Extruding two or more surfaces in the same sketch ??

I am new to SW and 3d design in general but have overcome many obstacles. I am designing a circular head for a steam engine. The object is complete with intake and exhaust ports, bolt holes and valve covers. I have not yet extruded the sketch. I have done one previously wherein I have extruded the flange of the valve cover to .i25 and the center to 4.00 inches then filleted the edges. I cannot seem to remember how I accomplished extruding the flange to one thickness and the center of the cover to a different thickness in the same operation and having drawn a new sketch cannot repeat the action. Could someone please point me in the proper direction for reading on how this is done. Thank you.

I'm a bit confused regarding your question. Are you trying to extrude a sketch in two directions from a planar surface? In the extrude features property manager you have the option to extrude in two directions. To enable this feature, you must check the box in direction 2. Once this is checked you will options of the extrude type. If this is not what your trying to accomplish, can you post pictures or part file as example?

Can you attach the file here?

Is your sketch visible?

Are you looking for contour select?

Ok guys. I have tried to upload a general image for the description of what I am trying to do. In this sketch there are three components: head, and two valve covers. The head is no big deal but if I can extrude it at the same time as extruding the flange and the center portions of the two valve covers, ok. The valve covers are giving me a problem. I do not seem to be able to extrude the surrounding flange area and the center portion to different depths. I have accomplished this before but cannot for the life of me figure out how I did it. Certainly it must be possibvle to extrude more than one feature in a sketch. Is there some reference material on this? I have the solidworks bible but cant seem to locate a reference to this circumstance. Thank you for assisting.

I think I understand now but I'm not sure what you want to do is possible. I recreated the sketch and was able to extrude each section separately utilizing the select contour feature. The only way I got all three extrudes to work with one feature was to make them all the same depth. This makes sense, when you apply a feature to a sketch it becomes linked to that sketch. This is visible in feature tree. Therefore, how can a single feature (extrude) have three different depth's for each selected contour? How would this look in feature tree? How would this be edited? The more I think about it the more it doesn't seem possible. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe I really didn't understand your question either way if it is possible I hope someone here can show the technique. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

 

Bill

I dont see how this is possible either. I think it needs to be 3 different operations for 3 different depths. You can create one sketch and only use portions of it but this doesnt really seem efficient.

 

What I would probably do is draw the sketch as you have it there, then start a new sketch an Convert Entities for the parts of the sketch you want. The reason I say this is because all 3 operations will rely on that first sketch and updates/changes will be simple to perform.

Thanks guys. That was more help than you know. I was convinced that I had accomplished this somehow before but now I am thinking that I may have gone about as you describe. So I guess that I must create the flange shape and extrude the entire surface then sketch the center portion over the extruded surface and extrude again? To know that I was attempting the impossible somehow does not surprise me and I am glad to know that it can not be done. At least that way I will stop trying to figure out what I am doing incorrectly and move on. No wonder I was having such a difficult time finding info on how to do this.Many thanks for the info.

no problem:) Also keep in mind when modeling something like this to make use of your end condition options when extruding. For instance you can draw everything on the Top Plane. When you start your extrude-cut operation, you can start the cut offset from your plane and make the End condition through all. Things like this can make updates much easier, for instance, if your steam engine requires the head thickness be a minimum of 10mm in the "combustion" chamber. This way you dont have to worry if you change the overall thickness of the head, the offset from the top plane will always be the same and so on.

Thank you for that tip. I am really new to all this and have much to learn. I will gladly accept any and all advice I receive. I see your info indicates you are from Va. I have recently moved from Va after 15 yrs of living in Northern Va. Heard there were quakes or tremors in that area recently.

Not sure about quakes. I grew up in fairfax county but have been living in blacksburg for about 10 years now.

I lived in Fairfax county for about 12 years. Moved South of there (Spotsylvania) for about five. Now in Wichita Ks. In pursuit of work. Been here a month. Not much work here but more than Spotsylvania.

Here is a good Tutorial from Tim T. a guy I work with. Basic info but I'm surprised daily by the amount of people that do not know / use this info.

http://www.solidworker.com/152/selected-contours-and-sketch-sharing/

Thank you TonyD--I'll have a look.