r/Drafting

Hello! I am 36F, in Australia, and need a career change. For my first 12 working years, I was a youth worker, supporting homeless youth in a supported home situation. Then the last 4 years I have been managing the house, which involves budgeting, managing staff and working with families.

It’s time for a change, and I’m interested in being a draftsperson/architectural designer. I’m good with computers and spacial puzzles, I like drawing, and I feel I have given all I can in my previous role.

While I retrain, what entry level roles can I do to get in and around the world I want to enter? Any advice from people who have done big career changes in their 30s?

Hi All, I’m a cabinetry/millwork drafter and currently looking to build up my CAD library for my freelance drafting. I’m looking for recommendations of any good sites that I can download dynamic blocks that can be used for commercial use. I’m mainly looking at fixings, screws, hinges, drawer runners etc. Can anyone offer any websites?

Hi,

I am currently having trouble with maintaining layers as visible or invisible properly in paperspace viewports while I work on my 3D model.

I have three different locked viewports, with views saved in view manager, each with a different layer of measurements unhidden. However, when I then go to work on the project in model space, where I have to turn off and on layers, it changes the visible layers in my viewports in paper space.

How do I set my viewports in paper space so layer visibility does not change, while still being able to hide and unhide layers while working in model space?

Thank you.

Rudimentary PDF attachment functionality has been recently introduced in Open CAD Studio. This video shows how to attach PDF to a DWG document in Open CAD Studio.

I had a small bracket drawing that was easy to manufacture but annoying to inspect. Most dimensions came from different edges, so checking it meant constantly resetting the calipers.

Would you change the datum scheme to make inspection easier, even if the drawing becomes slightly less intuitive for fabrication?

We've got around 300 drawings from the 70s and 80s. Some are on Mylar, some are blueline prints, and a few are so faded to the point I can’t read the dimensions. Sizes run from B up to E, and we still make most of the parts.

Our goal is native Creo models we can edit later, not a STEP that opens in a viewer. I think a STEP can be a good solid without any feature history.

What would you ask for in a pilot to check editability and whether the model matches the drawing?

Should the vendor send a log of assumptions and missing dimensions with each model? 

Has anyone done this? How did it go?

My mouse recently died and im looking for recommendations for a new one. Ideally comfort and extra buttons as a bonus. Also has anyone used something like a macro keyboard for regular CAD/microstation functions? Keen to hear any tips to improve my efficiency

This Open CAD Tutorial is meant for complete 2D CAD drafting beginners. It will guide them through the basics of CAD drafting and show them how to draft a kitchen sink drawing.

Open CAD Studio web application is used in the tutorial, which means that anyone can follow without installing anything or setting up account. The knowledge gained in the tutorial is easily transferable to AutoCAD.

Hi all, a bit of background before I ask the question but I have been a CAD designer for around 4 years now and have been freelance for the past 6 months for a few clients. I would say I am probably around a middle level of experience when it comes to drafting, I rotate between a few softwares so don't quite feel like I am 100% in any software yet but do work primarily in AutoCAD 2D and Sketchup.

In my recent work I have been started to get asked a lot more about my timings for various projects and am wondering if it's because I am seem to be taking longer than people expect. I admit I am a bit of a perfectionist so that may play a role during my review stage but wanted to get an idea of people's timescales for their work. Also I wanted to ask any other freelancers out there whether when they work with a client, do you give an expected deadline or do you work to clients deadlines? I am currently in the latter of working to other people's deadlines which I think is also causing some of these questions.

My main work is drafting cabinetry on AutoCAD 2D. I find no matter what it tends to take me around 2/3 days depending on the size of the room and the amount of cabinetry in there and obviously the amount of section views needed, that also includes a full final review I complete at the end of the job to make sure everything is looking good. I usually have around a week to turn around the drawings for a deadline but recently it's becoming less and I've started to be asked about my timings due to the fact I had a few drawings that needed an extension on the turnaround time. Can anyone on the sub let me know what they think and their workflow/timescale for their drafting?