topic Re: Forming Sheetmetal Parts in Inventor Forum

Forming Sheetmetal Parts

Juan_Pierre — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 12:40:13 GMT

Hi everyone,

I was at work today and had to reverse-engineer a Formed and welded part and for the first time in a long time I just got totally stuck on how to do this with Sheetmetal tools. If I were to use the 3D model tab it would be easy but I want to figure out how to do this via Sheetmetal.

I have a 3d scan of the part and I'm not trying get 100% accuracy as this part was manufactured with very low tolerance.

Traditionally I could see keeping the edge square and just making 2 bends. But how would one do this with 2 circular edges?

is it even possible?

- Juan

Re: Forming Sheetmetal Parts

dan_inv09 — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 13:26:11 GMT

That bend to the tab appears to be the sort of bend that is not possible with the sheet metal tools.

It's sort of a conic with a flange. I wonder if you could start with the bent part and then make the flat bits - Inventor probably won't be able to unfold it even if you could get it to show it.

Re: Forming Sheetmetal Parts

kacper.suchomski — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 13:30:02 GMT

The vertical sheet metal is stamped.

It must be modeled using surface techniques and then flattened using the Unwrap command.

Ps. In the world of manufacturing, there's no such thing as 100% accuracy.

There are tolerance classes that must be considered both during production and during reverse engineering.

Re: Forming Sheetmetal Parts

swalton — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 14:17:18 GMT

You might get a good-enough shape for the center fin part by using the Contour Roll tool. I wasn't able to unfold my quick attempt though.

Re: Forming Sheetmetal Parts

dan_inv09 — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 14:21:24 GMT

Inventor isn't even going to be all that happy about this curved flange either:

Re: Forming Sheetmetal Parts

Juan_Pierre — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 05:10:07 GMT

Yeah, for this part I decided to skip the flange and just weld it instead. At this point it’s more about improving my fabrication skills than making an exact 1:1 copy. I was also thinking about splitting the top formed section into three separate flanges and welding them together. It adds some post-work, but it should help maintain strength in that bend while still keeping within the space constraints.

Re: Forming Sheetmetal Parts

Juan_Pierre — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 05:12:57 GMT

Wow ok, I have actually never made something with the contour roll like this. I will try this and see if I am able to get it unfolded.

Re: Forming Sheetmetal Parts

dan_inv09 — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 12:54:29 GMT

Things that you can't get a flat pattern of might be able to be "unwrapped"

When I did that with my non sheet metal one it gave me this surface that looked like it would be the flat version, but it was kind of floating off to the side and I do not know how you would even check to see how accurate it was.