The Lost Art of Mechanical Drafting

[jtopiso_imp]

Hi all,

Thought I would share a Mechanical Drawing I just finished up with all of you for grins. I began my career as a Mechanical Drafter on a Drafting Board. Spent ten years on a Board before making the leap to 2D CAD, then 3D CAD ten years after that. Although I enjoy 3D CAD Modeling, I find I miss laying lines on a Drafting Board, so for the safe of nostalgia, I broke out my old Drafting Board (had to restore it back to it's former glory), found all my old Drafting Tools and went to work on drawing a CB to my liking. Really enjoyed it and will most likely continue drawing on the Board in the evenings when I have time.

I'm currently teaching Drafting to some young guys and I was explaining the history of Drafting technologies and it got me thinking I ought to knock out a few Drawings on my old Board for fun. Anyway, enough jibber jabber, on to the Drawing.





Cheers and thanks for letting me share!

That's impressive.

I do a lot of mechanical design, but I've always used 3D modeling. So, for me, this kind of work is like out of this world.

Nowadays, the art on the 2D drawings generated from 3D views relays only on composition, clarity, not missing any critical information without redundancy, so every part is made right the first time and every assembly is assembled right the first time. It's still a lot, but it's a different skill set.

(I've always been a fan of motorsport drafting and cut-views from Tony Mathews and Giorgio Piola. I have always admired that artistic side of engineering that's seems so hard to find)

That's impressive.

I do a lot of mechanical design, but I've always used 3D modeling. So, for me, this kind of work is like out of this world.

Nowadays, the art on the 2D drawings generated from 3D views relays only on composition, clarity, not missing any critical information without redundancy, so every part is made right the first time and every assembly is assembled right the first time. It's still a lot, but it's a different skill set.

(I've always been a fan of motorsport drafting and cut-views from Tony Mathews and Giorgio Piola. I have always admired that artistic side of engineering that's seems so hard to find) Thanks!

I do love 3D Modeling in SolidWorks, but I've come to appreciate the imperfections of manual drawing that indicate to me a real human being made it. May sounds silly, but when I see the imperfections, i somehow relate to and appreciate the artist because I see imperfections in my own work (quite allot of them actually).

I've always appreciated David Kimbell's cutaway works:

A bit off-topic, but do you know "wintergatan marble machine"? He is an engineer/musician/artist... (something to check on youtube if you like mechanical design and music).

Anyway: he made posters from a 3D model of his current project (in solidworks). He printed it on a big scale, and went over every line on it with a black marker to add some "hand drawn" feel, imperfections, etc, and then scanned it so it can be printed and reproduced.

The final thing doesn't have this "old patent mechanical draft" feel, but it's very close.

https://wintergatan.creator-spring.com/

I have one of these "fake blueprint" hanging on my living room

(I might me allowed to hang drawing of a bik, if you make a poster out of it.)