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Elkesan - 8/14/2025 3:16:11 AM
   
KC and sheet metal

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xvAaPVlXRSKM0rjaeTj_Il3mOsGvE437/view?usp=sharing

Basic question, but always tricky in practice. KC 13.0.0

Topic: How to make a sheet metal box with properly opened corners

Material: 1 mm stainless steel

Model:
Example file: Google Drive link

Workflow I use:

  1. Create basic solid shape (box: 300 × 400 × 100 mm), then Shell 1 mm (front face open).

  2. Apply Auto Bend Corner with 1 mm radius.

  3. Use Cut Sheetmetal Corner, both sides, 2.5 mm. This wide gap is required for Unbend All to work. If I use only 1 mm gap, unbend is not possible.

  4. Close the corner gap by:

    • Modify → Topology → Scribe about 1 mm away from the bend end. This separates the corner faces.

    • Modify Faces → Offset: one side to the outer face, the other side leaving ~0.1 mm gap.

  5. Now Unbend All works.

Problem:
With the large 2.5 mm initial corner cut, after offsetting back to ~0.1 mm gap, the unbent flat still shows a very large hole in the corner area — not realistic for manufacturing.

Question:
How can I prepare and open sheet metal corners in KC so that:

  • Unbend All works reliably

  • Corner gaps remain realistic (≈0.1–0.2 mm)

  • Result is manufacturable without excessive corner holes

Any better workflow or parameter combination for stainless 1 mm, r = 1 mm bends?

Hw-engineer: Electronics
www.elkesan.fi

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cam - 9/12/2025 10:29:58 AM
   
RE:KC and sheet metal
We exclusively work in sheet metal, and I've never been super impressed with KC's automated features, especially the unbend all. Gives me errors as often as not if the part has any complexity.

My workflow is to unstitch solid models into sheet bodies then thicken those sheet bodies to size right before unbending. That affords you the ability to split the part into several pieces for bending (often required).

For a box/pan, I'll unstitch the inside of the sheet metal, the "Up" bend side.

Segment it into pieces that won't merge upon thickening.

Thicken it as segments.

Unfold as segments.

Combine the segments once flat.

 


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cam - 9/12/2025 10:41:04 AM
   
RE:KC and sheet metal
As a side, this works very well with imprint curves. You can draw lines directly on the sheet body, imprint, then unstitch to separate. Allows you to quickly create complex sheet metal shapes without a bunch of boolean operations.

If a sheet metal part is complex, thicken it to the neutral line (K Factor), and unfold it as a sheet body. Sometimes it's more effective.

Last resort is to thicken to neutral line and "Extract Flat Pattern" from it.

That should cover about every scenario you may come across.

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