Tips For Robust Surface Modelling in Solidworks 

All good!

Thanks!

All good! I needed a push to get back on the bike, so to speak :)

Very much agree, that an interesting topic of SW surface modeling. When to switch to solid ? mid part, copy surfaces to make temp solid and check volume for example or are there other ways to handle surface/solid rebuild stability issues ? Andrew, your thoughts would be highly welcome !

I only use 'insert part' for copying geometry into other parts. You can copy surfaces, solids, ref geometry etc. I guess with AAX/published geom it gets added into the master part file as a feature, so you dictate at which point geometry is captured and published? The problem with insert part is it just copies over whatever is left at the bottom of the master part feature tree, so if a surface body is referenced, then someone adds a fillet to the surface body, that fillet geometry gets sucked into the child parts, whether it is needed or not. Ways around this is to make a copy of the geometry that is to be referenced, further up the tree, then make sure it does not get cleaned up with a delete/keep body feature at the end of the model. This might sound weird, but I have worked on a master where it effectively needed a branch/fork with some deviations in the geometry that was being referenced. Be way easier if you can pick the geometry to be referenced at discrete points in the tree!

@@AndrewJacksonDesignStudio what about Save Bodies? then it saves only the part that you want. Ive done this with different configurations too. I also like Insert part when I want to import more info.

The downside to save bodies is it does not take any reference data with it which is why I use insert part. I guess you could create planar surfaces to act as planes, edges as axes, etc, but then you'd have to be on top of documentation in a multi user environment so others understood what was what.