I am trying to create the sheet metal form in the attached PDF. I have tried many approaches to achieve it. 1)Starting with a sheet metal body, flattening and inserting sketched bends. 2)starting with a solid and converting to sheet metal. 3)starting with a flat sheet metal profile and inserting sketched bends. 4)using forming tool in the unfolded state and folding. I get an error just trying to select an edge using the edge flange tool. This seems harder than it should be. Any help is appreciated.
Brooks,,, I hate to be the one to break it to you but you are correct. It not only seems harder than it should be, it is. SW will not put a bend within a bend. You can put a bend on the end of the bend. A workaround for this is to break up arc and add flat areas where the internal bends (louvers) are going to be placed. Or you can do this using a form tool that would give you a good visual but will not flatten the louvers in the flat pattern. The form tool is a long story but if you did use it you could flatten then add the material in the flat pattern. Or you could make the cutouts then add the louvers in as bodies (patterned) for a good visual but again they won't flatten along with the main body so your would again have to add them in.
In the file I attached I did not pay a whole lot of attention to the pdf dims and did just one side, but you will get the idea.