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12. Click the Trim tool from the Sketch toolbar. Make sure that the Trim option is set to Closest. Click the angled line of the triangle between the two lines sketched in Step 11. This trims out that section and makes the sketch a single closed loop. A warning may appear because you have a Midpoint relation to the line being trimmed; you no longer want this relation, but you want the lines to intersect at their endpoints. Select Yes at the prompt.

13. Click the Smart Dimension tool. Use it to create aligned dimensions on the short line (.25 inches) and one of the long lines (.125 inches). You may now want to reorganize some of the dimensions if the display is becoming crowded.

14. At this point, two of the lines should be blue, but it may not be clear why they are not defined. Select one of the blue lines and drag it. Notice that what changes is the arc nearest the Origin. This changes in a way that is not useful for this part. To lock this line where it needs to be, select the blue line nearest the Origin and the centerpoint of the arc nearest the Origin, and give them a Coincident relation in the PropertyManager. The result is a fully defined sketch, as shown in Figure 3.43.

Figure 3.42

The resulting sketch after you perform Step 11

Figure 3.43

The resulting sketch after you perform Step 14

15. Save the part with the name Sketch Relations Tutorial.sldprt. Close the part.

Tutorial: Using Blocks and Belts

Sometimes I am amazed at the things that can be done in SolidWorks, even with fairly simple tools. This is one of those times. If you design machines, this tutorial will have some extra meaning for you. If you do not design machines, Blocks and Belts are still valuable tools to have in your toolbox ready to use in various situations. Follow these steps to learn about using Blocks and Belts.

1. Open a new part with inches as the units.

2. Draw a sketch on the Front plane as shown in Figure 3.44, with four lines connected to the Origin. Exit the sketch and rename it Layout Sketch, either by clicking twice on the name of the feature in the FeatureManager or by selecting it and pressing F2.

3. Open a second sketch on the Front plane, and draw a circle centered on the Origin with a 6-inch diameter.

4. Inside the circle, draw a Centerpoint rectangle centered on the Origin.

Figure 3.44

The layout sketch

5. Select two adjacent sides of the rectangle and make an Equal sketch relation between them. (This makes the rectangle into a square.)

6. Click the Smart Dimension tool, and apply a 1.000-inch dimension to one side of the square. Turn off the Smart Dimension tool by clicking it again on the toolbar or pressing Esc.

7. If the Blocks toolbar is not active, activate it and then select Make Block. You can also access this command through Tools⇒Block⇒Make.

8. Window select the circle and the square by clicking and dragging a box that includes all the items in the sketch. The PropertyManager to the left displays a circle and six lines that are to be made into a block.

9. Expand the Insertion Point panel in the PropertyManager. This causes a blue manipulator Origin to appear in the graphics window. Click this Origin and drag it onto the center of the circle. Then click the green check mark icon to exit the Make Block dialog box. This is shown in Figure 3.45.

Figure 3.45

Creating a block

10. The items in the block now turn gray. Click anywhere on the block and drag it out of the way. Then drag the center of the circle and drop it on the part Origin.

11. Click the Insert Block tool on the Blocks toolbar. Place the block on the opposite sharp corner of the layout sketch.

12. Create another block that is identical to the first one, except that it has a diameter of 3 inches instead of 6 inches. You can do this by selecting the first block, clicking Edit Block from the toolbar, and copying (Window select and Ctrl+C). Then exit the Edit Block and paste (Ctrl+V) in the regular sketch. Make sure