Module 05 / Sheet metal / Standard and Professional
Sheet metal CAD with a K-factor table you can check against the brake.
The sheet-metal workbench ships in every Standard seat at $2,490 one-time. It carries a measured K-factor table for aluminium 5052-H32, mild steel 1008 and stainless 304, unfolds flat patterns to 0.01 mm, and exports DXF your laser or punch nesting software opens without a cleanup pass.
01What it does
Bend allowance from a table, not a guess
Most flat-pattern errors we see in support tickets come from one place: a default K-factor of 0.5 left on a part that was bent on a V-die with a tight punch radius.
A sheet-metal part in Solldworkss is a normal parametric body with a sheet definition attached: thickness, inside bend radius, relief type and a K-factor lookup. Flanges, hems, jogs, lofted bends and sketched bends all read from the same definition, so changing gauge from 1.5 mm to 2.0 mm rebuilds every bend and re-unfolds the flat in one pass. On the reference bracket enclosure with 38 bends that rebuild takes 0.6 s.
The K-factor comes from a bend table keyed on material, thickness and inside radius. We ship one table with three materials because those three cover most of what our customers cut: 5052-H32 aluminium, 1008 cold-rolled mild steel and 304 stainless, 2B finish. The values were measured on test coupons bent on a 90° V-die, then checked against the developed length of the physical part. They are a starting point. Your brake, your tooling and your supplier's temper will move them, and the table is a plain CSV so you can replace any row with your own shop numbers.
We do not interpolate between materials and we do not invent a K-factor for an alloy we have not bent. If a part uses a material missing from the table, the workbench falls back to the value you set on the sheet definition and flags the part with a yellow marker in the feature tree until you confirm it.
02Shipped bend table
The K-factor table for 5052, 1008 and 304
BEND TABLE / sws-bend-default.csv
| Material | Thickness mm | Inside radius mm | K-factor | Min. flange mm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aluminium 5052-H32 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.40 | 4.0 |
| Aluminium 5052-H32 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.41 | 4.5 |
| Aluminium 5052-H32 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 0.42 | 6.0 |
| Aluminium 5052-H32 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 0.43 | 8.0 |
| Aluminium 5052-H32 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 0.44 | 11.0 |
| Aluminium 5052-H32 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 0.44 | 14.0 |
| Mild steel 1008 CR | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.42 | 4.0 |
| Mild steel 1008 CR | 1.0 | 1.0 | 0.42 | 4.5 |
| Mild steel 1008 CR | 1.5 | 1.5 | 0.43 | 6.0 |
| Mild steel 1008 CR | 2.0 | 2.0 | 0.44 | 8.0 |
| Mild steel 1008 CR | 3.0 | 3.0 | 0.45 | 11.0 |
| Mild steel 1008 CR | 4.0 | 4.0 | 0.46 | 14.0 |
| Stainless 304 2B | 0.8 | 1.0 | 0.44 | 4.5 |
| Stainless 304 2B | 1.0 | 1.2 | 0.45 | 5.0 |
| Stainless 304 2B | 1.5 | 2.0 | 0.45 | 6.5 |
| Stainless 304 2B | 2.0 | 2.5 | 0.46 | 8.5 |
| Stainless 304 2B | 3.0 | 4.0 | 0.47 | 12.0 |
| Stainless 304 2B | 4.0 | 5.0 | 0.48 | 15.0 |
Values measured on coupons, 90° bend, air bending on a V-die of 6 to 8 × thickness.Edit or replace: File › Sheet settings › Bend table
The shipped K-factor table is a starting point, not a promise about your brake. Bend three coupons, measure the flange, put your number in the CSV. We would rather you trust your own row than ours.
03Unfold and export
Flat patterns and DXF settings
The flat is a live view of the folded body. Change the part and the flat follows; there is no separate unfold file to keep in step.
- Unfold toleranceDeveloped length is computed to 0.01 mm. Bend deductions are written back onto the drawing as a table, one row per bend.0.01 mm
- Bend reliefsRectangular, obround and tear reliefs, sized as a ratio of thickness. Default ratio 0.5 × t, minimum 0.3 mm.3 types
- Corner treatmentOpen, closed, overlap and circular corners with a gap value per corner. Welded corners keep their gap in the flat.4 types
- Grain directionSet on the sheet definition. The workbench warns when a bend line runs within 15° of grain on 5052 or 304.± 15°
- DXF versionR12 for older punch software, 2000 as the default, 2018 for current nesting packages. Splines can be exploded to arcs and lines.R12 / 2000 / 2018
- DXF layersOutline, inner cuts, bend-up, bend-down, grain and etch each go to a named layer. Layer names are editable per export preset.6 layers
- Batch export
sws-cli flat --dxf 2000 --preset laserunfolds every sheet body in a folder. Useful in a nightly build.sws-cli
Swap the K-factor row for the one your brake operator measured. That one edit fixes more scrap than any feature we could ship.
04From part to cut file
How a sheet part gets to the laser
- 01
Set the sheet definition
Material, gauge and inside radius. The K-factor fills from the table; you can override it on the part with a reason that shows in the tree.
- 02
Model folded
Base flange, edge flanges, hems, louvres and form tools. Inserts from PEM-style hardware libraries drop in as features with their own clearance holes.
- 03
Check the flat
The flat view flags overlapping material, bends too close to holes (under 2 × t plus radius) and flanges shorter than the table minimum.
- 04
Export DXF and drawing
DXF to your preset, plus a flat drawing sheet with the bend table, ready for the drawing workbench title block.
05Before you buy
Questions buyers ask about sheet metal
Built and supported from Austin since 2014 by a team of 38. Sheet metal has shipped in every seat since the first public release.
Is sheet metal an extra cost?
No. It is part of the Standard perpetual seat at $2,490 and of Professional at $3,890. There is no separate sheet-metal licence to track. Prices in full are on the pricing page.
Can I import my SolidWorks bend tables?
Yes, if they are exported as CSV or Excel with material, thickness, radius and K-factor or bend deduction columns. Gauge tables keyed on bend deduction are converted on import. Teams moving over as a SolidWorks alternative can also bring STEP AP242 sheet bodies, though a STEP file carries no sheet definition, so you recognise the bends once with the Convert to Sheet command.
Does it nest parts on a sheet?
No, and it will not. Nesting belongs to the software that drives your cutter. We hand it a clean DXF with predictable layers and stay out of the way.
Who is this not for?
Shops doing mostly tube laser or roll forming. The workbench handles brake-formed parts from flat stock. Tube profiles and continuous roll-formed sections are outside its range, and we would rather say so now than after a trial.
What about CNC punch tooling?
Form tools model the shape; the punch program comes from your turret software. For milled parts, the CAM-Post workbench covers Fanuc, Haas, Heidenhain and Siemens controllers.
30-day trial / Windows 10 22H2 or Windows 11
Unfold your own part before you pay for a seat.
Send us the material and gauge you cut most. We reply within one business day with a trial installer and, if you want it, a K-factor row for your shop. Related modules: Part, Assembly, Simulation.