Machined Part From a Casting

What is the best way to make a machined part from a casting so that any
changes applied to the casting will show on the machined part?

I have tried an assembly consisting of only the casting and then applying
features. The only problem is some of the features are grayed out like
fillets.

 

Your best bet would probably be make a configuration for cast and one
for machined... For example, if you have a hole that is cast at 0.50"
and finished machined is 0.55", when you select the dimension for the
size of the hole, you can define which configuration it applies to by
going into the properties of the dimension, and selecting the "specify
configs" box... another option would be to create a design table and
build from there... Hope that helps...

Jeff

 

If each stage has a different part number you could create a derived
part.

Create a new part file
Insert>Part select your casting
Cut it up and save

 

John,
Thanks for that tip, to do that, are you talking about opening an empty part
then insert part (the casting). From here do all the machining on the new
part?
I am using Solidworks 2005

Howard

 

That depends.

If the model for the casting has a feature tree that is small to
midling then you can create the casting as one configuration and then
create the machined part as another configuration. I have done cast
parts in the past as one sldprt file with the casting, machining, both
patterns and core all in one part. However, if you have PDM constraints
or if the casting has a large feature tree then you might consider
making a part for the casting and another part for the machined
version. The reason for this is that when SW rebuilds each
configuration the file size will balloon up. A PDM constraint
frequently encountered is that versions of configurations cannot be
tracked.