Does anyone do technical drawing for a living?

[Ryan]

Currently I'm in the process of doing another Tafe course, and the one I'm looking at is a diploma in techinical drawing (engineering).

I've always been interested in the manufacturing side, as I done a fitting/machining course a few years ago, but I did touch on the basics of techinical drawing, and have always wanted to expand on it.

When this opportunity came up I took it. I still have enrollment details to fill out, but I would just like the get some thoughts who does this profession for a living, or something similar, and what you think about it. Any advice you can give me would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Ryan.

[Sapper]

G'day Ryan,

Cetrainly having fitting/machining and technical drawing skills will make you useful to small manufacturing companies. I'm a Mechanical Design Engineer and I have to do some technical drawing for that...albeit I cheat with the help of CAD software. Interesting though is that we still have a dedicated draftsperson to polish our tech drawings and I find he is quite useful when I need help getting weld symbols and datum references etc correct on drawings to be sent out to fabricators and the like.

If you can afford to do the course, go for it! My advice would be to get as much experience working with as many CAD programs as you can. AutoCAD (and its copies), SolidWorks, ProEngineer are some common ones but there are plenty more out there. Only thing to be aware of is that larger engineering and manufacturing companies may not have positions that mix machining and technical drawing. Both skills are still very useful.

Cheers,

Matt

[Ryan]

Thankyou for the advice Matt.

I'm just looking at expanding my skills as much as possible. As I said above I did touch on it, but it was very basic stuff like identifying datum points, and other symbols.

Does it require much on the mathematics side? That's the only thing I'm a bit worried about since I've never really been great at mathematics, and only just passed it for my HSC.

[InfernoSR]

I spent 6 years of my life as a senior Mechanical Engineering based Draftsperson... unless you can spend thousands of hours behind the desk of a computer using pretty heavy drafting programs, i suggest not doing it... other than that, the money can sometimes be good, you deal with high end professionals and you deal with some pretty awesome new machinery...

[Kowalski]

Hey Ryan,
I've been a mechanical designer now for about 17 years. I use mostly Inventor 3D CAD and occasionally AutoCAD. I, also came through from being a fitter.
I've been lucky enough to work for 6 years in NZ and to travel all around to the Middle East, China, India, Spain & a few other places. Even spent 3 months up the road from you at Kurri Kurri. It's a great job to do if you have an interest in how things work, problem solving etc. Coming from a fitter/machinist background is exactly the base you want to start from. Can't tell you how many people I've come across over the years who have just done a CAD course & call themselves designers, most have no idea!
I'm quite lucky now that I am in a position to do the entire job, take the site measurements, meet the end user, design machine, supervise assembly/testing and then supervise installation. As you progress you get exposed to more of the elements and the overall satisfaction rises.
Don't want to sound like an advert for the job, but having been in the industry for many years, I find myself still very much enjoying it.
As for the maths, yes there is a fair bit in it, but nothing a calculator can't help with!
Good luck.
Wazza

[Powdered Toast Man]

If it's just a drafting/technical drawing diploma I wouldn't think the maths involved would be too difficult.

Im also a mechanical engineer working in product design like sapper so I spend most of my time on AutoCAD and am now learning SolidWorks. I do enjoy it but it can get boring sometimes like any other occupation.

You wont regret it, especially coming from a manufacturing background. There will always be a need for a "drafty" in most manufacturing plants.

[Ryan]

Thanks for all your help guys. I now feel more confident getting advice from people who have spent quality amounts of time in this profession.

Can't thank you guys enough.