Technical Drawing - Module 1 - Lesson 3 - Summary Notes

Professional Diploma in Technical Drawing
Start with a line

Module 1 Lesson 3
Summary Notes
2 www.shawacademy.com
Contents
3 Introduction
3 Lesson outcomes
3 Read your drawings
4 Drawing standards
6 Lines
10 Challenge
10 Referencing
PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

Lesson outcomes
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
• Understand the importance of line
• Develop skill in reading drawings
• Identify line types
• Understand line weights
• The importance and tricks to line weights
• Apply skills learnt in a line template
Introduction
What may seem like an incredibly simple concept, in fact, plays a huge role in how we read technical drawings. A simple
line is a foundation to our drawings and therefore we cannot underestimate the topic of line types and line weights as they
are equally of huge importance when creating your technical drawings, in fact, they can make or break your drawing. This
is where we start our lesson 3. We look at everything to do with drawing line types and investigate the meaning of line
weights.
Slide 007 - QUOTE

“It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that
you have rendered something in its true character.”
Camille Pissarro
Read your drawing

This is a topic that can often be underestimated and in fact, is vital to creating a technical drawing. Without the basic
understanding of how to read a drawing and understanding the symbols, lines, annotations, and standards you will be
lost. This is where you develop an understanding of how to create a technical drawing.
As we learnt in our past lessons to make drawings easier to understand, people use familiar symbols and drawing styles
and standards.
As draughters creating technical drawings, we learn and apply these standards which we will incorporate into every
drawing so that we are drawing in the same drawing language as other drafting professionals. This allows us to
communicate via our drawings. Remember, we learnt in lesson 2 that our drawings are our language - this is a universal
language.
Similar in the way that a chef writes a recipe - there is a standard recipe layout formula with a standard style and recipe
layout. This becomes the universal recipe standard that most chefs conform to and therefore is their universal language of
recipes. We do the same with our technical drawings.

Tip: Within every drawing as you know - drafters use the common rules
and standards to ensure that all designers are able to understand what
is in the drawing and that is where drawing standards come in as a key
tool.
Drawing standards
We are going to look at some of the key elements and their standards within each drawing. Below is a list of the most
common elements found on one's drawing and the standards associated with each element.
1. A title block
2. Boarder
3. Dimensions
4. Annotations
5. Symbols
6. Title blocks
7. Page layouts
8. Notation systems
9. Visual styles
10. Page layouts
The title block

Starting off with the - Title block - This is in essence a block with the title of your drawing - an introduction if you will.
What is the title block?
Title block has the highest concentration of information in a sheet of any technical drawing. It is the first step to
understanding the drawing and the project as well as the company that has created the drawings. It will include all the
information that the person reading the drawing needs to be able to understand and manufacture the project.
What does a typical title block look like? The title block includes the border and the various sections for providing
administrative and technical information, and usually is located at the bottom right-hand corner of a sheet.
As you can see in this example the title block is sitting in the right-hand corner of the page. It takes up a substantial section
as it holds substantial information.

Some of the information that you need to include in your title block or some of the information that you will read from a
title block is:
1. Name and address of the company or agency who prepared or owns the drawing
2. Drawing number
3. Revision number
4. Drawing detail - Material, finishes and project description
5. Scale of the drawing
6. Drawing status - Has the drawing been approved? Where in the process is the drawing?
7. Date issued and date created
8. Signature of specialist on approval
https://www.flight-
mechanic.com/aircraft-drawing-title-
blocks/
Borders
One of the most important features of
any drawing is the border. The border
(or margin) is a line which follows the
outer edge of the drawing offset from
the edge of your page by usually 10 or
20mm inside. This margin is very
important because everything inside
it forms part of any contract.
Your borders should be on your

drawings whether your drawings are
manual drawings by hand, or
computer-generated drawings.
http://edpstuff.blogspot.com/2010/07/basics-of-engineering-drawing.html

Annotations
Annotations are the notes that we add to our drawings to aid the reader to understand the process, function and
manufacturing process that needs to take place.
The annotation or the text also have a standard or writing style that is followed. We are going to tackle this later in module
1, but for now this is what an annotated drawing looks like.
Dimensions
A dimension is a form of notation indicating measurements and sizes of elements within the project. A dimension is vital
information to the manufacturer and construction team producing the project. Think about it - without the height of a
window frame, how does the manufacturer know how much material is required to create the frame? Without the height
of the person's body - how does the fashion designer know how much fabric to procure. Therefore, we add sizes to our
drawings in the format of dimensions.
Different kinds:
– Linear
– Aligned
– Angular
– Radius/Diameter
– Reference
Symbols
In technical drawing our aim is to keep our drawings as clean and precise as possible and therefore to reduce the amount
of text on our page - we do this with symbols.
• Drawing symbols are a graphic representation of information on a drawing.
Due to the scale and minimal space on our drawings and precision requirements, standard symbols are used to represent
and present information relating to manufacture and construction of items and materials.
Symbols are concise and can be understood in any language.
Lines
Our lines are what we use to create our drawings, whether it be manually creating a line or creating our lines on computer.
Lines
• Line weight
• Line quality
Line weight and line quality are extremely important to a successful set of design drawings. There are many people that
will be reading your drawings from the engineer, designer or architect to the manufacturer, client, or construction teams
and therefore your lines need to conform to the standards and precision requirements.

When creating your drawings by computer or by hand the lines need to be crisp and dark to ensure:
• The visibility of all items.
• To ensure that your drawings can be duplicated or copied at

any time.
What are line weights?

The line weight is the light or darkness and width of a line -
Essentially how thick or thin the line is giving visual weight to the line
on the page.
When creating lines both manually and via the computer you need to
show a variety of line weights. Have a look at the image on your
screen. The first pizza on the right-hand side is darker than the first
pizza slice on the left-hand side. The right-hand side has a bolder line
height than the line on the left-hand side. At the top of each pizza
slide is an indication of what pen thickness was used - and that is the
line weight of the pen.
If you are manually draughting, you can have a look on the side of
the pen for the thickness of that pen before using it on your drawing.
When creating line weights on AutoCAD, they have a pre-set of all the
line weights that you could want. You can even create your own. Have a look on your screen - this is an example of a
drawing that I have been working on.
The weight of the line is the reference to the contrast of the line against the background, not necessarily the actual line
size.
Line weight thicknesses

Typically, one should have at least 3 line weight types on each drawing -
manual or computer-aided.
You should have:
1. A heavy or thickest line weight - which could be a 0.5 pen thickness

or on AutoCAD the same setting.
2. A Medium line weight - 0.3 or a 0.2 line weight - same for CAD.
3. A fine or light line weight - 0.05mm or 0.1
You would typically create a manual drafted technical drawing using very
light line weights as your guidelines and then build up from there. This gives
the 2D drawing a sense of depth and scale.

The benefit of a line weight

• Line weights aid in making the drawing easier to understand and
• Faster and easier to read.
The theory behind line weight on your drawing is that you will create the elements that are closer to you or hold more
structural importance in your thickest heaviest line weight. The farther away the element in your line of sight or finer the
detail you will draw up in your finer or thinner line weight. This is a standard that every draftsperson, engineer, designer,
and architect uses to create their drawings and therefore falls into the drawing standards and universal drawing language.
Rule of thumb when using your line weights:

Bold lines
The primary objects in a drawing should be created using a bold line. Bold lines are very dark and have a thick width.
Medium lines:
Information inside the object should be drawn in a medium weight.
Light lines:
Detail or action lines, information lines, and fill patterns should be drawn with light lines.
These different weights technically help to create an easy to understand document and artistically add visual interest to
the document. These documents must also have consistent line quality, which is the uniformity of lines throughout a
drawing.
Line styles
Along with line weight and quality, there are standards for different types of lines. Each has a definite meaning and is
recognized as a typical symbol or object within the building trades industry.
Solid Line
Solid lines are used to indicate visible objects that can be seen in plan, elevation, or 3D views. Solid lines are also used for
leader lines and dimension lines.
Dashed Line
Hidden objects or edges are drawn with short, dashed lines. These are used to show hidden parts of an object or objects
below or behind another object. Dashed lines are also used to indicate shelving or cabinets above a counter. These lines
should be in contact at corners and when perpendicular to another line.
Movement, Ghost or Phantom Line
These lines are a series of dashes and very short dashes and are used to show movement or imply direction.

Leader lines
Start as a solid line and end in an arrow. Leader lines may be drawn at an angle or curved.
Break Lines
Break lines are used when the extents of a drawing cannot fit on the size of paper being used for the drawing. It can also be
used when you only need to illustrate a portion of a design or a partial view.
Centre lines
Are used to indicate the centre of a plan, object, circle, arc, or any symmetrical object. Use a series of very long and short
dashes to create a centreline. If two centre lines intersect, use short dashes at the intersection.
Section line
The section line is used to show a cutaway view of a drawing. The direction of the arrows shows the direction of the section
view. In the symbol on each end of the line will indicate the drawing number corresponding with the section.
The dimension lines
Are used to show the measurement of an object.

Challenge
For today’s challenge you are going to:
1. Set up your page layout with a page border and a simple title block.
2. On that page I want you to present your 3-line weights.
3. And 6-line types of your choice.
Create this template in your sketch books so that you have something to reference back to at any point.
Good luck and happy sketching.
References
• Firdaramadhena.files.wordpress.com. 2020. [online] Available at:
<https://firdaramadhena.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/technicaldrawingbook.pdf>
• Hosting.iar.unicamp.br. 2020. [online] Available at:
<https://hosting.iar.unicamp.br/lab/luz/ld/Arquitetural/livros/interior%20design%2
0student%20handbook.pdf>
• Kids.kiddle.co. 2020. Technical Drawing Facts For Kids. [online] Available at:
<https://kids.kiddle.co/Technical_drawing#Communicating_ideas>
• Makeuk.org. 2020. How To Read Engineering Drawings – A Simple Guide. [online]
Available at: <https://www.makeuk.org/insights/blogs/how-to-read-engineering-
drawings-a-simple-guide>
• Pages.drexel.edu. 2020. [online] Available at:
<http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~rcc34/Files/Teaching/MEM201%20L5-Fa0809-
SpDimensions_RC.pdf>
• Summaryplanet.com. 2020. Technical Drawing Equipment. [online] Available at:
<https://www.summaryplanet.com/engineering/Technical-Drawing-
Equipment.html>
• SolidFace 3D CAD. 2020. Technical Drawing: History, Types And Applications -
Solidface. [online] Available at: <https://solidface.com/technical-drawing/>
• Tolerancing.net. 2020. Title Block In Engineering Drawing And Data Field Arrangement
In ISO Examples. [online] Available at: http://tolerancing.net/engineering-
drawing/title-block.html
• Sielearning.tafensw.edu.au. 2020. What Are The Symbols And Abbreviations Found On
A Drawing?. [online] Available at:
<https://sielearning.tafensw.edu.au/toolboxes/toolbox905/2_draw/draw_t4/htm/dr
aw4_2_1.htm>

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Professional Diploma in Technical Drawing

Start with a line

3 Read your drawings

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

• Understand the importance of line

• Develop skill in reading drawings

• Identify line types

• Understand line weights

• The importance and tricks to line weights

• Apply skills learnt in a line template

Slide 007 - QUOTE

Read your drawing

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

10. Page layouts

The title block

What is the title block?

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

4. Drawing detail - Material, finishes and project description

5. Scale of the drawing

7. Date issued and date created

8. Signature of specialist on approval

Your borders should be on your

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

• Drawing symbols are a graphic representation of information on a drawing.

Symbols are concise and can be understood in any language.

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

• The visibility of all items.

• To ensure that your drawings can be duplicated or copied at

What are line weights?

Line weight thicknesses

You should have:

1. A heavy or thickest line weight - which could be a 0.5 pen thickness

3. A fine or light line weight - 0.05mm or 0.1

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

The benefit of a line weight

• Faster and easier to read.

Rule of thumb when using your line weights:

Information inside the object should be drawn in a medium weight.

Movement, Ghost or Phantom Line

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

The dimension lines

Are used to show the measurement of an object.

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

2. On that page I want you to present your 3-line weights.

3. And 6-line types of your choice.

Good luck and happy sketching.

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN TECHNICAL DRAWING

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