bolt circle on a cone

[#1]

I've got sheet metal parts which are rolled into cones, as we often do. And frequently, these cones get round cutouts put in them with bolt circles surrounding them. These are true round in the flat, so to make the cutouts I do an unbend, draw the cutout, put in the holes, and then rebend.

I'm tryin to figure out a simple way to place bolts in the holes from the bolt circle. Because it's a cone, these bolt holes actually all point in a different direction from one another. Not to mention that I can align the bolt axis to the holes because the software wants the holes to warp so it won't give me an axis. I was able to come up with a pretty simple way to do this back when we were using inventor, but haven't came up with a way using solid edge. Any ideas?

[#2]

Hi @nominus38,

Any chance you could share a part to mess with?.....generally though, I'm thinking along the lines of a combination of rotated planes, axis sketch lines, and capped extruded cylindrical surfaces.

[#3]

How about drawing a circle and using Wrap Sketch. Then Pattern By Curve.

BoltCircleOnCone.par ‏352 KB

[#4]

Here you go. Sorry, didn't return for awhile, didn't know you'd  asked for this. It's got interpart copies. You'll probably want to sever the links.

HOP-0z.psm ‏1954 KB