Recommendation for Good Textbooks on Basic drafting.

[NGCathey]

All,  

 

I am looking for some good recommendations for a good textbook on the basics of drafting/technical drawing.

 

My plan is to create a set of plans for the Virginia from the NMM plan set.  I will be using CAD, but haven't settled on drafting from the ground up or importing a scanned copy.

 

Thanks.

Nathan

[_SalD_]

Nathan, For the style of text it will depend on what font's are available with the cad software you are using.  I use Autocad and use their 'simplex' font for the majority for the dimensions and text.  As far as text height I prefer text that is 3/32" high for dimensions and text, for titles I scale the 3/32" text up by 1.5 or 2 times.

 

For drafting the ship I've found using a scanned drawing as an overlay works well.  It's also easier to pull dimensions off the scanned drawing than the hard copy. these are just my opinions and seem to work well for most cases.

[jud]

Nathan; haven't settled on drafting from the ground up or importing a scanned copy.

Don't choose between use both on different layers. On your ground up work use a grid, I always use the North East Quadrant so my coordinates are all positive. I also work in real size in cad, Being a land surveyor I use decimal feet and convert everything to that including inches and fractions. The advantage of using full size is that scaling to any scale later is easy. Pick some good dependable and commonly agreed dimensions like deck length, overall length to base your coordinate system on and start with even numbers that allow you to relate it to the ship, frame 34 being 123 feet from the stem, I would make that frame's station as 223.00, the keel at that frame might be 16 feet below the waterline that coordinate would be 84 if my baseline was the waterline, so the 2 D choord would be 223.000, 84.000 on the side view, A surveyor trait of using E-W as the X and N-S as Y so some will be wondering what I am saying. Use what works for you, but you get the idea. You can slide your scanned layer around under your drawing as you build it, expect to kind some discrepancies. Make this into an enjoyable time, you will be gaining in spurts between frustrations, normal, just backup on different layers so you have a point to go back to if something goes poof, also keep an eye on point numbers and destinations, clean them up occasionally, don't need data with 20% being useful and you will without housekeeping.

 

jud

[herask]

also take a look at this: http://modelshipworldforum.com/ship-model-plans-and-research.php  -> Drafting Ship Plans in CAD - Wayne Kempson. helped me a lot... ;-)

[Don9of11]

Check your local high school or middle school and see if they have any vocational classes in drafting or machine shop. The likely will have some old books, better yet check your local library. Depending on your software there are probably oodles of YouTube videos to help you get started.  You have a lofty goal and drawing plans from scratch isn't for the faint of heart.  Tracing over an existing set of plans might be better as you'll have something to work from and learn a long way what will be expected of you when drawing from scratch. 

[hexnut]

THE basic textbook for tech. drawing in MHO is: Engineering Drawing and Graphic Science by French & Vierk.

https://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AVierck French