Watched a guy at the Denver trade show draft a complex part in under 10 minutes

I was at the Denver CAD expo last month and saw a guy at the SolidWorks booth. He was drafting a weird bracket with multiple angled holes and a cutout. He used a single sketch with a bunch of constraints and one extrusion, done in like 9 minutes. I always made separate sketches for each feature, which took forever. Now I try to combine more into one sketch when I can. It's not always the right move, but it's way faster for simple parts. Anyone have a rule for when to use one sketch vs many?

4 comments

4 Comments

park.miles3mo ago

Wait, he did all that in one sketch?

susansingh3mo ago

My old boss said one sketch per solid body works best.

cameronp471mo ago

Did your boss also insist on a separate workbench for every little part too? I had a guy once who swore by that rule and then spent half his day clicking between tabs while the rest of us just used a couple sketches and called it good. I still remember spending three days on a bracket because he wanted it as six separate bodies that all had to be joined later. It was a mess. Sometimes rules are just that guy's preference, not the law of the land.

the_susan3mo agoMost Upvoted

Wait, so @park.miles, you're telling me you actually try to follow that rule? I tried that once and my model looked like a toddler's play-doh project. Boss says one sketch per body, next thing you know you're making a coffee cup with twelve different solids and a nervous twitch.