How to work with the Face Fillet tool – part 3 – SOLIDWORKS for beginners

Welcome back to the SOLIDWORKS for beginners series; this is the third part of our tutorial about working with the face fillet. We’d just explored how to create a face fillet with a hold line, and commented on what a smooth transition the hold line generates between the two faces selected for the fillet.

These were all fillets generated using the SOLIDWORKS radius algorithm. The Fillet Parameters section of the property manager allows us to choose other types of fillet algorithms, and I’ll show you what those look like here. In addition to radius, you can also specify a chord width, so this lets you specify a value that’s longer or shorter than a radius.

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Figure 01 – the Chord Width option of the fillet parameters section – you can choose this instead of radius.

Below, you can see what the fillet looks like using a chord width of 20mm. It’s a little different than the preview from our previous fillet:

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Figure 02 – The fillet using the chord width algorithm

Let’s switch back to Radial, and explore the Profile drop down menu, as shown below. We’re still in the Fillet Parameters section. For all the previous examples, I’ve had Circular selected by default. There’s also Conic Rho, Conic Radius and Curvature Continuous. Basically these represent different mathematical algorithms for creating the fillet.

SOLIDWORKS for beginners

Figure 03 – Profile options: Circular, Conic Rho, Conic Radius and Curvature Continuous.

Below I’ll show you what each looks like; they are just slightly different with this same radius value of 20mm, but if you look at the perimeter of the fillet you’ll be able to distinguish one from another.

Here is Conic Rho:

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Figure 04 – Conic Rho fillet profile

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Figure 05 – Conic Radius fillet profile

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Figure 06 – Curvature Continuous fillet profile

And let’s accept our work; remember, that’s the green check mark at the top of the property manager.

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Figure 07 – the OK or accept button at the top of the property manager. Left click the green check mark to accept your work and have SOLIDWORKS calculate and generate the fillet.

Below you can see our final fillet; as you see, we were able to generate this fairly complex modeling in just a few clicks, with very little work on our part! Hazzah to the face fillet; this is a cosmetic touch that brings sophistication to beginner work.

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Figure 08 – the final fillet.

I hope you enjoyed this SOLIDWORKS for beginners tutorial, and if you’d like to see more of our work, please try the SOLIDWORKS Essentials course or the best value, our Platinum Bundle. Also, please view many of our videos at our YouTube Channel, videotutorials2

Thanks! Rosanna D, VTN  www.video-tutorials.net