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Hand drafting skills.

Started by Dave Shepard, January 20, 2018, 04:29:34 PM

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Dave Shepard

 I'm looking for resources to improve my hand drafting skills. Books or online resources. I have a large table, big enough for a 3x5 sheet, and a couple of drafting machines, although I think for architectural work a parallel straight edge would be adequate.  Thanks.
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Dan_Shade

The tricks for drawing polygons are really handy to know for drafting
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Don P

I've got Dad's old texts from the 50's, Technical, Mechanical, and Architectural, you're welcome to borrow any, shoot me a pm with your address if you want.

bill m

I have my Architectural drawing book from high school you may borrow. Send me a text or give a call if interested.
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Gary_C

I'm curious as to what you mean by "hand drafting skills?" Are you meaning field sketching skills or making orthographic projections the old fashioned way on a drafting table?

If it's the latter, you would be better served to spend your time learning to use some reasonably cheap and powerful drawing programs that are available. Yes, the AutoCAD and the high powered commercial architectural drawing programs are expensive for a seat license, complicated, and extremely powerful with their 3-D capabilities but you can get some inexpensive substitutes that will do much of what you need unless you are doing commercial work.

Trust me, the old fashioned drafting boards are a thing of the past. I have an adjustable drafting table that I got from my brother and I am going to refinish it and repurpose it sometime. I am afraid if I do get it all finished it might become a sewing table or just a place to collect projects that I'm "gonna" get to sometime. As a drafting table, it an obsolete dinosaur.
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woodworker9

I don't know.....I resist converting my life's work over to computer control.  I never took the time to learn CAD, in any format, and never will.  30 years into the mission, I still do all my furniture and cabinet drawings by hand, on my drafting table, as I learned it in college.  Few of the engineering courses I took in college play a roll in my current life, but I'm extremely glad that I took the mechanical drafting course (required for engineering).  I quit my engineering job 2 1/2 years out of school to pursue my own business interests, but learning to draw, pencil on paper, has been all I've ever needed.

I still get compliments from customers when they see an "old school" drawing on paper. 

I fully realize that if you're in industry, this route isn't going to work in the business world.  However, for a one-man-band making drawings for shop or field work, I don't see anything wrong with it.  Learning CAD, in any form, is going to take a lot of hours to learn.

Just my .02.
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The end result is the same but how you get there is what sets us apart . My bt6870 processer was hand drawn on paper napkins over coffee .
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Dave Shepard

 I'm talking about creating architectural drawings duch as plan views, elevations, and perspectives. I have less than zero interest in using a CAD program for this work. First, I have no money to invest in software. Second,  I don't have a computer to run it on. Third, cad drawings suck unless done by someone with experience. I'm done with people handing me an incomplete Sketchup drawing, printed on 8.5x11 paper, not to scale, and being expected to think that it is a professional behavior.

As to old fashioned drawing boards being a thing of the past, you have obviously never seen Jack Sobon use his. All of his work comes off of the same small board he had in college, and I'd put his plans ahead of anybody's in the business. There is more to a set of plans than some fancy program that adds wood grain to the timbers.

For my own work, I don't need drawings. Everything is in my head, and I use a calculator to find rafter lengths. It's only in trying to convey my ideas to others that I need the drawings.

You have to remember I'm a traditional timber framer. I'm using tools and techniques that have been around for a long time.  If I succumbed to the latest fads, I'd be a stick framer.  To qoute Dan Miller "No electrons were harmed in the making of this frame." :D
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Dave Shepard

Bill and Don,  I'll be in touch. Thank you.
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47sawdust

Dave,
I've worked for over 40 years as a carpenter and still do all my design work by hand.For me it is an enjoyable process.
I use ΒΌ'' graph paper overlayed with vellum paper,both from Staples,handful of pencils,erasers,brush for sweeping away erased mistakes and an architects scale rule.I don't have a drafting table,just a small table also from Staples that I tape my work to while in progress,kind of crude but it works well for me.
The more detail I can put in to my work,the easier it is to estimate and visualize the finished project.When complete and approved by my customer I laminate the copies that are going to the job with me for handy reference.While I wouldn't mind using a Sketch-up or CAD program I'm a little intimidated about the process and maybe a little stuck in my ways
Mick
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GAB

Using CAD software saves the elbow grease needed to operate the eraser.
Gerald

If any of you come across an electric slide rule could you post a picture for me.
Thanks.
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dgdrls

Dave,

If you don't already, get a drafting board with a sliding parallel bar.
It will make the manual drafting process MUCH easier and cleaner.

The rest will come from practice 

D

Dave Shepard

I have a drafting machine now, a parallel would be better,  I think.
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canopy

I also studied drafting. My 2 cents is this whole thing is like comparing a type writer to a word processor. I sure wouldn't be willing to give up the beauty of moving and resizing things easily and inspecting a model in 3D among a long list of other benefits. But I hear that for some the learning curve just doesn't click for them and they stick to pencil and paper. It's a pity. I use sketchup for every single DIY project timber framing or other. It results in improved designs and saves time.

Heartwood

Dave,
We have a bunch of drafting books in the Heartwood library that you can come and check out. Winter's a good time to borrow a few. Give me a call.
One of my favorites is Drafting by Bob Syvanen. All his books are great with tips and tricks of the trade. Easy to find used copies online.

Brian_Weekley

My friends accuse me of living in both tails of the normal distribution.  Each has their pros and cons and I enjoy and appreciate both.  I actually pity today's young who didn't learn drafting with T-square and paper, photography in a darkroom, driving cars with standard transmissions, rotary telephones attached to a cord, the list goes on...




e aho laula

woodsteach

A place to check might be your local high school CTE/Vocational department.  I know that I have textbooks in my classroom that I will not part with because of the amount of information in them that you just don't find on YouTube.  Although there is some DanG good stuff on the web it just can take a long time to find it.

Due to class space and our students having computers, I am not able to teach hand drafting, it is all Sketchup for my semester of freshmen and then in the drafting class, the other instructor teaches AutoCAD.  But you are correct in saying most people have no idea what a plan is. 

My all time favorite drafting textbook is Mechanical Drawing by French and Svensen the one that we have is the 7th Edition published in 1966! 

Sometimes we need to remember that a computer running CAD is just a tool, just like a drafting machine is just a tool, that is more advanced, than a T-square, triangle and drafting board.

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Dave Shepard

I appreciate all the replies. I've been dealing with a number of issues lately, so I haven't given this a lot of attention.  I'll update if I make any progress.
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rjwoelk

Dave I am in the same boat with drafting, I like doing it by hand. I got a project for summer to do. Good luck, I will see if the book store carrys any books
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Don P

I left my table in the apartment we last lived in, 30 some years ago. On the road I carried one of the little plastic parallel rule kits, it actually worked pretty well. I do everything but sketching on the computer now. I'm not particular one way or the other on what someone gives me as long as the information is there. I'll work out any details and shop drawings on the computer but could do it by hand.

I was working on what turned out to be a designer friends last house. His widow offered me his equipment a year or so later. I knew someone who would appreciate it. At the time I was working with a laborer the client had provided. He was from pretty far south and had come here with an unanticipated pregnant girlfriend, settled down and was a fine family man and one heck of a worker. As we talked over lunch and during work, he had been an architecture student when his world changed, he dropped out and life carried on. Here he was just a laborer we look down upon, he was probably better schooled than me. Life is interesting.

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