Sheet metal basics

A sheet-metal part starts as one flat sheet of constant thickness that a laser (or punch) cuts and a press brake bends. Solid Vibes models it the same way: a base flange is the flat sheet, and every bend is a step in the Recipe. Because the app keeps the unfolded sheet (the flat pattern) next to the 3D part, the blank it gives the laser cutter always bends back into exactly the part you designed.

When to use sheet metal (and when not)

Use sheet metal for brackets, enclosures, chassis, covers, U-channels and panels cut from aluminium, steel or stainless sheet. Stay with solid modelling for 3D-printed, machined or molded parts, anything with walls of different thickness, bosses, ribs or organic shapes.

Ask the agent in plain words: "make a sheet metal bracket 2 mm aluminium with two 30 mm flanges", "a steel U-channel 80 mm wide, 35 mm walls, 1.5 mm". Or start from a template: Sheet-metal L-bracket or Electronics U-channel.

The steps

To add an edge flange by hand, right-click an outside edge of the sheet: the context ring shows Edge flange and Hem. The same tools are in ⌘K (type "flange", "hem", "bend", "jog" or "corner"). New sheet steps are placed right after the last sheet step, so holes you drilled later keep working.

How a flange's length and position are measured

The length of an edge flange is its outside height by default (to the outer virtual sharp, where the outside faces would meet without the bend), so the sizes you type are the sizes you can measure with a caliper.

• Material inside (default): the outside of the new flange stays on the edge you picked, so the part's footprint doesn't grow.
• Material outside: the inside of the flange sits on the edge.
• Bend outside: the bend starts at the edge; the part grows by the bend.

The sheet-metal rules of a piece

Every sheet-metal piece has a rule set in the Parameters tab, under Sheet metal:

• Material & gauge: presets for mild steel, galvanized, stainless 304, aluminium 5052 and 6061, copper and brass in common gauges (US gauges for steel, metric and decimal-inch sheet for aluminium). Picking one sets the thickness, the shop's default bend radius and a typical K-factor in one undo step.
• Thickness, bend radius and K-factor. In templates and agent builds these follow the thickness and bend_radius parameters, so moving a slider rebuilds every flange, bend and the flat pattern.
• Bend relief: the default relief for flanges that don't run the whole edge (obround, rectangular or none).
• Bend table (optional): shop data that overrides the K-factor where thickness and radius match (see Flat patterns and DXF for the laser cutter).

Checks that keep a part bendable

Set the process to Sheet Metal in Make → Check (sheet-metal templates already are). The check runs on the real bend model and offers one-tap fixes where the answer is a number:

• Bend radius vs the material: at least 1 × T for steel, 5052 and stainless, 2.5 × T for 6061-T6 (it cracks). Fix: use the minimum radius.
• Minimum flange length: about 4 × T (and at least R + 2.5 × T) so the press brake can hold it. Fix: lengthen the flange.
• Hole too close to a bend: holes nearer than 2.5 × T + R to a bend stretch into ovals. The agent can move them.
• No bend relief: the sheet must not keep going flat right beside a bend. Fix: add reliefs, or corner reliefs where two bends meet.
• Collisions: flanges that would overlap in the flat blank, or run into each other once folded.

Not modelled yet: springback and tooling (die widths), lofted / conical bends, and forming tools (louvers, embosses). Parts built as plain solids only get a thickness check — rebuild them with sheet-metal steps (⌘K → Make this a sheet-metal part…) to get bend checks and a flat pattern.