Planes

Not that hard a subject to help out on. Try help, Planes.

There are explicitly defined planes and implicit planes on flat faces. Planes can be defined using all the usual geometry, point and line, parallel to existing, through three points, line and point, tangent to a surface at a point, etc. Planes are considered reference geometry as are axes, points and coordinate systems. They can be accessed using Insert Reference Geometry. If you open this property manager most of the functionality and options should be self evidents.

Once a plane is created you can sketch on it by selecting it and RMB to get insert sketch.

Planes can be used for sketching on, for mating too, for splitting bodies and for other uses.

Amy,

Knowing how to create planes isn't as important as knowing when. I've seen many cases of "plane excess" in models. Particularily from folks with a Pro-E background.

For mechanical parts, you almost never have need for anything other than the

3 default planes. For swoopy stuff, the most common (for me anyway) is "normal to curve at end point" and "through line/axis at angle".

There's probably twenty different ways to do any given thing in Solidworks, and seventeen of them could the right way. It all depends.

Mark