SOLIDWORKS Sub-Weldments Functionality

I want to clear something up that is very confusing about making SUB-WELDMENTS.

I personally had swayed people away from the Sub-Weldment functionality for quite a while, because after you went to all the trouble to get all the properties you wanted in your Cut-List Items, you would lose it all when you made a sub-welment,

NO LONGER THE CASE AS OF SW2012 !!

Trust me, it DOES work, BUT it is somewhat confusing HOW to do this the CORRECT way…

The thing to remember with this is that the BODIES do NOT store any properties, only the Cut-List Item FOLDERS do.
So if you have never done an UPDATE to the cut-list first, you cannot expect the properties (that don’t exist yet) to propagate down to the sub-weldments like they are supposed to !

It sounds obvious when I explain it that way, but it was very confusing to me for a while, and I know it is still confusing to new users…

HERE are the steps TO SUCSESSFULLY MAKE A SUB-WELDMENT:

1. Go and create your weldment as normal

2. Update the cut-list

3. Ctrl+Select the BODIES you want to make into a sub-weldment (either from tree or from screen with bodies filter)

4. Rt+Clk, CREATE SUB-WELDMENT

5. Then UPDATE THE CUT-LIST AGAIN !!!

(you will end up with 3 levels in the folder which seems strange, but it DOES inherit the properties into the Sub-Weldment like it is supposed to…)

This will even take the properties with the sub-weldment if you save it out to a separate part file (using rt+clk, insert into new part on the sub-weldment), and they will be tied/related back to the original weldment file for updating !

Hope this helps !

Remember, as an alternative to actual “sub-weldments” done this way you can always just make a weldment, make another weldment, and then stick them into an assembly together.  The above method just keeps it ALL in ONE multi-body weldment PART file.  And NOW IT WORKS THE WAY IT SHOULD !   😉