Hand drafted steel shops
Hand drafted steel shops
(OP)
I am working on this medium sized renovation job where we are adding some steel beams, bar joists, a few columns, a couple of steel framed mezzanines etc to an existing facility. In my mind the job is large enough for the steel contractor to provide proper drafted shops but he has submitted hand drawn shops. Aren't these outdated now? But are they still allowed, and if so would this be addressed somewhere in AISC or should this have been addressed in the job specs.






RE: Hand drafted steel shops
You might have a better chance of getting a detailer who knows what he's doing when the shops are done by hand!
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
Or do you mean non-autocad drawings?
Either would be fine as long as the CONTENT is correct and the drawings are correctly drawn, neat, organized and coherent.
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
And as a matter of fact both hand drawn and Auto-cad are ONLY as good as the operator.
I have a friend/designer who does beautiful hand drawn prints - just don't ask him to change anything!!!
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
I can blast out numerous beams simply by stretching and other quick commands in CAD
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
Accuracy of the content is far more important than the means by which it got put it on paper.
I recall a few projects where EVERY architectural detail had been hand-drafted (i.e. NO straight-edged lines) on fade-out grid tracing paper. Actually very nicely drawn and VERY accurate and complete.
It's not the method that counts - only the finished product. If the hand-drafted drawings contain all the necessary information for fabrication, what is the problem? From my perspective, it could be hand-sketched on a cocktail napkin, photo-copied and issued to the shop.
Ralph
Structures Consulting
Northeast USA
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
Like MikeTheEngineer, I can also draft faster by hand, less any changes.
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
I could take those to any GC and he could build from them. Also have some "sketches" drawn on god knows what and would make my 5 year old grand son proud.
But guess what - it had every dimension and size I needed. We took his idea and very easily came up with an engineered drawing.
I get PDF "crap" e-mailed every day from engineers and architects. There are no dimensions, no sections, just BS. You call them up and they say just use the scale. Well after you have PDFed them, copied them, scanned them and then e-mailed - there is NO scale left.
Give me a "good" drawing on any media any day and I can make it fly!!!
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
MiketheEngineer -
As someone who managed an engineering dept for many years I always believed that labeling the scale of a plan of section or detail on a shop drawing is totally unnecessary. A properly constructed shop drawing will have every piece of information necessary displayed on it. Further, a drawing intended to be used by a man in the field to construct something should never require the use of a scale (Like the typical carpenter has a scale in his/her pocket or toolbelt).
The one bad thing about CAD is that it is causing those who produce working/shop drawings to lose understanding of the information required on the paper version of their computer model. For them, it's just too easy to determine a distance or dimension - the CAD model knows exactly what it is. Being so close to the model makes them lose sight of how to convey the necessary information to the end user of the paper drawing.
Ralph
Structures Consulting
Northeast USA
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
Until changes are made partway through a design and someone starts editing the dimensions instead of changing the drawing model. I've seen our head draftsmam literally pull his hair out when trying to incorporate other people's drawings into his own due to this.
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
I can sketch faster by hand than AutoCAD, but then there are those who are much better at AC than I. I have problems with scaling issues in AC. Don't have that in my hand sketches.
All that being said, I still prefer AC drawings. I remember the years of being on a board with care being given to line weight, line width, ink or pencil, plotting geometry, etc. Great learning experience, but wouldn't want to go back.
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
Ron -
Which brings up a pet peeve of mine with some of today's CAD drawings - using the same lineweight for everything OR not giving adequate thought towards the hierarchy of drawing lineweights.
Properly done, line weights can literally ensure a quick and clear understanding of a plan or section. Done poorly, it only serves to confuse.
By now, I'm sure that this thread has ventured far from the OP's question.
Ralph
Structures Consulting
Northeast USA
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
There is one thing that, to me, makes CAD superior to old shops....
I can't tell you how many times I have to look at one column or beam detail that was used to make 21 different beams with notes garbled all over the drawing. Of course I understand that this was necessary b/c the drafters didn't want to draw every piece, but damn does this make some messy drawings. With CAD you just copy the beam, stretch and fix some dimensions and change the BOM.
Most of the crap shops I have seen were generated by 3D modeling software like TEKLA X-Steel. When I used that software in 2004 thru 2006 it "scrubbed out" the worst shop drawings the world has ever seen. They were so bad it was literally unbelievable.
A good detailer is a good detailer whether he is using a pencil or CAD
RE: Hand drafted steel shops
http://www.FerrellEngineering.com