To clip (notch) the end of a member in Advance Steel, open the Advance Steel tool palette, go to Features > Cope Skewed and click the member near the end you want to cut. Set the depth and angle of the cut in the dialog until it matches a guide line drawn at the clearance you need.
This is Part 11, the last part of my Advance Steel tutorial series for beginners, on the CTA maintenance platform. In part 10 we added the slanted members. The structural engineer wants them to stay 1/2″ clear of the other steel, so their ends have to be clipped, as marked in red on the detail.
What did the engineer ask for?
Here’s the detail from the platform’s structural designer, with the 1/2″ clearance and the notch marked in red:
Watch the video
If you don’t have the file from the previous part, start from part 10.
How do I isolate the parts I’m working on?
The model is getting busy by now, so I isolate just what I need. Select the slanted members and the angles they connect to, right-click, and choose Isolate Objects. Everything else disappears for now.
Why ungroup members before cutting?
The slanted angle is grouped with the other angle. Right-click the group and ungroup it. They have to be separate objects before you can clip one of them.
How do I set the UCS for the cut?
I want a reference line so I can see that I’m clipping exactly the right amount. You could measure and calculate everything, but on this job checking it visually is good enough.
Lock the UCS on the vertical face of the mounting angle: open the Advance Steel tool palette, pick UCS by 3 points, and click three points on that face. Now X and Y lie on the vertical face, which is what we need. More on this in the UCS explained.
How do I mark the clearance?
Type L and draw a line between the two opposite corners at the top of the angle. Then move it down 1/2″. When moving, snap to a corner point so the move stays in the right direction in 3D.
How do I clip the end with Cope Skewed?
- In the Advance Steel tool palette, open the Features tab and click Cope Skewed.
- Click the angle near the end you want to cut. A dialog opens.
- Adjust the depth and angle of the cut until it lines up with the guide line. On this one, 7/8″ and 18.7° matched perfectly.
That’s it, the clip is done. Set the UCS back to World, delete the guide line and end the isolation so the whole model shows again.
What’s the difference between a cope and a skewed cope?
A regular cope cuts a rectangle out of a flange and web, square to the member, like the end of a beam framing into a girder. A skewed cope cuts at an angle, which is what a slanted member needs to clear the steel around it.
What to do when Cope Skewed doesn’t cut right
- It cut the wrong end. Click closer to the end you want to cut, or delete the feature and try again.
- It cut both members. They were still grouped. Ungroup them first.
- The cut doesn’t match the guide line. Adjust depth and angle in small steps and check in an elevation view.
- The clearance isn’t right. Measure from the cut to the other steel with
DI. The engineer’s 1/2″ is the minimum.
That’s the end of the series. The platform is modeled from grid to the last notch. Next steps on a real job would be numbering, drawings and the BOM: see Advance Steel workflow explained.
For more on cutting the ends of members, see Everything about copes in Advance Steel.
The whole mini tutorial series
- 00: Set up the project information
- 01: Create the grid
- 02: Create levels
- 03: Place beams
- 04: Create columns
- 05: Welded connections
- 06: Shorten beams
- 07: Custom clip angle connection
- 08: Adding bolts to the clip angle connection
- 09: Adding T-braces
- 10: Slanted beams
- 11: Clipping the beams
If you’d like to see the hardware and software I use every day, it’s all on my toolbox page.
