DRAWING, LAYOUT & CAD

Calandrod, Yes, I got interested in drafting when I was 6 & had collected drafting tools along the way for 30 years. Yes, some from my Dad & from friends. Still only good for the kitchen table through all that time. Then the internet came along 20 years ago & I dove deep into collecting drafting tools. Set up an EBay search & learn what brands appeal to you the most. When a price for what you want comes along ...... pounce on it at the last minute. I recently added a 2nd desk for free. This shot shows the tools I want near at hand for drawing. The rest are just collectables. Have fun with your venture!​


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Calandrod, Yes, I got interested in drafting when I was 6 & had collected drafting tools along the way for 30 years. Yes, some from my Dad & from friends. Still only good for the kitchen table through all that time. Then the internet came along 20 years ago & I dove deep into collecting drafting tools. Set up an EBay search & learn what brands appeal to you the most. When a price for what you want comes along ...... pounce on it at the last minute. I recently added a 2nd desk for free. This shot shows the tools I want near at hand for drawing. The rest are just collectables. Have fun with your venture!​


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Thanks!
In your opinion, what are some of the highest quality brands to be looking for? I’m pretty new to drafting by hand though I’m already quite proficient in Solidworks. But drafting stuff by hand really appeals to me. I just want to find the highest quality stuff that outlasts me.
 
Thanks!
In your opinion, what are some of the highest quality brands to be looking for? I’m pretty new to drafting by hand though I’m already quite proficient in Solidworks. But drafting stuff by hand really appeals to me. I just want to find the highest quality stuff that outlasts me.
Keuffel & Esser (K&E) used to be the top name, but Eugene Dietzgen were close, and what I could afford 50 odd years ago:

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I cannot argue with ChazzC's response Calendrod. I chose Dietzgen, but there are so many models & price ranges with that name on them. I see ChazzC chose the 'Reliance' model. I believe (memory has slipped though) that this is a pretty high end model. I went with the Excello model, which has an uncharacteristic blue dot on 1 of the pivot's of the small dividers.

Vemco for drafting arm rulers is a given. I still use 1 of their dividers too.

K&E for a drafting arm should be easy enough to find for a good price. I'm afraid the Mutoh arm I use has become hard to find & expensive.

Happy hunting!!!
 

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Funny, I took (manual) architectural and mechanical drafting classes as electives in junior high, high school, and college. It's the quickest way to put thought to paper (or whatever media) for me. I taught myself SolidWorks in 2004, and have been using it comfortably ever since, but I don't have the speed of a professional and it can be tedious on big drawings. By far the winner in my book for technical drawing is the humble cocktail napkin. That's where the real work gets done! Napkins are interchangeable with torn-off bits of paper, like the ones with math and sketches on them that clutter up the chip tray.
 
I was extremely interested to see this post - and concur with others that manual drawing equipment is getting harder to come by. I'm in my mid 40's but prefer drawing by hand if not needed for 3D printing for example. It is as much an art form as machining, in it's own right IMHO - it would be nice to see a dedicated sub :)
 
Only those who are well versed in CAD & / or Solidworks could argue against there use. I don't see that happening! I was never truly formally trained in drafting or art, t'was just driven to accomplish both to the degree that satisfied my needs. I think we are all doing the same in this collective Hobby Machinist interest as well.

Many know that I've jumped off the deep end with all things Van Norman. Some of them have this really neat emblem on their belt cover, while mine is plain sheet metal. I thought it might be fun to make a medallion of my own. Little did I know. Check out the number of ellipses necessary:
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An effect that causes the center to appear closer than the edges. OK, I did this with the Paint Program. It's as close to manual drafting as I know. For real 1:1 size, I go to the drafting table. There are several of us that need a version of the Van Norman 22 / 24 Front Support. I've been drafting it up, as my back allows. The curves are not so easy as ellipses. They are all compound, like the Art Deco Style that predated computers.

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Still a way to go - but that is half the fun!
 
One of my grandsons has my Excello set. Now i got to see if I can find a skumex bag and some paper.
 
I took drafting at the JC just before CAD took over. I did a lot of pencil on vellum drawings and still have quite a bundle. Fred acquired an early copy of AutoCAD and turned me loose with it. I consider hand drafting an art at this point, but from a practical point of view CAD is far superior. I would not be considered proficient with AutoCAD, I still use the command line, but I can bang out a quick bare bones drawing in much less time than by hand. The greatest advantage for me is the ability to draw accurately to scale and interrogate for points, eliminating the need for extensive calculations (and mistakes). This is the main reason that I make anything more than a napkin sketch. There is also the ability to make drawings at actual scale regardless of size. CAD also requires MUCH less physical space than a drafting table. So, for the sake of the art, I say go for it. As a means of generating a drawing in order to produce a part, CAD wins, hands down.
 
I took drafting all four years in H.S. with the intention of becoming a draftsman as a profession. I had also taken a college prep route and entered college on an engineering track which transitioned to degrees in the hard sciences For the next thirty years, I used my drafting skills in my business. When I began a new career as a manufacturing engineering manager for a medical device company, I started using CAD as an efficient way to express ideas to our draftsman. This was first done with Vellum, then an Autodesk product called AutoSketch, and finally AutoCAD. In 2004, I started working with SolidWorks. The learning curve was a bit steep but the clear advantages of a parametric CAD system quickly outstripped the downside.

In using mechanical drafting, one has to have a clear idea as to the final design in order to be efficient. This usually involves having fairly detailed sketches beforehand. With parametric CAD, a redesign can be accomplished as simply as changing a dimension or pulling a feature with a mouse. I still have my drafting equipment but haven't used it in years. I use an eraser perhaps a few times in a year.

Below is an example of a fixture I designed for under cabinet lighting in out kitchen. It is designed to fit tight behind the facings of the cabinets so as to be out of sight. There are fourteen sections of these fixtures, with each one being unique. The most complex of these fit elliptical facings. The front surface of the facing is a true ellipse which means that the back surface is offset from the ellipse and the abutting fixture is offset from that surface. These curves aren't true ellipses and are mathematically quite complex. If I was drawing these features, I would have to offset multiple points with my compass and use a French curve to approximate the curves. With SolidWorks, one simply clicks on the Offset tool. selects the curve to offset, and enters the offset distance.

Even if I had successfully drawn the parts, converting them to something useful for machining. These parts were the main driver for my purchasing my Tormach CNC as I could think of no other way to make them. The CAM package that I purchased with the CNC effortlessly converted the CAD models to G code. The work envelope of the CNC required breaking the fixtures into manageable sections and there was machining on both front and back sides. To accomplish this, I positioned holes for 3/16" dowel pins in my new CNC table and used used a sub-plate with holes for dowel pins to fit holes in the parts which also served as mounting holes for the completed parts. Even at that, the parts had to be oriented on the sub-plate to fit the work envelope.

Were I working with mechanical drafting, assuming that I could determine accurate coordinates for the dowel pin holes, I would have to got though a a mathematically complex rotation of the locating holes in my sub-plate. This would have been a daunting task and more than likely, I wouldn't have undertaken it.
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The blue construction line is the elliptical curve representing the location of the front of the cabinet facing. All other curves are offsets front that curve.

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This is the layout for machining one of the larger sections. The large rectangle is the travel extents of the Tormach CNC. The small rectangle is the outline of the raw stock, 1/4" x 3" 6061 aluminum. The blue coordinates listed are the location of the dowel pins used to fix the part on the sub-plate.
 
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