Sheetmetal tab or face command

[TravisJoe]

Work has kept me busy on other projects so I have not been using the sheetmetal as much lately. Now finally getting back to it, I realized a feature that I was not there when I looked for it.

In other tools workflows, especially in top down, I like to create the main sheetmetal feature and then sometimes add tabs/faces as new features, keeping them more isolated. I believe Inventor uses the term Face, when wanting to add thickness to a sketch using sheetmetal properties. See the image for an example. Right now I can do this with the flange tool but it only wants to create a separate body. And I do not see within the sheetmetal environment how to join them. I can combine them in the model environment (appears flatten works), but this adds steps I feel are unnecessary. Ideally I feel like the flange tool or another face tool could extrude, using the sheetmetal rules, and then have join as a option.

First I would like to request this feature. Second, is there a intended or more proper way to add material in this fashion without always needing to go back to the original sketch, or moving into model and combine.

I realize I might of just missed or forgot how to do this properly in Fusion, but it does not seem obvious. 

[gautham_kattethota]

Hello Travis,

We currently support joining two flanges, by using an open sketch profile to create a flange and then Join it to an existing plate.  This is the Join operation in Contour Flange command in Inventor.  

You start off with an existing sheetmetal body.  Create a sketch plane perpendicular to an edge on the body that you want to add material to.  Create an open profile sketch curve on that sketch, ideally touching the edge from the body that the sketch is perpendicular to.  Use the flange command to select the sketch curve and then the edge.  

This operation creates a contour flange using the sketch curve and then joins it to the body along the selected edge.   Once you select the perpendicular edge, you can add more edges around that body to replicate the contour flange along.

A similar operation involving closed sketch profiles, where you select the closed profile using the Flange command and join it to an existing body is not yet supported.  This functionality will not be available in July release of Fusion.

Hope this answers your question and you are able to achieve what you are looking to do using open profile sketches.

Regards

Gautham

[TravisJoe]

Thanks for the information.

Using the flange tool fir the Contour flange functionality is nice, but I do not feel it solves my problem any more efficiently. More like the Face tool in Inventor, I want to be able to work on a sketch on the same plane as the main surface, or more of "look at" perspective. Using the edge to define the added material just does not give me the flexibility I am looking for.

For now I think it is probably the easiest to do a normal sketch, flange tool to extrude, then combine. At least flat patterns seems to be working fine with this method.

Thanks