Learning How to Draft by Hand

I wanted to learn how to do engineering drafts by hand so I cut some French Curves and Drafting Triangles out of Acrylic on my X-Carve by Inventables.

#drawing #draft #howto

[DarkTouch]

As an old guy, i had drafting in high school and at my engineering college in the 70's . Early in my career, all maps and diagrams in my job were hand drawn, so I've been around drafting a lot. I have all kinds of tools as well. In my line of work, i was a content creator, the drafting department turned my drawings into archival and professional drawings. I mainly made subsurface geophysical & geological (oil prospecting) maps and cross sections from data in tabular format, or geological/geophysical data printed on paper and interpreted with colored pencils. My drafting table had appreciable deposits of electrically powered rubber eraser dust on the floor and my electric pencil sharpener had to be emptied several times a day, aside neatly stacked and folded copies of my working data. We even had a special protocols for folding large format pieces of paper so they could be filed in 8 1/2x11" file folders.


Important principles in drafting include the ability to make a drawing of the same object from different view points (right, front top, isometric, etc) as well as solving graphical problems with straight edges, compasses, dividers, etc. so it is not simply as a method of drawing, but mainly as an analytical tool. For example, from a number oriented borehole cores retrieved from the earth and maybe an outcrop, deduce the shape and orientation of a sheet of rock 2000' below the surface, using graphical (drafting) methods alone: to solve a structural geology problem, then render it in 3 dimensions, but expressed only in 2-dimensional drawings. Fun stuff.


As my career progressed, the drafting department stopped using so much of ink pens and mechanical pencils, and switched to taped lines, stencils, "rub on symbols" and such. I remember the drafting department manager lamenting that he saw his entire department being phased out in the future, because content creators were moving their data and analysis onto computers with special purpose software, that can also generate drafting quality maps and diagrams. CAD was coming along as well about this time. Half way through my career, all working drafting departments in the oil industry disappeared.


Now, I wistfully look at my drafting kit, and easily go to Sketchup do get done what i need instead. I still have all my tools, just don't use them anymore.

[MrGeroth]

I took drafting back in the 1960’s. It was all by hand, a calculator was a slide rule. My grandson is a carpenter and is amazed by my small drawings. After drawing your plan, you would use ink pens and black ink to finalized the drawing.

[Wallmanwoodshop]

I began drafting in the early 90’s. It’s great to see someone interested in drafting today. Now work on those line weights and draw some more! 😀

[jamessears]

Worked as a draftsman for an architectural firm for 6 years in the early 70s. Don't miss it. I do all my furniture design and part list by hand. Not computer savy. I do appreciate hand drawn illustration because I know how much work goes in it.

[Chris-cepz]

My first full time job was drafting...well, computer added of course. I drew precast concrete pieces of parking garages. We also detailed some small pieces of reinforcement or connection plates. I truly love drafting. Unfortunately, life happens and things change. I now work as a maintenance shop lead and do a bit of wood working for a hobby. Who knows what the future will hold, but I look forward to it.

[bradleyl.]

Drawing looks awesome especially for your first self taught attempt. Plus pulling all measurements by hand and translating to paper. I do drafting/design work for a living for concrete and steel work. Did hand drafting in high school 15 years ago. Some tips I remember and still use some for hand sketches for work.

A metal erasing shield (must have) will be your go to tool for erasing in tight corners

Drafting dry cleaning pads will help clean up any smudge marks your hands leave from the graphite. (Not required but just something to look at)

Also as someone else mentioned, a good mechanical pencil (with a metal extended tip) and work on your line weights (thickness of lines)

Your picture looks good as is, you could test out hidden lines to show that an item is behind the front material. So blade behind the base or even screw in the handles. For artistic reasons may not look as good so may be something to just play with and test out.

I see CAD drawings everyday but when we have to go pull old drawings for reference and they are hand drawn you get to see how much of an art form it truly used to be. Those guys were flat out talented and it is becoming a lost art.

Keep drafting and keep up the good work.

[lostlatinlover]

Oh my goodness... I feel so very old BECAUSE I still own many of these drafting instruments/tools from when I was doing my own drawing "by hand". They're precious to me. I marvel at the fact that you can make your own using a computer driven machine.

[jts]

I took drafting in high school and college. In college I also took surveying and we had to then render all of our maps by hand. I really loved my set of Rapidograph pens. We had to do all lettering by hand and we were encouraged to "embellish" our compass rose. Good memories. Have fun exploring this new opportunity for creativity.

[cgwoodworks]

Just started taking a class. Love the art wish everyone still did it by hand .

[kevinyoung]

very nice!
I studied drafting from the 9th grade to the last semester of High School, then again in college, before CAD replaced such classes in schools.
In jobs. I still used manual drafting along with apps like Visio.
I have actually returned to drafting for pleasure. My art now encompass; graphite pencil, watercolor, manual drafting and B&W film photography.

[johnwisniewski]

I love drafting. My dad was a civil engineer and he taught me how to draw scaled technical drawings. I still do it when I can despite the fact that I’m not in a field anywhere close to engineering. I just love the art form. When done right, it marry’s precision with artistic expression. Great video as always and I hope to see you make a really nice drafting table as I’d really like to make one myself.

[lawrencehincker]

Like many boomers coming of age in the 60's, I learned drafting in high school and put it to good use pursuing an architecture degree. I still use my tools for my woodworking projects in my retirement. Hats off to you for learning to draft. Nothing feels as good as putting pencil to paper. But I couldn't help but smile at your "Millennial" approach to creating your drafting instruments - using a computer program to create instruments and a CNC to cut them out! Man, just go to an art store...or better...click the mouse on Amazon.

[jeffforbes]

Very nice as always. I had 6 months of drafting in the mid 70s. Your video really took me back to those days. I have retained the basics...enough to get me by in the workshop but I'm sure I've lost a lot of knowledge.

[johnconklin]

I took 4 years of drafting in high school, an associates degree with 2 more years and and did manual drafting as a career until the early 90's when we converted to CAD. Build yourself a good size fold down table and pick up a quality universal drafting machine off eBay. Happy to help if you have questions.

[parillaworks]

Really cool work Will. I would love it as a print on some nice paper (maybe signed?). I'm sure others would too.

[dwaynevarnell]

Drafter here. Started in a cabinet shop and moved on to The Boeing Co as a drafter. Became a Mech engineer in the process. Draft still on the iPad Pro. The tech changes but concepts dont

[DrLarryAnderson]

Let's see how many people remember this trick: All my triangles, french curves, etc., have pennies taped to the bottom surface. Why? Well, if/when you begin using ink when drafting, you'll understand why--especially if that ink tries to run underneath the edge of your drafting equipment. (Don't ask me how I know. Ha!)
I learned drafting at the university, then worked as a draftsman for an agricultural and architectural engineer (including post-survey land repurpose maps) in summers. Then, I taught basic orthographic projection as one of the areas in my junior high Industrial Arts classes. All those basic skills continue to come in handy, even when I'm visualizing something. Unless I'm in a serious time crunch, the manual drafting process is a real stress reliever. I agree with others who have suggested Rapidograph pens, as well as a good mechanical pencil and sharpener. The proper eraser makes all the difference, too.
Thanks for posting this. Really brings back memories. Mighty well done, sir!

[roBLINDhood]

I’ve always enjoyed wearing plane t shirts. ;)

[avisato]

I remember learning this when I was in school — no idea if that has been done in the last couple of decades but I have to admit it drove me absolutely crazy as a teenager having to do it by hand just as computers were starting to come into schools seriously for the first time. I switched to drafting everything digitally pretty quickly after that and I’ve been doing it ever since but I feel somewhat inspired to go back to trying some by hand after watching this. It looks so much more relaxing than my usual time in SketchUp! (Hopefully my absolutely horrendous penmanship doesn’t bode poorly. My kana are incomprehensible and writing in English is often indistinguishable from random curves but hey...)

[GopherWoodshop]

Is there nothing you can’t do? Lol, awesome as always. Great choice of music to go with an exceptionally excellent piece of footage.