Creating a Cutout in a Sheet Metal Part for a Pipe Intersecting at an Angle [VIDEO]

If you’ve ever dealt with a panel that has a pipe intersecting it at an angle, you’ve probably been faced with the awkward situation of having to create a cutout for it. It’s not going to be a circular cutout (unless the angle is 90°). It’s not going to be a slot, either. The cutout is going to be an ellipse. Generating that ellipse can be a challenge.

That is, unless you’re using SOLIDWORKS.

As you can see, the obvious method of having an assembly-level Cut-Extrude feature does not have the functionality of a Sheet Metal Cut-Extrude feature (Normal Cut option). Therefore, you must edit the part within the context of the assembly in order to get access to the Normal Cut option.