Make a shop drawing

DetailCraft draws one sheet per part mark, for I-shapes and plates. The sheet is made on the spot from the model; it is not stored or edited.

Make one

1. Select a beam, a column or a plate. For an end plate or a base plate, select its connection.
2. Choose Shop drawing in the Output group. In the Properties panel the same button is called Shop drawing for members and Plate drawing for connections.
3. A preview opens, titled with the part mark, for example "Shop drawing b1". Under it: the profile, length and quantity, "A3 landscape, millimeters".
4. Choose Download PDF. The browser downloads <name> <mark>.pdf.
5. Close the preview with the × or EscEsc.

If Shop drawing is grayed out, nothing is selected, or the selected part is a channel, angle or tube. Those are not drawn yet.

What is on the sheet

For an I-shape:

• Elevation, looking at the web: the part with its copes notched, web holes as circles and flange holes as hidden (dashed) lines.
• Top flange plan, seen from above, when any flange has holes. Bottom-flange holes show dashed.
• Section through the profile.
• Dimensions: chained hole positions along the part plus the overall length, web hole heights, the gauge, and cope sizes.
• Hole list: each group of holes, for example "8 x Ø22 in the top flange".
• Weld, when the part has plates welded to it.
• Title block: part mark, assembly mark, profile, material, length, quantity, weight each and total, model name and date.

For a plate: the plate face with its holes, and its edge as the section.

Scales

The scale is picked from a list (1:1 up to 1:200) so the part fits the sheet. A long, shallow part would be too thin to read at one scale, so when the depth would come out under 30 mm on paper the depth is drawn at a larger scale than the length. The view title then says so, for example "length 1:20, depth 1:5 (not to one scale; dimensions govern)". Always read sizes from the dimensions, not by measuring the sheet.

Things to know

• The quantity is the number of parts with that mark in the model. Marks can renumber after a change; see Check marks and the bill of materials.
• There are no assembly drawings, general arrangement drawings or weld symbols yet, and the sheet cannot be edited or annotated in DetailCraft. To mark it up, open the PDF in a PDF markup app such as MarkupCraft.
• The title block says "DetailCraft lab build — millimeters".
• Text uses the standard PDF Helvetica font. Characters outside the Western European set print as "?", and the status bar counts them.

Print it

Open the downloaded PDF in your PDF viewer and print it on A3 at 100% (no "fit to page") if you want the stated scales to hold. On a smaller sheet, scale it and rely on the dimensions.