Dead Career - Drafting

great.. it doesnt mean you have a mechanical aptitude or any sense at all, it means you have good study habits & thats about it. either you cant cut it or you live in an area where there just arent any jobs. you;d have to relocate to figure out which it is. of course you know that because you are so smart. oh but wait. you have no job.. perhaps you are not as smart as you think.

I remember now. Sheet metal duct work. Your resistance was to upgrading to more productive and capable software.

right.. we bought a single floating solid works license this past week. i haven't had a chance to test drive it yet. we had an inventor demo & i wasnt impressed with it. I think the acad will always be the primary software for plant layouts nut the solid works will be great for smaller tricky projects.. we are building some funky oil tanks for custom choppers that require minimal welds & there are many variations of the same tank.. this is exactly where the software will be huge. :)

SNIP
Ah, you are working with a teenagers mentality. "How Immature" is a favorite amoung teenagers.

A very interesting thread IMHO (As a draughtsman who became an Engineer by part time study ONC HND (Now called BTEC) and a 4 year Part time day and evening Honours Degree in Civil Engineering (with Advanced Structures as my option) whilst working.
Until the site agent, chippy, brick layer, plumber, roofer and others carry around something to view 3D models on they are for Architects and clients on schemes that warrent the investment in time and money to produce them.
Mind you seeing the crap that 60% of Architects create in 2D do we really want them to produce this in yet another dimension ?
Before I get flamed some of best friend are Architects and so are some of my worst nightmears, and IMHO the Best architects are those that has worked their way up from technicians that draw construction details.
They don't train draughtsmen like they use too.
A good draughtsman, and those listed above create the 3D model in their heads from the 2D details (if detailed correctly in the first place)
Finding good draughtsmen is hard as an employer!
Many employers don't value these people enough! or pay them enough.
In the UK they don't teach TD (Technical Drawing) anymore in schools and drawing is not covered at ONC HND level like it use to be. University Grads may have picked up some CAD experiance from their studies, however this is not covered as a given subject.
Nearest thing in the uk to what you guys are talking about is a city & guilds course in AutoCAD, I have seen the wonderful 3D windmill the guy has drawn, but he can't pass my 3Minute test and has no understanding on how bricks are bonded, and about general construction, thus he goes to show another prospective employer his wonderful 3D windmill.
Rant over time to get ready for work
cadalot

cadalot wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Ditto (As a draughtsman who became an One of my sons is very competent in 3D AutoCAD, and was recently asked to work on an architectural drawing, to produce renderings and walk-throughs etc. Oops - the roof turned out to be on the same level as the ground floor ... he ended up starting again from scratch using the engineering drawings. In his view, the best device for walk-thoughs is the scene developer for Quake. Ideal. No more walking through walls. One drawback is you must have at least one monster (real estate agent) and one weapon (clipboard). You can shoot the real estate agent with the clipboard - but you don't tell the client that ... My son produces things like a 3D nautilus shell, 3D fish. Eventually he ran into someone who was racking their brains trying to find someone who could draw a self-extracting mining drill - large double helix device. Things began to look up after that. He had breezed through the CAD course in the Australian TAFE system, but was a bit daunted at the prospect of doing a 4 year evening course in basic construction, until an employer suggested not to bother, just get out there and do the site surveys, measure-up, and they would find the errors ...

What is that 3Minute test? :)

Get the guy to produce the drawing and see how he does it and how accurate he is. If he takes more than 3minutes forget it.
I had one guy who after 20-25 minutes I just said sorry and showed him the door.

All you need is LINE and MOVE to pull that off....and BRAIN set to (1).
It reminds me of a job I had as a teenager delivering mail. They interviewed me, and then gave me ten envelopes to place in alphabetical order according to street name......in two minutes.... Go!
After 30 seconds they asked me if I wanted to double check my work....after 45 we were staring at each other somewhat uncomfortably for the rest of the time allotted. I should have known I couldn't last at that job right there but I was a kid.

Mike
A little more than LINE and MOVE??
There are two concentric squares that appear twice in the arrangement; I would look for those to be drawn using rectangle and offset maybe, and then copied and moved into the correct location (How did they go about that process?). Could they see where they could save time in the drawing process? I would watch to see how they would draw the shapes, x,y or polar or tracking, did they draw a line from the centre figure to the location point of each element around the centre element then delete or did they offset from a point. How did they handle OSNAP or did they snap at all, did they go beyond the basic figures as asked for, (could they read and understand an basic instruction) and add the dimensions? Did the final drawing match the information provided i.e. was it dimensionally accurate or did it just look right.
As you say a very simple test, but I wanted to see that these guys could produce accurate work and understood coordinates and snaps etc. This little test really helped me weed out those people that were time wasters and wanting to learn CAD on the job.
I had other short tests that were based upon my training material that then showed me they had an understanding of layers and dimensioning.
Before my company let me start vetting the Agency Draughtsmen that they were employing we had some wonderful crap produced by these people. I can send you a drawing I use to this day to show what good draughtsmanship isn't

Cliff
The modern brick size in the UK is 65mmx215mmx102.5mm (OK they are made of clay and the size varies a little from brick to brick. And you will see the width taken as 100, 102, 103 or evem 105 by Architects.
However it is accepted that the thickniess or mortar is 10mm thus the building module becomes 225 x 75mm. The BDA Brick Development Association produces tables that give the amount of bricks used in various typical situations. i.e.
A straight wall A wall with returns either end A wall with a return one end Over openinigs etc etc
It's the basic setting out of drawings / plans such that the amount of brick cutting can be kept to a minimum and the very basic information about the materials they are drawing and how they are placed, whatever type or grade of mortar is being used.
Alan

I was boiling it down to the minimum. You can do it with two commands.
If the British judge is giving extra points for difficulty ; ) you could throw in a few more, obviously, but you can do it with just the two (with ortho on) in the timeframe you mention.
So you actually sit there and watch them while they do it? That's a pressure cooker for a young person, unless they are quite confident.
I've seen lots of terrible drafting in the various architecture offices where I interned, and know that if I were giving points for style (especially) many wouldn't get past this exercise, including a couple of guys with Master's.

Sir, could I have some more ?
More tests! More tests!

Cliff,
Refer to your first statement:

U.K. sounds like a simple gig to me. Here we have half dozen brick modules to work with.
Modular Metric C.S.R. Norman etc..
Then there are imperial size windows openings while using modular metric bricks.Try figuring that one out!
Steve

Don't forget Jumbo, Ontario, Norman Engineer, etc. A nightmare.

The window people for standard size windows work to the old imperial size bricks which were a different module. But if you are going to make windows for the scheme why not use the modular size?
Blocks are based on a similar module to bricks i.e. 3 bricks high so 215mm + 10mm mortar and 440 ling with 10mm perp. Thus the cavity wall ties can match up with courses in the inner and outer leaf.
I had toinvestigate a building (read sports complex) where the walls seemed to move when a UK footbal was kicked againit it. On opening up we found the the builder had not lined up the briick and block coursinig so had bent all the wall ties into the cavity out og the way so he could build his outer leaf.
Bring back the COW

How about meeting those deadlines? ; )

Your smart remarks have proved my points. DRAFTING IS A DEAD FIELD!
Sadly, the only side that will ever be heard will be the Engineer/Architect's side.
Before you make any more remarks about "dumb Drafting"; remember, you are only as good as your trainer.
You are implying that all Drafters who cant meet your expectations -- WITH NO TRAINING IN ENGINNERING DESIGN (Not provided by schools or Engineering/Architect firms) -- are stupid.
You are STUPID by expecting someone to know something without showing or explaining it to them.
You are STUPID for expecting someone to pull monkeys out of his arse.
The schools do not prepare you and the Architects/Engineers DO NOT CARE.
Do you want to be a Drafter after hearing comments from these jerks?
Go for it and sign up for the abuse! You will be right back at Taco Bell after you graduate from your Drafting course -- I promise.
Fuck Drafting.