Why do people not use the sheet metal tools?

So I’ve been watching a lot of videos on YouTube about people programming their crossfire tables and making CAD files for their tables.

Now I’ve had a lot of people seem to design everything flat and then assume bend radii and such.

I’m just curious as to why so few people seem to design in the sheet metal tab and make all the bins and search in that section of fusion?

Because then you know that you get the perfect bend radii and that you can flatten the file it will show everything overlapping if it does you can make your adjustments and then export to dxf without having to export a sketch.

Just curious, as I notice a lot of people seem to just make it all as a flat pattern, flat sketch in their heads, and then go through the manufacturing tab that way and set everything manually.

But doing it through the sheet metal tab, it “knows” your sheet metal already, it “knows” your settings, and you can have them already predefined to your sheet profiles.

That to me designing things seems to be the “easy” way, but I’m curious that so few people out in the wild using the machines are using the sheet metal functions of fusion.

This square to round is partially made in the sheet metal environment.

I use the sheet metal tools for this dive ladder.

Even something as simple as this sign I would use the sheet metal environment for the bent bottom tab

Having the K factor adjustments for your flat pattern is quite nice.

Anytime a project ends up with a bend it’ll end up in the sheet metal environment for me.

1 Like

Yeah well that’s it, I would have thought that more people would design in there, because there’s so many things I see people guessing at. It’s like "You could set these in sheet metal once, and then all the settings are there for you…

I have recently been teaching myself how to use the sheet metal work space. Currently it’s much faster for me to draw it up 2d simply because that’s what I know.

Eventually I hope to get to a spot where it’s quicker in the sheet metal workspace and I’m sure it will. In my limited use of it I can see allot of benefits to designing in the sheet metal workspace but if I need something quick(with 3 kids 4 weeks to 3 years old I don’t get allot of spare time) I just draw it up in 2d.

Also I am using an improvised, and somewhat cobbled together, sheet metal break that I made with material I had on hand, so I need bend relief lines for anything over 18 gauge.

I have been learning to project the bend lines but It takes me some time and more thought.