Thin Feature in SolidWorks

Thin features are usually open sketches which can be extruded in both directions. Below we will see this feature in Extruded Boss/Base and Revolved Boss/Base command located on the Feature toolbar. 

1.       We start by creating a line sketch and give it a dimention of 100 mm along the length.

  Now we go to the Feature toolbar and select Extruded Boss/Base command as shown in the image below. The dialog box will pop up and we select extrude height of 10mm and by default the Thin Feature dialog box is checked since it’s an open sketch.

As shown below the Direction 1 is 10mm along the black arrow and the thin feature is 30mm along the red arrow. Here in the Thin feature dialog box we have extrude options of One-direction, Midplane or Two-directions.

As shown in the below image now we have a Solid rectangular part from a line.  Also the default name of the feature is Extrude-Thin1 which can be changed in the same way as it’s done for other features.(Double click or select and F2 key)

Now below is an example of Thin feature using Revolve. We have created an open sketch using lines and arcs. There is a center line about which we will rotate the sketch.

Once we come out of the sketch and hit the Revolved Boss/Base command we will see the below warning. SolidWorks is telling us that the sketch is currently open and do we want to close the sketch? In this case we would say no as we are creating a thin feature.

       As shown below we will select the thickness of part in the Thin feature dialog box. We can see the preview of the part also below.

Finally we get the part as shown below.