Thicken a Surface with Specified Direction in SOLIDWORKS 2020

In SOLIDWORKS 2020 you can thicken a surface by specifying a direction other than normal to a face with Thicken and Thicken Cut features. The direction for Thicken or Thicken cut can be a linear sketch entity, two vertices or sketch points, cylindrical or conical faces, reference planes or axes, and so on.

In the example below, we are going to thicken the red surface by 50 mm.

Part Model

To activate the SOLIDWORKS Thicken command, go to Insert > Boss/Base > Thicken. In the property manager in the Surface to Thicken Box, we are selecting the red surface.

Activating the Thicken Command

The Surface is Selected

For the direction of thicken, if you don’t make any selections, it would be normal to the surface. However, for this example, let’s test a few different directions. The first direction is the linear sketch entity:

Choosing a Linear Sketch For the Direction

We can also use two sketch points for the direction:

Using Two Sketch Points for the Direction

We can use a reference plane and the direction will be normal to that plane:

Using a Plane for the Direction

If we use a cylindrical or conical face, the axis of revolution will be the direction of thickening for the SOLIDWORKS Thicken command.

Using a Conical Face for the Direction

Learn more about the SOLIDWORKS Thicken command

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