Engineering drawing is a compulsory course for students who wish to graduate with a bachelors or masters degree in specific fields of engineering. Most students find it difficult to master the rudiments associated with passing engineering drawing exams, students have been sending toons of mails to our email asking of ways on how to master engineering drawing.
In this article we would be discussing 5 specific tips to master engineering drawing and score high in your exams.
Most advance institutions use engineering drawing softwares like AutoCAD to construct but this article would be solely focused on the manual drawing were our hands and some drawing instruments are been used.
How To Master Engineering Drawing Perfectly Well
Engineering drawing is not like other engineering courses where you have to read and sometimes cram formulas, it is all about practice and getting yourself familiar with the tools and processes required to make a perfect drawing.
The more you practice the more you become familiar with the concept of drawing.
Engineering drawing is not a subject where you wait till exam week before you start studying. Getting a high mark in engineering drawing exams in not magic you have to master the basic principles guiding engineering drawing before excelling in your exams.
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Below are 4 basic principles on how to master engineering drawing.
1. Know Your Dimensions / Unit At Your Fingertip
Dimensions are the basics of engineering drawing. Without dimensioning your drawings would just be an ordinary art work despite how beautiful and neat it is.
Engineering itself is built on dimensions, you can’t model, manufacture or produce anything without proper dimensioning.
If you want to know how to master enginnering drawing, you have to first of all familiarize yourself with dimensions and also converting one unit to another.
Basically in engineering drawing the three most used units are the millimeter (mm), centimeters (cm) and meters (m).
Before writing any exam on engineering drawing make sure you know how to convert these units from one to another.
Your professors might try to test if you
really know what you are doing, they might mix up different units together, some students would go ahead and start drawing using different units, as a smart scholar when such questions pop up during exams what to do first is to convert all the dimensions into a uniform unit.
2. Master The Basic Construction Angles
This is another powerful tip on how to master engineering drawing perfectly well.
When construction you would be making u of various angles mainly in degrees and radians.
You have to learn how to construct these angles very fast especially special angles like 45°, 90°, 180°, 60°.
When constructing some special angles you can make use of your set-square and T-square for easy and fast construction. Your protractor is also another instrument that would help you in constructing angles very fast.
3. Understand The Concept Of Scaling
Scaling is an important factor in engineering drawing, it is all about reducing the drawing so it can fit in your drawing paper.
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An example is if you are meant to draw the piston of an engine, normally the size of the piston would be way more bigger than your drawing paper. So the ideal thing to do is scaling the drawing so your prrsentation would still be an ideal representation of the piston though in a reduce format.
4. Keep On Practicing
Like I said earlier engineering drawing is not like other courses where you can read few days before your exams and cram everything, you have to practice and practice to become familiar with the drawings.
In most engineering drawings exam the time is limited, professors would want to test your speed. How fast you can construct with the limited given time, the only way to overcome this problem is when you have practiced the drawings and can dish them out perfectly from your finger tips.
We all know that practice makes perfect, at first when drawing you would make toons of mistake but the more you practice the more your chances of making mistakes would surely reduce.
Other Important Tips On How To Master Engineering Drawing Perfectly Well
1. Know the different types of lines and when to make use of them.
There are many types of lines used for engineering drawing , you would have to master them and know when to apply them. Some of the lines include
- Continuous lines
- Broken lines
- Dimension lines
- Centre lines
- Hidden lines
- Cutting plane
- Part outlines
- Extension lines
Each line mentioned above has its own uniqueness and functions. You should make sure you are not misusing them.
The continuous line is the most common type of line which we use for engineering drawing, as the name implies it is a continuous line that moves from one point to another without facing any interruption.
While the dimension lines are used when dimensioning a drawing.
Hidden lines are used when drawing a part that can not be visible to the eyes; example the internal part of an object.
2. Know the different types of projections in engineering drawing.
There are basically 3 types of projections in engineering drawing, these views are used to represent various views in engineering drawing.
Some of the type of projections in engineering drawing include:
- Isometric projection
- Orthographic projection
- Cutout projection
Isometric projection: This is a kind of view that projects an object in a 3- dimensional view.
Orthographic projection: This is the most popular projection used for engineering drawing, this projection is all about representing a 3-d object in a 2-d format.
Cutout Projection: this view helps to reduce the different projections to fit in a single drawing.
3. Know how to perfectly draw your title block or information block
Title block is a block located at the bottom right of your drawing paper, it conveys all necessary information’s concerning your drawing. Also the authors details are also contained in the title block.
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Conclusion
This are few tips you need to know if you want to master engineering drawing perfectly well.
If you find this price helpfull, do well to share across your colleagues.
Image credit; rapid direct
