Drawings - which way up?

Thank you all for your comments so far, and MM - no I don't believe it's irrelevant.

Harold and Ian P make valid points but what stands out for me is the lack of consistency as well. As an example take Alan Jackson's articles on the Stepperhead Lathe in MEW - drawing1 page 43 of the May issue and drawing 2 on page 43 of the June issue are shown in what I feel is the correct conventional orientation, but turn to today's issue, drawing 22 on page 19 is shown the t'other way round. Both drawings appear to be CAD drawn and dimensioned in the same format so I'm not sure that Harold's argument regarding dimension reading stands up. In ME 21st September issue we have the Simpson and Shipton engine drawing on page 421 shown the 'wrong' (in my view) way up yet in 5th October issue the 14XX drawing on page 493 is the 'right' way up. I don't see the logic!

Further comments invited

Robin

I don't care which way up they are so long as they are correct !
If having them in various, less than optimum, orientations is the price I have to pay for them not being bu****ed redrawn by an 'artist' then that's fair enough. Employing somebody capable of doing the job properly seems not to be the 21st century way.

Andy

Hi There

It never occured to me that readers wanted the drawings a particular way.

I will look at this in future magazines although 4442 has gone to print.

regards David

HI Andyf,

I cant understand why you go to the library to copy your mag drawing. Why not use the digital issue and printit out ?

Cheers

Bob

I've never found printing from the digital edition terribly satisfactory, Bob. This may be because I have only ever printed from early editions, where it may be that the scanned originals aren't too good.

But it is more probably something to do with the "Toner low; prepare new developer cartridge" notice which comes up each time I use my laser printer. It's been saying that ever since I took it over from my wife more than eight years ago (!). Letters for snail mail still look OK, though.

Andy

I fold my magazine in half so it becomes irrelvant whether the spine is at the top or the bottom.

I'm drawing some quite complicated drwawings (loco frames) and discovered I needed three drawings to cover all the dimensions without confusion. The alternative is blowing up to full size, but then it takes just as much paper and you can't see the full picture at once!

It is quite stressful working out the best ways to dimension objects; I have decided to leave off things like the radii of square holes with rounded corners, as in 99% of cases the radius used will be that of the cutter or file used to finish the job. Technically, of course, some would like to see these as toleranced dimensions.

I dimensioned the holes from a datum point (bottom left), except for the ones for the horn rivets, as its more important these align with the cut outs for the horns. In other words I tried to reference each dimension from the point where I would measure it in practice: I think this should make sense and minimise actual errors.

I'm always amazed at how few dimensions seem to be used on older drawings in ME yet there always seems to be sufficient detail to make the things!

Neil

Having had a chuckle at some of the early posts I thought it might be turning into an interesting thread. I would have to agree with Neil above, the main object of a drawing is to convey information in a clear and usefull way. As someone who draws and designs for a living I always try to work the dimension scheme as the operator would work the machine (it's surprising how many shops still work with manual machines).

A lot of the drawings in the mag could be much better presented simply by using a logical datum and working all dimensions from there (particularly helpfull is the use of ordinate dimensions and hole tables).

The down side to this is the need to really have a DRO fitted to the machine so you don't loose track of how far you have gone in any direction!

Mark