Explore the process of creating a folding bracket component for a scooter deck using sheet metal tools and precise measurements. This professional guide walks you through the entire procedure, from constructing the base to bending the flange to make a U shape, to ensure a sturdy and well-designed component.
Key Insights
- The creation of a folding bracket component begins by constructing an offset plane from the ground plane, raised by 124mm, which corresponds to the top of the scooter deck.
- Using the line tool in the Sheet Metal tab, a rectangle with precise dimensions (120mm by 40mm) is sketched on the top of deck plane, and superfluous lines are deleted to make a solid shape.
- With the help of the Flange command in the Create tab, the sketch transforms into a steel flange. The thickness of the flange can be adjusted in the Sheet Metal Rules under Modify. The flange is then bent into a U shape to form the folding bracket component.
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With our Folding Bracket component active, let's go to the Construct menu and we will select Offset Plane. We want to select the Ground Plane and pull it up. We're going to go up 124 mm.
And if that sounds familiar, you are correct. That is the top of our scooter deck. With that, we will click OK and expand our Folding Bracket component and expand the Construction folder.
This Plane 1, we will click on it and rename it. We will call this Top of Deck. Enter should lock that in.
Let's go back to our Home view. And I'm going to click off into space to make sure nothing is selected. And now I want to create a sketch.
But I want to make sure I'm doing that right here in the Sheet Metal tab. Sheet Metal, Create Sketch. And I want to start with that Top of Deck Plane.
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So I will select it. And now I can click the Line tool and zoom in right to the origin. That's the point right at the front of our scooter deck.
I will click one time and then draw a second point 20 mm out. So I'll type in 20, Enter. Alright, now we're going to create basically a rectangle that forms the bottom of our bracket.
So I'll engage the Line tool again, click where I left off, and go up. This time 20 mm, Enter. Click the Line command again, starting where I left off.
This time going straight back 120 mm. Click Enter. Another Line tool, click.
Go straight down 40, Enter. Line tool again, click where I left off. Go to the right, perfectly straight, 120 mm.
And at this point I can delete the lines I don't need. I don't need that first line that took me from the origin out. I will delete that.
Select, Delete. I also don't need this 20 mm line here. I will select it and click Delete.
Now I just need one line to finish off my rectangle. I'll click Line, Point to Point. The rectangle shades blue letting me know it's complete.
I can click the Home view to see that result and click the green check mark to finish Sketch. So there it is, just a basic rectangle right at the front of our scooter deck. Now here's the fun part.
We can start to use these sheet metal tools. In the Create tab, there is a button called Flange. So let's click that.
And that brings a Flange menu to us. And it says we can select an edge or a profile. That profile we want to select is the Sketch.
We'll click one time to select it. And there it is. The operation is set to New Body.
And we'll click OK. And we'll see right away that it created a bottom metal flange out of steel. And there it is.
And you might ask yourself, well how does it know what the thickness is? You know, some of the rules around this. If we go to Modify and pull that down, there is something called Sheet Metal Rules. And it says in this design, we are using steel.
There's a library with all the other options, but we're going to stick with steel. And next to the word steel millimeters, there is an Edit Rule. We can click that.
And right now the thickness is set to 2.5. We could change that to 3,3 millimeters. And click Save. And we'll notice it was very subtle, but it jumped up to 3 millimeters.
And we'll click Close. Now with that, we are ready to continue working on this sheet metal. Now it's going to bend up in a U shape.
So to do that, we want to go up here to Create Flange again. So that same Flange command, we'll click that. And it says again, select your edges and profiles.
This time I want to click the two top lines. So this line right here and this line right here. And now I can pull those up and create flanges.
Isn't that cool? It does the bend for us automatically and creates the vertical flanges. We can type in 80. That's how far we want to take this.
And we'll notice that there are other options. You can go Angles and decide how that bend position works. But right now, everything looks good.
We want a basic 90-degree angle. We're going to go ahead and click the OK button. And we are all set.
Now we just need to do a little bit of housekeeping to get our naming set up. So right here under Bodies, let's open that. It's called Body 1. We'll select that.
And we're going to call it this time our Folding Bracket. And then we have a Sketch. And we can call this Bracket Base.
And with that, everything is looking really good in this component. It has a name. Everything is named and organized.
