Hi to the Solidworks Forum.

I have been trying to get my head around the differences between Assemblies and Weldments. Believe it or not I have not found a good discussion of this topic on the Web.

In simplistic terms, I believe that a Weldment is kind of an Assembly where the components will never be taken apart once they are put back together.

Also, with a Weldment, I imagine that it is assumed that a lot of one kind of component is used, which has the same profile, as opposed to an Assembly. This must be the thought behind being able to get a cut list.

Does a Weldment only consist of material that has a single profile? If new materials need to be added, does a new Weldment need to be made? And do these Weldments get mated in an assembly?

Where could I find a good discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of designing a Weldment vs. and Assembly? It is possible that such a question has really obvious answers to an experienced user but I am certainly not that.

For example, if I wanted to design a wooden structure, like a deck, for my back yard, I have seen recommendations from users that think that designing the deck as a weldment is a better, faster way than doing it as an assembly. And, like I said, a deck only is assembled once, and it uses a lot of the same type of material (2x4's) but not exclusively. What if my deck has 2x4s and 2x6's etc.?

Thank You

Tom