I'm new in the field of 3D CAD and solid modeling. Most of the parts I created have been done with TinkerCAD.

My current job is UI designer, and my issue with Solidworks has been UI related. So I tried the tutorials, but I always get a feeling they were created by someone who expects me to instinctively know how Solidworks is designed...

Take for example Lesson One, about modeling a part:

- He instructs to draw a rectangle on the front plane, and I follow it, but in the end, his rectangle looks consistent and faces front, mine faces up, as if I drew it on the top plane.

- He claims that, after clicking "Exit Sketch", Solidworks will automatically begin extrusion. That's not true. I had to change tab and look for the Extruded Boss/Base button on my own, with no directions from the tutorial.

- Afterwards he says right-click on sketch element in the tree, and select edit sketch. That's more confusing than it should be. Right click brings up a huge menu with unneeded options. He should have just said "click" to pop the basic toolbar which has "edit sketch"...

In 5 minutes of tutorial, there's already a list of inconsistencies, wasted time explaining obvious things, and 0 time explaining not-so-obvious ones. Is this what I should expect every tutorial to be from this point on? This is extremely frustrating, and the mediocre quality of help content doesn't encourage me to buy the software.

All I want to do for a start, is to learn to model simple parts and be able to make holes (subtractions) in a part.

Is there any tutorial out there to explain that in a decent, accessible, logical way?

I made peace with Solidworks' overly complicated UI and lack of usability R&D, so all I'm asking for is a decent part modeling tutorial that doesn't skip steps and doesn't make wrong assumptions.

IF possible, a tutorial that starts with a basic square, and then gradually adds complexity to the part, as a way to introduce all the features of modeling. Not separate chapters using pre-made tutorial files that only teach me how to edit existing projects, instead of creating new ones. Is that really asking too much?

Message was edited by: Gordon Freeman