Mark paint free area on sheet metal part

[chshasa1]

Hi All

i want to mark an area in my sheet metal plate, were painting is forbidden.

how can i do that without using cut out (extrude) function within the sheet metal design?

in the picture, you can see an already marked are, unfortunately, this are solid models and have therefore no feature tree anymore to check.

i want to do the second area on the counter part of this.

[tbraxton]

One option is to use a cosmetic sketch feature for the masked area.

https://support.ptc.com/help/creo/creo_pma/r9.0/usascii/index.html#page/part_modeling/part_modeling/About_Cosmetic_Sketches.html 

[StephenW]

I'm not sure I completely understand your question but what I would do is either use a sketch feature to define an area (you can add x-hatch to a closed sketch) or use a surface feature to show an area.

[kdirth]

I would suggest a projected sketch, to define the area, as it will follow the unfolding of the part.

[pausob]

If you are using Creo 9, then it is very easy - use the divide surface functionality.

About Divide Surface 

If you still use older versions, then others have pointed out the work-around already.

[BenLoosli]

Divide a surface may not be the best tool to only 'mark' an area for masking. You still want the body to be a single body with surfaces. You only want to add a sketch outline with hatching as an area marking for no paint or whatever surface treatment is being applied.

A separate body with a .0005 thickness would be another way to do it, but the hatching within a sketch seems the most reasonable method.

[chshasa1 · Accepted solution]

@BenLoosli @pausob @kdirth @StephenW @tbraxton 

i draw a sketch and then used the designated are function. 

 is this a possible solution to keep it like this or do you see any problem which might occur in the future?

BR

[kdirth]

I have not used (or even noticed) that tool.  However, after looking at the documentation and giving it a try, it seems to be a good option for what you are trying to do.  For me, I will probably start using it for pad printed and screen printed symbols on parts.