[MengerSponge]

Although I've had an engineer fuss at me for using McMaster's bolt models in a rather complicated assembly. They actually model the threads and all the little details of the head, which make for a much larger model.

*People who don't work in CAD may not get it, but threaded interfaces are basically modeled with cylinders that overlap where the threads are engaged. It's funny what gets represented accurately and what doesn't, but just remember that the map is not the territory!

[johnwalkr]

One thing they offer which is really uncommon is parametric models instead of geometric models only. It's like getting the source code instead of only a binary file. So, you can easily suppress unwanted detail.

[MengerSponge]

They've doubtlessly improved things in the decade since that happened, but the important take-home for me was to just use my Parts Library for standard socket head bolts.

For weird things? Full parametric models would be great!

[albrewer]

The way I handled this in SolidWorks was to have an assembly configuration with all the detail suppressed and only use that in my model.