My Mechanical Drawing Lectures

First off I am writing these lectures for an old textbook entitled 'Mechanical Drawing' written by French et al. This first lecture is mainly what one needs to know to get started in career as a draftsman. So, let's get started back in history there were three materials that ancient drawings were done. These were parchment or otherwise known as papyrus, limestone, and wood. Thanks to DaVinci and Monge as well as the Egyptians and Romans that came before them. DaVinci's sketches made him the artist and master of mechanical or technical drawing.

Drafting is called the language of industry. There are standard symbols that were becoming a part of the universal language for it is a graphic language that many from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson who used drawing instruments and tools for various buildings that were built. Mechanical drawing as a skill has been around for quite a long time.

In looking at a mechanical drawing as a full-size model is known as a mock-up or a scale model that show all the parts in three dimensions for length, width, and height. After drawing these artists would pass information from person to person in a way that is understood by various communication modalities as in writing, reading, speaking and listening using their sketching, instrument drawing and blueprint reading to show and tell all about their projects.

There are four levels of graphic communication that these artists use, and they are creative communication, technical communication, market communication and construction communication. Here are some more information details to follow. Creative communication is the basic idea of the designer or otherwise known as 'the birth of an idea' and expressing their ideas and capturing them to study. Technical communication is where the special talents of engineers, architects, and artists in this interprofessional phase to refine the creative idea. Market communication is basically a presentation to the potential clients and their evaluation of the style, form and function of the project. Construction communication is the dealing with the actual manufacturing and construction that must have enough information so that all involved in the various aspects will not have to guess about any details or ask for further clarification on a project.

Now, in learning these basics we are now ready to learn the three types of drawings involved with mechanical drawing or drafting, and they are mulitview, pictorial, and schematic. The Multiview drawing is also known as an 'orthographic' projection that shows two or more views or faces of an object in different positions and arranging them in a systematic relationship to one another. We see the exact shape and proportion of the object on a piece of paper. (A pictorial drawing or photograph shows the object(s) as they appear, while a Multiview drawing shows the object(s) as they really are.) The Pictorial drawings show objects as they appear not how they actually are. The Schematic drawings show the parts of a system by using various types of diagrams and graphic symbols as one can see on CAD and old-fashioned blueprints.

There are three specialized fields in mechanical drawing, and they are as follows: Architectual drafting that involves the same principles as other technical drawing, but uses special methods of representation and special symbols that are necessary because of the small scale that must be used to show a large building on a small sheet of paper like a floor plan. Another specialized field is Structural drafting that deals with framework and supporting members of buildings and other kinds of large structures. There are also Aeronautical or aerospace draftsmen who prepare drawings of all types of aircraft. There are also Machine draftsmen, electrical/electronic draftsmen, and sheet-metal or surface development draftsmen.

So, what are or what is the name of a person who prepares technical drawings, and wouldn't you believe it or not they are called 'draftsmen' and they translate the ideas of architects, engineers, and designers into an exact and detailed instructions of a project. These draftsmen must have the knowledge of math, science and technology, as well as common sense and experience in preparing technical drawing and detailed specifications.

How does one become a draftsperson? There are three ways. The first way is high school followed by an apprenticeship training. In this way a beginning draftsmen can serve in an industrial drafting room after receiving the basic groundwork in a high school program where they may be called a junior draftsmen or detailer. This may still exist today, but I doubt it. The second way would be high school followed by technical training and work as drafting technicians. They could also be used as engineer assistants where they will learn surveying, plan reading, math, basic estimating, drafting, materials of industry, production techniques and construction systems and they will become Senior detailers of a junior designer where they must exercise some independent judgement. The third way is high school followed by college where a basic draftsmen will learn and become engineers. They will learn all they need after four years of math and science that lead to skills for doing research, development, design, testing, planning, production, construction operation, sales, service and standards and now they are engineers in training or simply an engineer trainee. Engineers/draftsman must have career qualifications for aptitude for detail, ability to achieve order, be logical, resourceful, and systematic about developing detailed communications. In the end this is the beginning of becoming a draftsman or engineer.

(Note: I believe that they still teach the manual way to draw with pencil and paper before moving on to computer-aided drawing.)

Next lecture article will be on Sketching