Master Cut List Property Management while inserting Parts into Parts

A variety of techniques can be employed when building assemblies in SOLIDWORKS. In some cases the weldment module is used as the primary assembly environment, in other cases we see welded bodies being created as individual assembly components before they are placed together at the assembly level. In the end it often narrows down to how you wish to manage the Weldment Cut List.

In this article, we are going to focus our attention on managing the Cut List properties from a component that is imported into another component. This is done when inserting a part file into the next and choosing the appropriate options from the list of items that “Transfer” from the component being inserted or added to the parent component.

We will start with two weldments each as its own separate part file:

This Tube Weldment is going to be inserted into the Shaft Weldment Part file as a part.

This is our Shaft Weldment – it will be the receiving file for the tube weldment in our example.

Each one of these weldment components has it’s respective cut list that exist before any importing is completed:

The catylist for our next series of explorations is to use the Insert Part command in order to insert the Tube Weldment into the Shaft Weldment and maintain the references to the original Tube file.

Once the Insert Part command is engaged, SOLIDWORKS will prompt us for the various elements of the part file which we would like to have brought into the “Parent” or Receiving component.  In this case only the solid bodies are needed along with whatever custom or cut list property we choose to carry along with us into the receiving component.

The default selection of “File Properties” becomes less than stellar once a proper cut list is created in the drawing – The line item for our newly inserted weldment is blank, and void of any useful information.

Let us revisit the custom properties option in the “Transfer” area of the Insert Part Command, this can be adjusted by right-clicking on the inserted component in the feature tree and choosing “Edit Feature”.

Choosing our second option this time “Custom Properties + Cut List Properties” gives us population of the resulting cut list – pushing the custom property from the File Properties of the Tube component down into the cut list properties of the Shaft Component file.

The final selection that one can make is the “Cut List Properties” checkbox within the “Transfer” area of the insert part command. This selection results in what we were seeking for a result, that the cut list properties come across into the receiving file cleanly from our Tube component.

Now that you are aware of your options for custom property imports during part insertion, give it a try! You may find that you can manage weldment assemblies without having to resort to a full SOLIDWORKS assembly file.

Want to learn more about weldments? Attend our SOLIDWORKS Weldments training course, either online or in a classroom near you.