Saving Copy of Part

[Alex Westling]

I am working on a drawing of a part that I need the body made into a casting. How can I save a copy of my finished part to start modifying it(removing holes, removing cuts, moving faces adding draft) and still keep its references to the original so if I make changes to the original part the changes will also will be made to my second part?

I already tryed opening a new part and Insert>Part but my design tree for the original does not transfer to the new part.

I hope this makes sence.

[under-dog]

Depending on the complexity of your part:

1)You could make different configurations of your part right in the part file.
2) Make a master part file that has all of the common elements worked out and then save out the bodies to thier own part files and make the proprietary features there.

There may be others.....

[DareBee]

I do this all the time for castings and weldments (premachined state).
Make a configuration for machined state and 1 for as cast state.
Making copies of parts will really confuse things and lose important associativity in case the part changes in the future.

[solidcad]

I am not a Solidworks person, but I have used the program.
Can't you create a derived part by opening a new part file and inserting the original part file into it?
Just a thought.

[Alex Westling]

I think your right with the configurations but I still cant get it to work. I right clicked on "Part Name Configurations" > "Add Configurations" > Then I named the new configuration "Casting"

So now with "Casting" activated I went to my design tree and deleted my hole operations. But then when I go back to my "Default" Configuration all my holes are still gone. Am I missing a step?

[under-dog]

I do this all the time for castings and weldments (premachined state).
Make a configuration for machined state and 1 for as cast state.
Making copies of parts will really confuse things and lose important associativity in case the part changes in the future.

If done right with the save bodies command the associativity remains. Configuration may still be your best bet for simple parts.


The sort of things I work on can often have 650 features or so and extremely organic forms. This is a case where configurations can become impossible. If you are doing simple extruded flat or geometric parts then yes configs can work well.

[DareBee]

NEVER DELETE YOUR FEATURES - SUPPRESS THEM.
If there are spots you need to add material. Draw and extrude what you need, then suppress it back in the other configuration.

Here is an example.
rename zip to sldprt