I hope you are not growing tired of my SolidWorks World chronicles just yet, because I still have a lot more to write about. This was a particularly good SolidWorks World for me and I want to share what I learned with you.  This time, let me tell you about yet another hands-on session I attended. This one was presented by Michael LaFleche, Regional Technical Manager for CAPINC, and it was an int...

This one was the first ever hands-on session I attended at SolidWorks World. Last year I wasn’t able to get into any of the hands-on sessions, but this year I had the opportunity to pre-register for several of them and it was one of the best things I could’ve ever done.  This session was presented by Dan Riffell, Projects Coordinator at Eltron Research and Development. Dan is also a v...

The first training session I attended was presented by Charles Culp, who is very well known at the SolidWorks Forums.  Charles was introducing all of us to a series of useful surfacing techniques, including how to convert a solid body into a surface body, fix some geometry, and then turn it back into a solid, the proper use of Delete Face and Delete Hole, the advantages of using Replace Face, an...

Part of the freedom I’m longing to experience this year is simply putting the fun back in what I do. Not everything needs to be solemn and extremely important, at least not all the time. So, with that in mind, I was working on this model of a hairbrush, just for the sake of practicing and having fun. I must admit, given the kind of item it is, I also thought it could provide a few examples on us...

This blog post was inspired by a question I received via email. The question was about how to create a section view in an assembly.  There was a picture attached to the email that showed an assembly  that seemed to have been cut along two planes, but only partially, and  it appeared that one chunk  of the assembly had been removed to reveal the inside, while the rest of the assembly remained v...

The weekend seemed very short and I apologize for not putting this up earlier, like I said I would, but I wanted to spend time with my husband, who had just come back from a long trip to Japan, and celebrate both our birthdays while he was here for a couple of days before he had to go back to Japan for a trade show.  Every year is the same: he’s travelling during the week of his birthday, by th...

Hey! It’s been quite some time since I updated this blog. I’ve been engrossed in a refresher of Chemistry and Materials Science, in hopes of better understanding about manufacturing processes of plastic products. Back in the day, I used to love Chemistry, and I think I wasn’t so bad at it, although some people may disagree with me, all because of a one-time tiny accident that left the lab st...

I must confess that the arms were quite a challenge for me.  My result is not perfect, I know, but I think it’s close enough.  Not so bad for a beginner, at least? Anyway, I had tried doing a surface sweep, but it didn’t look good, so I went with more lofts.  I started by creating some more geometry (What a surprise!).  I sketched a spline on the Top plane, following the silhouette of the ...

In this second part of my blog post I’ll show you how I worked the funkey’s feet. The feet were made in a very similar way to the body, with lofted surfaces, but I didn’t use Fill Surface to create a patch in this case, just the lofted surface. First of all, I created a plane that was parallel to the Right plane and used it to trim the bottom of the body, using the Trim Surface command with ...

When you’re on the road with a dog, one thing you learn pretty quickly is that your choices for food are limited because most places won’t allow dogs inside, not even little lap dogs.  I think we must’ve visited every single fast food place along I-70 on the way to Ohio and every single one along I-80 on the way back. Too much junk food!  Master Andrew seemed pleased, however, since he man...

I’ve never really been a car enthusiast. I mean, I like race cars and I sure enjoy the looks of a few models, like this particular one that was parked at some sort of car expo near the amusement park a few weeks ago. Isn’t it a real beauty? I actually like this one better than its younger cousins that were also on display that day.  Anyway, I like to look at cars and I like to drive them, bu...

If you are one of the few that visits at least every week and you are wondering where I’ve been, well, let me just remind you that it’s summertime here in California, and right now I’m home with a sick dog and eight kids. No, I’m not Octomom.  I only gave birth to two of them, but the other six are friends and neighbors that come to play or get “casually” dropped off by their mothers ...

I was actually planning on posting about friction coefficients and the way it all works using an example of a simulation of these tong grabs, but before I do that, I thought I should share with you about a little problem I ran into while trying to use a special option available for the hinge mate and a way to work around it. OK, first of all, let me tell you a bit about what these tong grabs do....

Hey everyone, I’m sorry I’ve been out of action for a whole week! I somehow managed to first hurt my rib cage merely by coughing,  and then, just in case that wasn’t enough,  poison myself with the very medications they gave me at the urgent care clinic to help me “feel better”.  Hmmm…  Anyway, I’ve been doing some light reading on how to model using surfaces in SolidWorks, just ...

  My son made me promise this was really a model of lip balm… less girly I guess, if you’re willing to overlook the flowers on the decal, that is. Sorry, I couldn’t resist! Not that I usually wear lipstick, err, lip balm, but when stressed out to the max and whenever tossing a 12 lb ball at a group of unsuspecting pins won’t make me feel any better,   I often find solace in regular thin...