Engineering Drawing Notes Mr Dohwe johndohwe@gmail.

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ENGINEERING DRAWING NOTES

Drawing Tools
1. Drawing Board
2. Mini Draughter
3. French Curves
4. Masking Tape
5. Drawing sheet
6. Mini drafter
7. T square
8. Compass
9. Divider
10. Set squares
11. Clinograph
12. Protractor
13. Templates
14. Pencils
15. Eraser

Drawing Board
Drawing board is generally made of soft wood and it is in rectangular shape. It is used to support
drawing sheet, so, the size of board is made according the size of the drawing sheet. The wood portions
are joined by tongue and grove type joint to prevent cracks. At the edge of board, straight ebony edge
is provided for the T-square usage. Different types of drawing boards and their sizes according to IS
classification are listed below

Mini Drafter
Mini drafter is an instrument which can be used for multiple functions in drawing. It contains two arms
which is adjustable to required angle and at the end of the lower arm a scale set is attached. The scale
set contains two scales connected perpendicular to each which cannot be separated. This instrument is
fixed to the drawing board at one edge with the help of screw provided for the drafter. Mini drafter is
used for drawing horizontal lines, vertical lines, inclined lines, angles, parallel lines, perpendicular lines
etc.

T-Square
T square is used to draw horizontal and vertical lines on drawing sheet. It made of wood or plastic and
in T shape. The vertical part of T is called as blade and horizontal part of T is called as head. The edge
of head is uniform level and attached to the edge of the board. The working edge is used to draw lines
anywhere on the sheet by moving the instrument top to bottom

Compass
Compass is used to draw an arc or circle with known dimensions on engineering drawing. It is generally
made of steel and consists two legs. One leg contains needle at the bottom and other leg contains a ring
in which a pencil is placed. The needle tip is placed at the respected point and pencil tip is adjusted to
the height at least 1mm just above the tip of the needle. The gap is nothing but the paper thickness
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Divider
The divider looks like a compass, but the difference is the two legs of divider are provided with needles.
This is used to divide a line or curve into equal parts. It is also used to check the measurements

Set Squares
Set squares are used to draw lines with an angle between them. In most of the structures, 30, 45, 60 and
90-degree lines are most common. So, set squares make the work easier for this type of drawings.
Generally, set squares are of two types. One is 45 degree set square and another one is called as 30 –
60 degree set square. Both are required in the drawing. 45 set square has a side of 25 cm while 30-60
set square has 25 cm length on one side.

Clinograph
Clinograph is an instrument used to draw parallel lines to the inclined lines. It contains one adjustable
wing or strip which can be adjusted to required angle. So, it can be termed as adjustable set square

Protractor
Protractor is used to draw and measure the angles of lines in the drawing. It is transparent and made of
plastic. It is in the shape of semi-circle, and the edge of semi-circle part consists reading with one-
degree accuracy. The bottom line joins the 0o to the 180o. The center of this bottom line is marked as
“O” or “C” from which the angles are measured

French Curves
French curves are made of plastic and they are in irregular shapes. Sometimes the drawing requires
irregular curves or shapes or arcs which cannot be drawn using compass. In that case French curves are
suitable. Generally French curves are more suitable for small curves and for long curves splines are
used.

Drawing Templates
Templates are nothing but plastic or wooden boards which contains spaces of several shapes or letters.
Non-dimensional shapes or variety font letters are drawn by using templates which makes drawing
easier and perfect

Pencils
Pencil is used to draw on the paper. Any type of pencil is not suitable for drawing. There are some
limitations, the drawing appearance should be very neat and understandable. Every line of the drawing
should indicate its importance. It depends upon the hardness of pencil. Based on the hardness quality
pencils are classified into 18 grades and they are
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Eraser
Eraser is used to remove the lines or spots which drawn by mistake or with wrong measurements. The
eraser used should be of good quality and soft. It should not damage the paper while erasing
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Paper Holders
When the drawing sheet is placed on the board it may not be in fixed position. To fix the drawing sheet
to the board paper holders are used. Generally used paper holders are thumb pins, spring clips, stick
tapes etc. Care should be taken while removing the clips or tapes otherwise the sheet may tore

Drawing Paper Size

Types of line
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