Have you ever wanted to quickly remove all the construction surfaces of a model before releasing it to downstream users? Or you might have encountered a part that had a bunch of construction surfaces cluttering up the model. Most of the time, users just hide the surfaces to clear up their screens. However removing construction surface geometry using the “Delete Body…” command is a best practice that helps to eliminate clutter and any confusion for downstream users.

“Delete Body…” is located in two places in SolidWorks. You can select “Delete Body” from the “Insert”, “Features” drop down menu. The preferred, easier way to remove All the bodies in one Body folder is to simply right click on either Surface or Solid Bodies folder and select “Delete Bodies…”(see picture below).

This feature can be easily suppressed or deleted to quickly gain access back to these construction surfaces if necessary.  It is usually easier to select the bodies directly in the two Surface and Solid Bodies folders rather trying to select them in the graphics area using the selection filter (F5). Using the “Delete Body” command at the end of the Modeling Process will not break or remove any features that are referencing the deleted construction surfaces. The Delete Body feature works on both solid and surface bodies. You can even remove solid and surface bodies at the same time. Extra solid bodies could cause errors with the part’s Mass Properties and those unwanted reference solid bodies should be removed using this technique.

Try the “Delete Body” command to quickly remove any unwanted bodies to help tidy up a part before you hand it off to a coworker or send it to customer or vendor.