Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

I have a mold plate that I would like to remove material from but it has water lines and screw holes in it that I want to avoid. I basically want to core it out from the back to save weight. If I use the shell command it adds thickness around all holes leaving undercuts. Is it opssible to use the shell command or something similar to leave wall stock but ignore undercuts in the Z direction.

I have included PDFs of the original plate and what I did manually to remove material. I am looking for a cleaner way to do this so I can remove the most material and be able to send it to the programmer for cutting.

Thanks for your help.

Randy

[#2]

Hi! This is an interesting challenge. I compare the two images trying to see how you can get there in Inventor. There are only two reasonable workflows I can think of. I cannot think of any one-stop shopping approach unfortunately.

One is still using Shell but with face thickness override (you will need to create extrusion to fill in void in some areas). The other is creating a sketch at the bottom face. You may need to add some lines and curve to create a nice profile. Then do an extrusion cut.

Thanks!

[#3]

I'm thinking do a shell and then perhaps a Project Geometry the "horizontal" cylinders to tangent planes and Extrude.  Maybe even Silhouette Curve might have a play in here.  Will have to make up an example part and experiment.

[#4]

"The other is creating a sketch at the bottom face. You may need to add some lines and curve to create a nice profile. Then do an extrusion cut."

That's pretty much what I did but I was hoping for a better solution to get into the corners without having to create a bunch of extrusions at different depths. Having a Shell "Z-Only" type command would be a great option for something like this or even product design. If I could use a radius as well so it would be like running a ball cutter straight into the plate, which is what I want to do.