turns out to be an incredibly long thread . I’m a mech engineer so I’ve been through quite a number of cad systems , each a little different. One thing that set me off working in the machine shop with already half a dozen cad programs behind me , the engineers up front would bring prints of sketches They may or may not have been fully dimensioned or even dim correctly. After rejecting a number of these I became a bad guy in the tool room some programs had auto dim in the drawin pages. I occasionally would take the new guys out to their work stations and show them where the different size drawing formats were then the programs that had auto dim I would show them how to at least make a more or less correct drawing if there were double dim I really didn’t care at least there were things that I could actually make I showed the how to build in tolerances so that they would come out right on the drawing format. They could edit the notes or text but that’s not correct if it’s laid out right the rol will be built in . In later years as cnc becam more popular and paperless shop became reality til became what the machines could make if something special was needed more clearance for example then design it into the part any additional tool was in the machine very close hole shaft fits fit example it’s a bit too complicated to explaine here but I think the level of experience already shown could figure it out Special finishes cold be none by notes or a simple phone call shop to engineering
As fo design I generally start from a raw material a square block for example I may have to bore a hole in it so sketch the block add a circle to a plane an extrude it through all or to a give depth make a drawing page add dim all and you have three views plus any others you need I leave radius and chamfers untill the last minute so to speak that way they don’t get in the way some time you might need them so you can create another feature so us them then delete them. You can go on a clean up mission when nearly done If you are working in a group things get complicated fast We usually had weekly or more often meeting to discuss and fix issues Newer cad systems have much better bills of material lists you usually don’t have to do much editing unless there are specialty parts of late it’s pretty easy to import just about anything and it drops right in So things you can edit directly others you might have to explode an assembly the old manual bills of material were really tough to maintain . I transferred a number of machines from 20 year old board drawings to solid models . I’m glad that’s over .
Anyway good thread ther I a lot of info here.
My beam design was not going well, and I was unhappy with it.
Sometimes you have to see what does not work well in order to think of a better approach.
I could have drawn a more simple beam more easily, but I was trying to match the original 1840's Mississipi beam drawing exactly.
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