries, and find assembly problems.

For years I have built tools using the Library Features (even in the old days of the Feature Palette) that would add a dado or cut a biscuit joint but there was still much to be done.  In the past 5 years, SolidWorks has added Weldments and Smart Components which can automate cultists and the insertion of hardware with fasteners and drilled holes in adjacent components.  

Even though much of this is not "out of the box" and requires users to build that library up from scratch, the payoff is huge for those that want the power of CAD behind their designs.  Once a baseline is set, I have found design automation (DriveWorks) to be a more reliable way of varying a design to avoid in-context references and multiple rebuilds to get changes to propagate.  ~Lou

Remember to check out the SolidWorks: Heard! Blog and to follow me on Twitter, Facebook and THE HEaRD!