Fasteners — Bolts, Nuts & Washers

CADshift can build a complete bolt-set for you — the bolt (or screw), a washer under the head, a washer above the nut, and the nut — and drop the whole stack straight into your assembly, already lined up and mated into the hole. No more digging through the Toolbox.

This page walks you through it slowly. If you can pick a size from a drop-down, you can use this.

Before you start

• You need an assembly open. The fastener tools are switched off for parts and drawings.
• Everything is metric / ISO-DIN (ISO 4017, ISO 4762, ISO 7380, DIN 933, and friends).

Two ways to open the Fastener Picker

Way 1 — the ribbon button

1. Click the CADshift tab in the ribbon.
2. In the Assembly group, click Fasteners .

Way 2 — right-click a hole (recommended)

1. Right-click the round edge or the inside wall of a hole.
2. Choose Insert Fastener.

Both open the same window: the Fastener Picker. Way 2 is nicer because CADshift looks at the hole you clicked and fills in the bolt standard and size for you (you can still change it).

Building a bolt-set (the Builder tab)

The picker opens on the Builder tab. Work down the list:

1. Bolt Standard — pick the type of bolt (hex head, socket cap, button, countersunk…). A tiny picture shows the head shape.
2. Diameter × Length — pick the size, e.g. M10 × 30 mm. Only sizes that actually exist for that standard show up, so you can’t pick a combination that doesn’t exist.
3. Clamping Span — type the total thickness of the plates the bolt passes through, in millimetres. (You type this yourself — CADshift does not measure it for you.)
4. Washer Under Head — click Add to slip a washer under the bolt head, then pick its standard and how many. (Greyed out for countersunk bolts — they sit flush, so a washer makes no sense.)
5. Washer Above Nut — same idea, on the nut end.
6. Nut — click Add to put a nut on the end, then pick its standard and quantity.

As you change things, the picture in the middle redraws to show your stack. If the bolt is too short for everything you’ve added, the drawing gets a red outline and a banner suggests a longer bolt. That’s your cue to bump the length up.

How the parts are stored: Toolbox vs Custom

At the bottom of the Builder tab there’s a Toolbox / Custom switch. This decides what kind of files CADshift creates:

There’s also a Simplified / Cosmetic switch — Simplified is plain geometry (fast, light), Cosmetic adds cosmetic threads for a nicer look.

Dropping it in: Insert (Single) or Insert (Pattern)

The Insert button at the bottom is a split button:

• Insert (Single) — places one bolt-set in the hole you’re working on.
• Insert (Pattern) — appears only when CADshift notices the hole belongs to a hole pattern (circular, linear, or sketch-driven). Pick this and it fills every hole in the pattern with the same bolt-set in one go.

You get real bolt / washer / nut components, stacked and mated together — and if you started from a hole, the set is also mated centred in the hole and seated against the face you clicked.

Saving a bolt-set to your library (Professional)

Sometimes you don’t want the set in this assembly — you want a reusable file you can hand to the team or drop into a library. That’s the Save button.

1. Build a combination (it must have at least a washer or a nut — a lone bolt can’t be saved).
2. Click Save (it carries a gold PRO badge).
3. In the Save to Library window, choose where to save it.
4. Optional: turn on Configurable and open Options to build one file with many sizes — vary by Diameter, by Length, or Both, across a range you set.

When it finishes, a report lists every size it built, skipped, or flagged — and you can save that report as HTML.

Settings (the Settings tab)

Switch to the Settings tab to set your preferences once:

• Toolbox Folder — where Toolbox-mode parts are written. Leave it blank to drop them next to the assembly.
• Max Gasket Thickness — the biggest gap between plates that still counts as part of the clamping span.
• Default Clearance — the hole-to-bolt clearance used to guess a bolt size for a plain (non–Hole Wizard) hole. Default is 2 mm.
• Custom Properties → Edit Properties (gold PRO badge) — pick a fastener family and edit its custom properties (for example the thread call-out text that shows up in your BOM).

Which edition do I need?

Troubleshooting