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Best Of

Custom Feature: Bip Joints - A Hand Bendable Sheet Metal Joint Feature

If you're a producer of sheet metal parts, or design your parts for sheet metal production, there's a strong possibility that your manufacturing pipeline is catered towards hard flat flanges with edges parallel to the bends because that's what the manufacturing process favors. This manufacturing constraint is likely visible in the final design language of your parts. Now I love a clean press brake bend probably more than the next guy, but sometimes you just need to add a bend in a spot that would require a 4th dimensional press brake to press through the fabric of spacetime to achieve, and you just didn't quote the job like that. Maybe you don't have a press brake at all and you're working out of your garage. Behold: The Bip Joint.

Now, I'm not the first person to think about punching enough holes in sheet metal to be able to bend it by hand. Perforated bends are not a new concept to the world of manufacturing and I'm sure there are examples going back centuries of this in action. There are also already a handful of featurescripts that play with some variation of this kind of geometry, and my primary metal vendor OSHcut even lets you change a bend joint into a stitch cut geometry right in the online cart so your geometry can pass the manufacturing checks and you can get your stuff made without having to go back and add splits or change the flanges in a way that's more disruptive to certain CAD programs.

So why Bip Joints?

Because the panel gaps on this rock were enormous. I mean look at how unimpressed poor Liam is there. He's gotta fill all of those. The problem is almost all other solutions to this problem are optimized for ease of flat pattern cutting and bending or optimized of ease of drawing, but I need a solution that's optimized for weld filling and maintains tight gaps regardless of initial bend angle. We have another dozen of these that gotta get made and the development time of a script was easily less than the welding time of the whole job across 6 benches. So here's what sets Bip Joints apart from the rest in visual demonstration:

See how much tighter those gaps are between the panels? You'll save a fortune in filler metal using this script.

No... Why BIP Joints?

Oh. It's half bend half rip. It's a Bip. Look I said I wasn't the first to think of perforating metal, but as far as I can tell from my research I might be the first to alternate bend and rip geometry with their proper calculations in this manner and leverage the advantages of both so on the narrow chance I am actually the first to do this I call naming rights over the joint style.

Derek_Van_Allen_BD

Re: Bend table in drawing

There is currently no way to do that, You may need to create an improvement request.

john_mcclary

Re: PTC/USER Global Summit 2026

Thanks @brian_york442

Question to the community, Would you attend the PTC User event with Onshape material? I would say this would probably be more feasible for 2027 than 2026.

If so what sessions would you like to see?

Sessions I would like to see;

Feature script for beginners
Feature script advanced
Feature script round table
Render studio
Onshape CAM beginners
Onshape CAM advanced
Onshape Simulation beginners
Onshape Simulation advanced
Surface modeling in Onshape
Using Configurations and variables
Onshape enhancements round table
Motion in Onshape Assembly
3rd party Onshape App

I could go on and list more

Getting to interact and pick the brains of power users such as @MichaelPascoe @Caden_Armstrong @EvanReese @eric_pesty @alnis @imants_smidchens @john_mcclary @S1mon @sebastian_glanzner @shawn_crocker

Maybe have Onshape brass as well such as @ilya_baran @john_rousseau @Roy_Mutalik @NeilCooke @lana @lougallo @mlaflecheCAD

Thoughts?

bryan_lagrange

PTC/USER Global Summit 2026

I want to get the forum's thoughts on the PTC/User Global Summit. It's an independent event run by the users. Here is a link for more information. https://www.ptcuser.org/

I know it is mostly attended and is geared towards PTC products such as Creo, Windchill, Mtahcad, etc. I was thinking since there is no LiveWorx or Onshape live virtual events right now for Onshape users to gather/attend, maybe this event could be an alternative ? I know 2026 is out of the question, but if it is something the community would be interested in, maybe we could come up with Onshape related material for next year and possibly have it set for a 1 day experience at the summit.

Thoughts?

bryan_lagrange

Re: CAD Battle #1 - January 2026 (Best of the Worst Competition)

EvanReese

New FeatureScript - The Variable Library FeatureScript

I'm very happy to finally be sharing the Variable Library FeatureScript with the Onshape community! The Variable Library FeatureScript utilizes attributes to make the creation of global variables in Onshape quick, easy, and user friendly.

The Variable Library FeatureScript works by using attributes to "store" variables on variable library cubes via the Create libraries tab. The variables attached to those parts can then be used in other part studios by selecting the appropriate variable library cubes under the Use libraries tab. Because of the way the variable library tool is designed, users can create variable libraries using the feature interface directly (in a manner practically identical to Onshape's variable feature), or they can be imported from a CSV file uploaded to Onshape.

One thing that's important to note is that FeatureScript variable functions cannot be stably attached to variable libraries. Instead, users who wish to add their own custom variable functions will need to modify the Variable Function Library. For more information on how to do that, see the Variable Function Library as well as the documentation for the variable library FeatureScript.

Documentation for the variable library FeatureScript which can be found here. You can add the variable library FeatureScript to your toolbar here. If you have any comments or feedback, feel free to leave them below. I hope you find my FeatureScript useful!

Alex_Kempen