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Sunday, February 23, 2014

About Manual Drafting Tools

About Manual Drafting Tools

Manual drafting is also sometimes referred to as manual drawing or freehand drawing. Unlike using a computer for drawing, known as computer aided design, manual drafting is done by hand and uses a variety of tools. Professional drafting supplies are used by architects, interior designers and other professionals who need to create technical drawings. Does this Spark an idea?

Table

    Drafting tables can be adjusted at different heights and angles. Some are equipped with a ledge so that your pencils and pens don't roll off of the table. A drafting board is similar to a drafting table in that it's angled. However, it's not adjustable and it's meant to be used on top of a table. A drafting board is portable, so it usually has a handle. Both drafting boards and drafting tables have a smooth drawing surface.

Paper

    Tracing paper, also referred to as drafting paper, is used for manual drafting. Tracing paper comes in different sizes and calipers, or thickness. Tracing for manual drafting is available in rolls and can be used with pencil, ink and felt-tip markers. Tracing paper doesn't break as easily as regular paper, especially when erasing, and when ink and markers are used, the ink doesn't bleed through the paper. Additionally, the smoothness of the tracing paper allows pens and pencils to glide easily across the paper.

Pens and Pencils

    The different pencils and pens used in manual drafting allow you to control the lines that you draw. Drafting pens are used to draw permanent lines of constant width. Unlike pencils, they're marked depending on the width of the tip. The widths vary from 0.13 mm to 2.0 mm. Mechanical pencils are used for manual drawing because the lead stays consistently sharp. Lead grades, or hardness, range from 9B to 9H, with 9B being the darkest grade and 9H the lightest grade.

Rulers, Triangles and Curves

    A T-square, or parallel bar, is a kind of ruler used horizontally on a drafting table or board. It can slide up and down and is used to draw straight horizontal lines. Furthermore, a T-square is also used with triangles to allow you to created straight vertical and angled lines.

    Another kinds of ruler used in mechanical drafting is a scaled ruler. A triangular ruler is a three-sided ruler, triangular in shape, marked with a range of ratios. It allows you to draw actual dimensions in a much smaller scale to fit on paper.

    The two standard triangles are 30- to 60-degree and 45-degree triangles. Triangles are used to connect points, such as when creating a perspective drawing, and to draw angles of any degree.

    A curved ruler, or flexible curves, can be contorted to draw almost any curve. Irregular curves, or French curves, have no constant radii and are used to draw curves but are not flexible.

Templates

    Templates are plastic sheets used to create different kinds of drawings. They can be found in different scales to be used with the size of the drawing that you create. A lettering and numbering template are used to draw letters and numbers. Symbol templates are used to draw architectural symbols such as wall lights, ceiling lights, outlets and switches. Furniture templates are used to draw furniture, fixtures and accessories such as doors, sinks, tables, chairs, beds, toilets, showers and tubs. A combination of furniture, fixtures and architectural symbols is sometimes available on a single template.

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