# drafting triangles and other materials?



## Millo (Jan 19, 2010)

I know, I know… I should learn sketchup… I'd like to get into *basic* drafting (*by hand*) before venturing into CAD world. After doing a search here and elsewhere on the internet it seems not all drafting triangles are made the same. I plan to get a 45/45/90 and a 30/60/90.

I was wondering if anyone knew which drafting triangles were reliably accurate… Alvin Professional?

http://www.amazon.com/Alvin-Professional-45-Triangle-12in/dp/B001DKH7MA/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1298137785&sr=8-5

This one?
http://www.jerrysartarama.com/discount-art-supplies/drafting-supplies/inking-triangles.htm

Soon I am going to get some of the drafting materials (flexible curves, T-square, compass, eraser shields and yadda yadda) recommended by Philip Lowe in his Fine Woodworking article "Drafting Basics" and Miguel Gómez-Ibáñez in his FWW article "Scaling Furniture from Photos", which I read in the FWW compilation book 'Practical Furniture Design", checked out from a public library. I also have read about people recommending ACCURATE 45/45/90 triangles for building various types of miter sleds, miter-slot key jigs, etc. for when/if it isn't convenient to use the combination square.

I think thus far I've thought of going to Jerry's Artarama to get curves, etc.Thanks everyone!


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

All drafting triangles are accurate enough for drawing.

Metal triangles for setting up machines are different from drafting triangles -
the machinest tools are meant to stand on edge and stuff like that,
not just lay flat for drawing lines.


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## Planeman40 (Nov 3, 2010)

All of these should be accurate. Alvin has been around for years. Mechanical drawing equipment is quickly falling out of use and only a very few suppliers are left. Grab what you can while you can. Fortunately I still have most of mine from my Georgia Tech days around 1959.

Planeman


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## AmandasHusband (Jan 10, 2011)

They're all accurate. And you may want to buy a couple of the smaller ones while you're at it.

I used to have a bunch from when I was in high school and college. I have a 2 year drafting and design degree and I threw most/all of my drafting stuff away about 10 years ago. But a guy I work with gave me 6-8 different sized ones he had in his cube. I've got them spread out in my garage now. They're great for squaring things up.


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## Millo (Jan 19, 2010)

thanks guys

yeah, the woodworking situations I was thinking about was for when you have to lay it flat, because in that case the combination square's head is not flush w/ the blade, and marking a line on plywood or MDF can be rather challenging that way when building some jig.

Would you recommend getting a metal 45/90 that I can both lay flat or stand on edge for both drawing and set-up and just getting a plastic/acrylic 30/60/90 for drawing?

Cool… well, thanks guys!


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## 33706 (Mar 5, 2008)

In my 'Practical Arts' training back in ancient times, circa 1966, I had 2 semesters of Mechanical Drawing. This was truly old-school, and the elderly shop teacher emphasized the need for perfect free-hand lettering, which is a skill that I cherish to this day. With our industrial Huddle Boards and other flavor-of-the-month managerial visual aid protocols, I do manage to impress others with awesome lettering. Though generally, everything I've ever learned in an academic setting is obsolete….including my woodworking skills. I still, however, make my elevations and cross-sections before building anything of substantial size or cost, so it is certainly money well spent on drafting supplies. I wonder if hand-laid blueprints are even comprehensible to the new generation of cabinet-makers?


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## Pop (Aug 6, 2007)

Not necessarily so Loren. I have a 12 inch. 30/60 brass triangle as one of my shop standards. Very accurate, heavy & dose'n stand on edge.

I've been drafting for over 60 years. For a living and for myself. It's a talent that always comes in useful. I have "Turbo-CAD" and "Sketch-Up" the learning curve is too steep. I use my old board & "T"-square. I can't relate to scale on a monitor screen like I do to scale on paper.

Now to answer your question. Loren is right on this one. The difference in quality on angles is how well they hold up under use. If you use them 8 hours a day you need high quality. For the casual user any brand will do. 
As mentioned above get what you can while you can. I can no longer replace my heavy stainless steel "T"-square. They don't make 'em anymore.

Pop


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## Millo (Jan 19, 2010)

poopiekat: I am certainly not an engineer, but I used to draw when younger, and strongly considered going to architecture or civil engineering school for college. Didn't. My bank account is witness to that fact. However, I want to do this by hand, because I'd like to think it'll be faster FOR ME to get into woodworking drafting if I start by doing things by hand (which I kind of have done already), plus it will be infinitely more enjoyable for me at the beginning if I can accurately THINK and VISUALIZE joinery w/o having to learn a CAD app. I can't, of course, deny the benefits of CAD programs. I plan to seriously check out SketchUp sometime in the summer.


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## Millo (Jan 19, 2010)

Pop: thanks for your account. And thanks for that quote in your signature!


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## Rick Dennington (Aug 27, 2009)

Milo,
When I was in college back in 1973, I took Mechanical Drafting with all phases of drafting like mechanical, electrical, structural steel design (I hated that one..lol). I still have all of my books, drafting equipment, and the whole works….. Back then the best drafting supplies you could buy was POST…..I still use them all today when I do layout for a project….Before I ever build a piece, I get out the old POST… All of my triangles, TSquare, compass sets, etc. are just as accurate today as they were back then…..If you could find some POST equipment (which is probably as scarse as hen's teeth), snag them…... enough said…..
edit: I did go on to get my Degree in that field, and also a music degree,too…....


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## cabs4less (Nov 2, 2010)

depending on the size of your planed drawings I bought a drafting board from staples that is awseome it use a parrelel bar that is better than a t square it was 70.00 but well worht and the triangles are dead on and pick up some architect rulers they will allow you to scale your drawing easier and If I were you I would call my local technical collge that offers a drafting program and see wat thier starter kits are going for I bought mine through the school here and it came with everything You could want except the board
P.S poopiekat I agree bout hand drawn plans and modern workers but I still like them better than cad drawings to me its an art form


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## Pop (Aug 6, 2007)

Rick, Post had the best angles, but K&E had the good stuff when it came to instruments. Old Dietzgen had good stuff too. Like a big dummy I sold my Leroy set on E-Bay. Boy! I wish I had it back. I learned all about Leroy in 1960 at the Virginia State Highway Dept. drawing road maps. After a few years I could run a Leroy almost as fast as I could hand letter. I may just have to get me another. I still even have an old ink drop bow (K&E). You know the old style ink pen before the days of Rap-o-graph. I bought the 1st. one at the cartographic dept. All the old mappers came over , gave it a look and said, "just like a kid to buy some kind of newfangled junk".

By-the-way. In 1960 we were still working on linen. Ever heard of pounce?

Pop


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## Sawkerf (Dec 31, 2009)

Post and K&E are (were?) good stuff back in the day. Any drafting supply store will have what you need - if you can find one. - lol

I still use my triangles (new in 1963) for some setup work, but I haven't done any pencil drawing for years. I've used CAD for so long that it's way faster for me.

I still have my old Post 6" slide rule. It's in a wood box with a glass front. A sign inside says "In case of power failure, break glass." Several years ago, one of my daughter's friends asked what it was. She had never seen one and had no idea of what it was for.


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## Pop (Aug 6, 2007)

Gosh! A slide rule! I bought a new expensive slide rule around 30 years ago for 50 cents. My graphic house had a dozen or so ib a glass bowl. I bet the kids today have a hard time understanding interplation. Boy! It's been a long time. Slide rules, drafting instruments, Leroy, yea it's been a long time.

Pop


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## steliart (Jan 15, 2011)

As a professional graphic designer I have always used Rotring.


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## Magnum (Feb 5, 2010)

Milo:

GOOD thinking! You'll LEARN to do it by using YOUR BRAINS and you'll never forget HOW. I had all of the equipment you mentioned in your lead in except the Yadda Yadda which I had to Work Hard On a little later…She was …okay forget that part, it's Off Topic.

Most of my Equipment was bought through Specialty Drafting & Art Supply Stores. The names are not fresh in my Mind but I still use Staedtler Pencils.

(Just got my Drafting Box out of the Cupboard).......A Staedtler 1/4" Scale Home Furnishings Template and a "Pickett" 1/4" Scale same use. A "Timely" 1/4" Plumbing Fixtures Template and numerous Circle and Oval Templates. "Olsen Ames" adjustable Line Guide for Hand lettering and a few other uses. About 10 French Curves with no name on them. A reasonably new Staedtler 24" T-Square for a few projects I've done around here, bought from "Staples" and was 3 times the price of another 24" "House Brand" T-Square. JUNK!

My original training goes back to 1965/1969 and I have a Degree in Architecture and Structural Engineering which I never really used opting for my own Small Construction Company. BUT! It ALL came in Very Handy!! Especially when I could tell an Architect whose Plans we where TRYING to work from…."You can't do that. It's a bearing Wall. It has to stay there. ...LOL…

Pictures below. In 30 minutes or so I can Draft Up a ROUGH Drawing of what I'd like to do. You also find out during that process that the Corner you're working into is NOT Square and the Ceiling Height is 1-1/2" Lower on one side. You found the problem NOW, not when you're trying to Build it. You have a Bill Of Materials so you can buy all/just what you need etc. etc.

Guess that's it. Shortly after you see, what you see, a Formal Beamed Ceiling went in, also Pre-Drawn.



















Rick


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## Millo (Jan 19, 2010)

Thanks for your encouragement and advice, everyone! This week is going to be crazy, so I will start shopping first week of March.


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## Nollie (Oct 9, 2010)

I would prefer to use Sketchup. It is so easy to use and the best of it all it comes for FREE. I did not have any training in drafting and i am from the old school - Sketchup is the only thing that works for me. 
Good luck


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## Big_Al13 (Oct 25, 2010)

I would say check your local art and drafting supply store..sometimes the have basic packages they sell, the ones I have seen at mine come with a small drafting board, a compass or 2, a 30/60/90, 45/90, pencils, erasing shield (which actually comes in handy more than you think), also look into getting French Curves which come in a variety of sizes and are very useful and a t-square. With those I think you will be off to a good start. Alvin is a good name
As far as CAD…it is actually easier than you think, look into getting a trial version first if possible instead of spending money on a full version because they are NOT cheap. It is fustrating at first but once you learn the basics the rest will follow.
I have used the board in school and used the computer..I have a full version of AutoCAD 2010 and Inventor…but i still like going back and drawing on the board..it really is a lost art now!!

good luck!!


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## Howie (May 25, 2010)

Office Max and Staples have some drafting equpment. I'm lucky, I still have a lot of mine from my days sketching piping as a pipefitter. I still draw by hand,I don't use sketchup. I know how to use CAD but don't.
One of the things I have and use a lot….electric pencil sharpener. Got tired of fiddling around for pencils in the shop and bought 6 dozen for about 3 bucks. Problem solved.


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## Millo (Jan 19, 2010)

Thanks for your accounts, gentlemen. Yeah, I've been looking at Staples, etc. online. Next Monday I will go get some stuff, not sure if all of the instruments.

Yes, I do feel that doing it 'with my hands', even if it means spending money on those tools (as opposed to free on the computer), will help me more in my early stages of getting used to planning and understanding/experiment with woodworking-related design.


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## ScottN (Jan 24, 2011)

most of my projects are designed by drawing freehand on a piece of paper. I also have a chalk board out in my shop use. As long as your doing the building and understand what your drawing you really don't need all the fancy stuff.


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## Uncle_Salty (Dec 26, 2009)

Milo: I have taught Mechanical Drafting and CAD for 17 years at the high school level. I get asked occasionally why we still teach mechanical drawing at all and the answer is always the same: My State's University Regent Curriculum requires at least a semester of Mechanical Drafting for all Engineering, Architecture and Technology degrees.

When students that are majoring in any of the above mentioned degrees come back to visit, they always comment on how much easier their student lives are and how many fewer hours they spend "in the studio" at college because they came to college with many of the basic drafting skills already mastered.

I get the same thing with CAD. Students come back and tell me how far ahead they are because they can manuever around in AutoCAD and Sketchup.

BTW… don't forget to buy yourself a good high quality compass, divider, protractor, eraser shield, eraser, and scales. I'd recommend three scales: an architects scale, an engineering scale, and a metric scale. Also, do yourself a favor and buy some "dot tape" if you can get it. A package of "B-sized" velum is nice touch.

Of course, I can flat burn down a computer using Sketchup or AutoCAD (having learned on version 2.52! We are up to AutoCAD LT 2010, but the type in commands I learned in 1986 still work!), but I do the mechanical drawing for my own projects. It just seems to help me formulate my procedure plan better. Must be the way I learned it first!

My alltime favorite drafting tools, still, to this day, are 1/4" grid paper and isometric grid paper. I put down a thumbnail sketch of an item on one or both of these before I begin any mechanical drawing or CAD Drawing! This helps me visualize an item, and helps me control the scale when designing new items or modifying existing plans to fit a particular purpose.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

This is just a suggestion; take a look at Turbocad . It's not that expensive and is quite accurate. I use it all of the time at the plant. Not only do we use it for a lot of engineering drawings, we use it to generate our dxf files to run our computer controlled template making machine. It's extremely accurate and is not all that difficult to learn. I would love to have Autocad but it costs an arm and a leg and also has a very steep learning curve. There is a more expensive version of Turbocad as well but the cheaper version serves me quite well. We also have a machine shop in our plant and all of our drawings are done with the cheaper version.


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## CampD (Nov 8, 2008)

http://www.engineersupply.com/drafting-art-equipment.aspx


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## Bluepine38 (Dec 14, 2009)

Quite a trip down memory lane, I still have my Post instruments wooden board and T-Square from the
1950's and would be really lost without my table of 1/4" square graph paper. Have not tried much 
technical drawing lately, but might still remember how. Thank you all for the refresher course.


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