Cad Handbook!

[Pineapple]

Alright, after about a year of employment at my current job.. I've finally caught enough time to sit down and put some of our company CAD standards on paper! This is something I've been pushing for in our company, but being as though I'm the only drafter it's been constantly put on the back burner.

I've been working on this handbook for about the past week. I'm at the point now where I'd like some feedback on it. I know StykFacE has been asking for a Cad Handbook example, so I hope this helps:) This is the first time I've ever really done anything like this, so feedback is REALLY REALLY welcome.

Most of the standards outlined in this book are pretty company specific, and have been extrapolated from years of existing drawings. Our office mainly produces shop drawings for our products. The purpose of this handbook is to simply put down on paper our standard practices.

Anyway, let me know what you think. Also, FAKEstudio is indeed FAKE!

[rustysilo]

That's a nice looking manual you got there.

[ReMark]

Clear and concise but did you leave something out? I didn't see anything about standard scales, symbols or blocks. Was that intentional? Just curious.

[Pineapple]

No no, those are all definitely on my list. Along with standard hatches, abbreviations, symbols, and titleblocks... I'm sure I'll come up with some more! This is just what I have finished at the moment. As you can tell, I'm still workin on the Drawing Numbering page

[Nellie]

Well done on your manual, it must have taken some time to put together.

I hope your boss appreciates it. :)

[Pineapple]

Thank you! Unfortunately, my boss is strictly a "field guy", so he can't really appreciate the value of something like this. Oh well, it still makes my life easier and whether he realizes it or not, makes sure things go smoothly out there in "the field".

[ReMark]

Just think of all the grateful people down the road who will have you to silently thank for giving them guidance after you've been promoted to management.

[skipsophrenic]

Good going, clear, organised and concise. wish more cad manuals were produced like that:)

[ircanete]

Very nice manual... i wish we can have the same manual/sop in our office...
can i use this as reference and proposed it to my BOSS for our OFFICE STANDARDS?
thanks in advance

[Pineapple]

can i use this as reference and proposed it to my BOSS for our OFFICE STANDARDS?There's no greater compliment than that:) Feel free to use it! I'm still working on a few other pages. I'll post here once it's finished, but this should give you a nice start! Thanks

[ircanete]

thanks, PINEAPPLE...
this will give us a headstart... it will also help us alot!!!
thanks again...

[nocturne00]

There's no greater compliment than that:) Feel free to use it! I'm still working on a few other pages. I'll post here once it's finished, but this should give you a nice start! Thanks

Very nice manual, straight to the point. lookin forward to your additions. im also writing one for our company at the moment, cant get to finish due to loads of work. ill post mine too if im done. :)

[gbelous]

Thanks, that helped a lot...have you added much since then?

[Ryder76]

Very nice - looking forward to seeing the finished manual.

[todouble22]

There's no greater compliment than that:) Feel free to use it! I'm still working on a few other pages. I'll post here once it's finished, but this should give you a nice start! Thanks
Very nice work Pineapple. I drafted a quick one up this week as well and figured it may be useful to some other folks out there. Definately not finishe and I need to work on the formatting a bit but its a start.

[Tankman]

Well done on your manual, it must have taken some time to put together.

I hope your boss appreciates it. :)

Very nice, I did indulge and save a copy. Can't wait to see more! :wink:

[Tankman]

Very nice work Pineapple. I drafted a quick one up this week as well and figured it may be useful to some other folks out there. Definately not finished and I need to work on the formatting a bit but its a start.

More nice standards work! Looking forward to the finished product! :wink:

[brl2008]

Pineapple & todouble22
I like that you two put a small manual together and see that there some different in style. I feel I'm new at autocad and trying to some on my own at home. Have some standards to reveiw will help be a better drafter. Can not wait for the updates down the road. Thank you both for taking the time to do it.
Bruce

[kevin1973]

Good stuff guys. I have actually used ideas that I got from your manuals while creating mine. Mine is going to be a little more in depth because we use a 3rd party duct drafting software and we do a lot of Army Corp jobs so I want to "duplicate" a lot of the standards they use. I'll post as soon I can get a little further along.

Hope this thread keeps going.

[MikeScott]

This one is less CAD specific, and more of a drafting/engineering standard that covers a broader range, but I found it to be interesting and useful. My old job had to follow it for doing a project for NASA.

We initially didn't know about the requirements, (thanks to a sales team that didn't care, and just enjoyed commission, figuring we'd handle all that) and I just sent them our normal drawing sets, and LET ME TELL YOU.. the redlined prints we got back were staggering. I'd never had a client tell me my notes were in the wrong place?!, and they drew new titleblocks all over several pages and required us to use new naming conventions and all sorts of stuff.

It was two resubmissions before they even started looking at the design I'd come-up with:
http://mscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/543web/files/GSFC-X-673-64-1F.pdf

[kevin1973]

Thats pretty intense. Same way as the Corp and anything military related.

[Ryder76]

Looks similar to the drafting standards used for Nuclear construction. That's what I'm used to having and drafting to. Then to come out into engineering and construction for oilfield, refinery and chemical plant - man are they slack!! Never seen such a mess. Many companies don't even know drafting standards exist much less that they should be followed.

Ok I'm climbing down from my soapbox now....getting some dark chocolate....yes.... I feel much better now.:lol:

[dac123]

The easy way to make a cad manual is to create template drawings that have all the elements that need to be in the cad manual. Then tell/show the cad users how to make there drawing look like the template drawings then throw the cad manual in the bin.

Most cad manuals are like trying to explain how to do the washing up by writing manual in stead of showing some one how to do the washing up.


8)

[the_real_ptb]

That may be true, but if you want to hold someone accountable for their shoddy work, you need to have something to refer to when they start up with the "well I didn't know" BS. I know people don't sit and work on a drawing with their CAD manual open, but when it comes time to chew someone's a$$ for slacking off, it's hard to do without a definite set of standards to reference them back to.

[dac123]

The idea is to have a template job which the users are accountable to match to. a CAD manual is a theoretical document were a template job with all the standards in, which has all the parameters of a real job and can be shown to work is a practical example.

[railey168]

It's great can I used it also in our office? Thanks..