You know that little dangling island in a text such as "e" or "A" that small piece you actaully want to save after the laser cutters or for manufacturing when you happend to sneek the bottle opener, knife blank or bicycle gear, into the flange cutout.

how do you get that to appear in all sorts of further uses and drawings. after you turned a part into sheetmetal.

heres how I do it as a bit of a work around for solidworks 2013 0.0

why do this:

you want you export sheet metal parts with islands so you can use the drops from a laser cutter during manufacturing.

#1

Make your sheet metal part.

if you make multibodies and want to export those  as in a text letter with an island.

make sheet metal of those or wait and use the sketch to extrude it into the flat pattern.

now make a single sketch of any thing you would like to appear in the dxf. while the flat pattern is surpressed.

now unsuppress the flat pattern. extrude the sketch into the flat pattern and similar plane.

next export dwg dxf...

when the dialog box opens... DXF / DWG EXPORT

radiobuttons clicked:

(I click)

sheet metal

geometry

hidden edges

sketches

bend lines

up comes a cleanup. if it looks good with the islands now appearing

save.

anyone else finding useful techniques?