Is it possible to make a 3D part, tesselate/facet it and then break it down to flat 2D sheet metal part in solidworks?

Unless what you are trying to flatten is "arc" based, then not so much. If you have a screen shot showing what you are trying to do that might be helpful.

This add-in for Solidworks takes surface bodies and converts them to a tesselated mesh. Then it runs an FEA solver to flatten 3D surfaces. There are many examples on the web-site. Hope this helps.

http://www.exactflat.com/3D-to-2D-CAD-Model-Flattening

Thanks for the help Eaton, Ill take a closer look but that looks promising. Cheers.