Advance Steel Tips & Tricks

Advance Steel Tutorial Part 08: Bolting a Clip Angle Connection

By ArturUpdated 6 min read

Bolted Connection – Advance Steel Mini Tutorial
Bolted Connection – Advance Steel Mini Tutorial

To bolt a custom connection in Advance Steel, set the UCS on the face of the part where the bolts go, draw temporary guide lines at the bolt locations, then use a rectangular bolt pattern (Objects tab > Bolts > Rectangular 2 Points), select the parts to connect and snap the rectangle to the guide lines. Check the size, count and spacing in the bolt dialog.

This is Part 08 of my Advance Steel tutorial series for beginners, on the CTA maintenance platform. In part 07 we modeled the clip angles by hand because no standard connection matched the engineer’s detail. Now they need bolts. Advance Steel has no option to put this bolt layout into a standard clip angle connection, so here’s the workaround: temporary guide lines on the face of the angle, and a rectangular bolt pattern snapped to them.

Bolted connection: Advance Steel mini tutorial

Follow along with the project file

Download the project file free here, unzip it and open it.

What does the connection need?

Double clip angle detail with bolt dimensions highlighted in yellow

We’re bolting the double clip angle shown in this drawing. I highlighted the important dimensions in yellow:

  • 6″ leg: two bolts stacked vertically, 1 1/4″ from the edge, 1 3/8″ apart.
  • 8″ leg: two bolts, 2 1/2″ down from the top of the W6x20, 3″ from the edge, 2 1/4″ apart.

Watch the video

How do I set the UCS on the face of an angle?

Zoom in on the clip angle connection and select the parts that belong to it. Switch the visual style to 3D Wireframe and open the Advance Steel tool palette.

Now set a UCS on the face of the angle. The face of the angle becomes X and Y, and the bolts will go in along Z. Click the middle UCS icon with the number 3 at the top. Put the first point in the corner of the angle, then snap the second and third points to the outside and inside corners.

This part is important: snap exactly on the corner points. If you miss, the workplane ends up skewed and so will your bolts.

How do I draw guide lines for the bolts?

Next, draw temporary lines that mark where the bolts go.

  1. Draw a line 1 1/4″ up from the bottom edge of the angle. The other angle is on a different workplane, so you can’t snap to it. Instead, run the line a little past it and trim it later.
  2. Copy that line 1 3/8″ up. Delete the first line; you won’t need it.
  3. Use TR (Trim) to clean up the ends of the lines.
  4. Select the lines, type G to group them, and press Enter.

Set the UCS back to World and look at it in 3D. The lines should sit right on the workplane we set earlier.

How do I place the bolt pattern?

  1. On the Objects tab, use Switch Bolt Type to choose Bolts, then pick Rectangular 2 Points.
  2. Make sure the workplane is still on the face of the angle. If it isn’t, the bolts will point the wrong way.
  3. Select the three parts you’re connecting and press Enter.
  4. Draw the rectangle on the temporary lines.

The bolt dialog opens. Check every parameter. The structural engineer specified 7/8″ bolts. Set the quantity to 1 along X and 2 along Y, and check the spacing between bolts. Close the dialog.

What if the bolts are too big to tighten?

Look at the connection from the front. Because we changed the UCS, that’s actually the Top view here. You’ll see that the 7/8″ bolts are too big to tighten in the field on this connection. Switch the viewport to Conceptual and check the 3D view: the holes are all there, but it’s tight.

Double-click the bolts and change the size to 3/4″. Close the dialog.

On a real job, don’t change a size the engineer specified without asking. Send an RFI, get the change approved, then update the model.

Right-click and choose End Object Isolation. Now for the other leg of the angle, with the horizontal bolts.

How do I bolt the other leg?

  1. Select both angles and the beam and choose Isolate Objects.
  2. Set the UCS at the corner of this angle so its face becomes the workplane. Switch to 3D Wireframe.

The bolts go 2 1/2″ down from the top of the beam. The beam is on a different workplane than the angles, so we use the trim trick again:

  1. Draw a line going up, then type TR and click the part of the line you want to remove.
  2. Type L and start a new line at the end of that temporary line. Type 2 1/2 and press Enter.
  3. Go left and type 3, because the pattern starts 3″ from the edge.
  4. Go 1″ down, then 2 1/4″ to the left. That marks the second bolt.
  5. Delete the temporary lines you don’t need.

To get the same pattern on the second angle, draw a short line between the angles, then a line from its midpoint to use as a mirror line. Delete the short line. Select the group of lines, type MI (Mirror), and mirror it across the center line. Delete the mirror line. Select both groups and group them together. You can reuse this group for the other clip angle connections in the project.

In 3D you’ll probably notice the lines ended up on the wrong face of the angle. To check, switch back to Wireframe, draw a line and trim it: here, it’s on the back face. Move the groups to the front face by the angle thickness.

Draw 1″ lines to finish the rectangles for the bolt patterns. Select all the temporary lines, type G to group them, and move them by the angle thickness. Switch to Conceptual to confirm the lines are on the face of the angles, then back to 3D Wireframe.

Now place the bolts:

  1. Pick Bolt Rectangular on the ribbon.
  2. Select one angle and the beam, and press Enter.
  3. Draw the rectangle on the temporary lines.
  4. Check the bolt type and invert the bolts so they all face the same way. I like to keep things consistent. Close the dialog.

Repeat for the other angle and the beam: draw the rectangle, double-check the bolt settings, close the dialog.

Switch to Conceptual, right-click and choose End Object Isolation. The clip angle connection looks good.

Why shouldn’t I copy bolts in Advance Steel?

To do the other clip angle connections, copy the temporary line groups onto them and make new bolt patterns there. Don’t just copy the bolts. It sounds like it should work, but Advance Steel copies the bolts and the members they’re connected to. You end up with a pile of duplicate beams that’s very hard to clean up later. If you do want to reuse a whole connection, see how to copy a connection in Advance Steel.

What to do when the bolts come out wrong

The bolts point the wrong way or go in at an angle. The UCS wasn’t on the face of the angle when you placed them, or a UCS point missed the corner. Set the UCS again, snapping exactly to the corners, and re-place the bolts.

The bolts don’t go through all the parts. You didn’t select every part before pressing Enter. Delete the pattern and place it again with all the parts selected.

The guide lines are on the back face. Move them by the angle thickness, like above, or set the UCS on the front face.

The spacing is off. Double-click the bolts and check the distances in the dialog against the detail.

For the bolt tools in general (all four pattern types, splitting bolt groups and the nut and washer abbreviations), see bolts and bolt patterns in Advance Steel.

Next: 09: Adding T-braces.

The whole mini tutorial series

If you’d like to see the hardware and software I use every day, it’s all on my toolbox page.

All Advance Steel Tips & Tricks tutorials