Drafting Table Parts

[Neil Larson]

Im looking for a source for drafting table parts, I want to make my onw and I'm finding it very difficult to find a premade table top.

[RicodJour]

If you're looking for a solid wood top, it'd probably be just as cheap to buy the complete table and keep the top and hardware. If you're going to make your own table, making a top out of 3/4" plywood on a frame is pretty straightforward. Many people use a hollow core door cut to size. You could veneer the top and bottom and use solid wood on the edges if you want to make it something more pretty.

R

[daclark]

Weight should be considered in selecting the table top material. Drafting is a vigorous activity, and a light-weight table is not a joy to work upon. In designing the table base, the question of seating is paramount. Stool height might be considered preferable to the activity of drafting; as you must perceive with the eye to articulate with the hand, stepping forward for the birdseye view is necessary over a large board surface. For a three foot by four foot tabletop, two pieces of 3/4 high-density particle board laminated together with a wood edgeband adds up to about thrity-five pounds. A professional board cover on top of that makes an excellent drawing surface. Making your own parallel rule or drafting machine has the prospect of an interesting project. Care to try that?

[daclark]

oops...about seventy-five pounds.

[Frank Arthur]

Search Google for Drafting Tables. Contact the manufacturers or suppliers for parts.

[Leon]

Have you checked with a used office furniture store?

[Gooey TARBALLS]

for a table.

table parts [Adjustable Drafting Table Hardware]

[Steve DeMars]

I worked on AutoCAD for fifteen plus years . . . contact engineering houses near you . . . most want someone to haul them away . . I've had three and have done that with all . . . Get AutoCAD . . . it save a lot of space . . the only thing a full size drafting table is good for is reading the newspaper on . . .

[Lare S]

Steve said "get Auto-Cad, drafting tables are only good to read newspapers on." I beg to differ!. I was "on the board" for 35 years before CAD as a mechanical draftsman/designer/engineer. CAD is absolutely necessary these days for speed, accuracy, change, etc. but it's a totally impersonal, robotic tool that stifles the mind, steals creativity and pride-of-accomplishment, It THINKS for you! Today it's just a job, not fun. How many people can, with their own two hands and eyes, draw a precise angle or a radius, strike a circle, use a French curve, read a scale, use decimals, understand the Metric system, handle delicate instruments and print legibly? Who needs it you ask? Well I for one find it very calming and relaxing to have a little nook where I can use some non-printer paper, not push a gadget around and not touch a key except on a mini calculator, but most of all, I do not have to sit and stare at an electronic display telling me what to do next. I do what I want to do. And best of all, it's cheap!!

[tom]

I'm in Atlanta and have found several old ones.

The last one I had was 4 X 6 made out of ash. It weigh a ton and it came with a drafting head, Had 16 draws. I put a rubber mat on it that cost more than the table. It was like new. I have given it to my nephew who actually drays buildings on it.

For the last 12 years I do everything in Corel Draw Larry

[Bugs]

I'm with Lare S! Thirty five years on a drafting table I designed countless public works facilities. The creative process flows onto the paper naturally. At the very least a drafting table is best to make preliminary conceptual sketches and mathematical analysis of projects. Now, with two displaced vertebrae in my neck I must use CAD but it ain't the same. Hollow core doors and some 2X4's and 1X4's make a very neat folding table for field offices. Notch the 1X4's for sloped and horizontal positions. I've made a number of them. Bugs

[Steve DeMars]

Sorry, but they wouldn't not pay us $35.00 to $ 65.00 an hour to be calm and relaxed . . .

I worked as an Instrumentation & Electrical Designer for the PetroChem Industry . . .

I owned and worked on a board, also worked on AutoCAD . . . I don't know what version of AutoCAD you worked on, but it never did any thinking for me . . .

[daclark]

Charles Gwathney, a world renowned architect, told Charlie Rose one night, that in order to achieve design, you have to perceive with the eye and articulate with the hand. He went on to agree that CAD was a valuable tool for layering out a multiple-storied building, but was adamant, that CAD is not a creative tool, merely functionary to the process. Tom Brokaw, in a commencement speech, said that technology has let us down. The technology, which was designed to free man from his drudgery, had actually enslaved him. Mechanical drafting skill endows the individual with a proprietary sense of proportion and scale, and man remains the greatest technology. Plus, the drawing board is good for reading the newspaper on...

[Steve DeMars]

After re-thinking this, you are right, when I want to design something, I turn to the paper FIRST also ! ! !

But to create drawings with accurate dimensions and details, you can not touch CAD.

[Sailaway]

Tom wrote: >I'm in Atlanta and have found several old ones.

I also have a 4'x6' (if memory serves) drafting table. The base appears to be oak but have no idea what the top is made of. It was made to have

2 drawers, but I have only the small drawer. The rubber mat is lifted a little on one corner near the top, but could be glued down. If your interested in buying it I'll let it go cheap just to see it gets used. I have no room for it. Located in NJ

[CW]

Or, preferably, something better.

[LareS]

My good fellows, I did state that CAD is absolutely necessary in today's high-pressure world.of design and development. However, I wasn't referring to that work environment, where there's seldom time to do it right but always time to do it over. CAD wins big-time there! I was talking about my own projects in my little home-shop where I CAN take my time and do it right. I enjoy drafting. I do not own a PC but if I did, I'd probably go with CAD ____ But still at a nice, relaxing pace. Thanks for your comments ... Super group! LareS BTW, I believe the old, old-time board tops were basswood. Nice drawing surface AND you could easily stick tacks in 'em. Then the big boards; plywood coverd with battleship linoleum, then there was a thinner vinyl cover secured with double-sided tape. Of course there was always the Hamilton boards with a factory-finished top.

[Leon]

I can. ;~) but then I started out on the drawing board also. It is cool when a fellow draftsman recognises that you draw by looking at you printing or visa versa. I never made drafting my profession but was good enough in school that I won several awards in college competition. That said, I am self taught on CAD and consider it to be no more of a crutch than a t-square or triangles or GASP, a Mini Calculator. It is simply a differnt kind of tool. Like anything else you have to get used to it.

[Leon]

Me neither. It only accurately reflected what I had to say.