Help with Understanding Flag-Notes found on B/P or Application of Flag-Note on drawing from 1988

[brandnew1]

We have been producing a particular part for many years now, maybe even before i was on board with the company. Well today i received an email indicating that we fill out a NOE (notice of escapement) based on a note that appears to be a flag-note but is not on the actual blueprint. (attached pdf reflects the notes). Found that Y14.100 discusses this however the earliest document which ties to MIL-STD-100G (which is from 1997). As noted this drawing came in 1988 with a reference to ANSI Y14.5-1966 and interpretation of drawing per 40M114 (can't find this).

Now here is the troubling thing, it appears from the blueprint all triangles match to an asterisked note except for 23. This i'm pretty sure is an error on the note portion to be on 23 and not 24, which on blueprint does not relate to part number, but either way breaks the chain of thought here.

Can anyone give me clear guidance as to what Flag Note means and how it applies to a blueprint. (From Y14.100 it appears that there has to be some kind of tie-in to the note when it is indicated as a flag note, and if there is no reference to it, it doesn't apply).

Please correct or give me guidance and also if i'm correct here, can you give me some information that would date back to 1988?

thank you

Side Note:
i have found online that someone posted up a partial ASME Y14.100 : 4.26.6 Drawing Notes – Contents, "c) Flagnotes are notes that are located with the general notes but apply only at specific areas or points on the drawing. A flagnote shall be identified with a flagnote symbol in accordance with (f) below. The flagnote symbol, including the note number, shall be shown at each point of application. The flagnote symbol is placed around the note number in the notes area to indicate that it applies at specific areas on the drawing. The flagnote symbol, however, need not be shown in the “NOTE” column of the PL, or in the “NOTE” column in a table."
f)(f) Flagnote symbols, such as
...
. . . . . . .[rectangle]. . . . [hexagon]. . . . . [equilateral triangle]
...
are placed around the note number when the note is referenced in the field of the drawing. A flagnote symbol need not be used when specific direction is given to a drawing note, such as “SEE NOTE 3,” or when the note number is indicated in an area of a table or column identified as “NOTES.” The same flagnote symbol shall be used throughout the drawing. Careful consideration should be given to the use of flagnotes on intricate or cluttered drawings. Flagnote symbols shall not conflict with or resemble other symbols used on the drawing. Nonstandard symbols or annotations other than flagnotes shall be defined.

 

[msquared48]

Well, there are notations to RFI's during construction that are noted on a construction drawing set.

And, sometimes these symbols refer to a list of comments. The use of the symbols on the drawing plan with the comments elsewhere leaves the plan less cluttered.

There are probably other uses too...

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[3DDave]

There is no guidance for interpreting errors on drawings. The asterisk should probably be moved next to note 23.

All a flagnote is is a shortcut to avoid having to place text in the field of the drawing where there may be little room for it. It has the advantage that multiple uses take very little space and that each use of a note in many locations has exactly the same text; there is no possible room for the note to be different in one place than another. About the only thing one can get wrong is to either use the wrong number on the field of the drawing or not leave the correct hint in the notes column to go look specifically for the flag the note is associated with.

In this case, they got the hint wrong.

There's still no interpretation to correct for errors like this. It might be that one would have flagged sequentially a note about painting a surface one color and another note about a different color. If that was the case, you would have more difficulty determining if the flag was on the wrong note or that the wrong not number was used on the field of the drawing.

My experience goes back to Military drawings beginning in 1981 and I've never seen an asterisk used this way, but it seems like the notes were typed and they wanted to avoid having to hand-draw a triangle around the note. Avoiding flags in PLs and other tabular forms (line drawings don't count) is understandable for the same reason; there was no triangle font with a number in it.

I have a really funny story about how our QA lead guy got all wound up about a company Excel PL template that was locked against modification. The main problem was that while the cells could be filled in, no triangles could be drawn, including in the list of notes (not part of the PL, not part of the tabulation,) using the drawing tools as long as the form was locked. He whined that unlocking the template would result in lack of control, blah blah blah. But, because it was locked, no one used it and there were dozens of different versions in Word, Excel, and several for the CAD systems, that people had made on their own. The closest anyone got was a guy who redefined a font to include triangles with numbers inside, but using that also required unlocking the document to use the font. Before getting into QA he was a high school sports coach. He was also pretty tall, but that didn't explain how he talked down to everyone and had a hard time listening, though his hearing was OK.

 

[tbuelna]

The description of flag note usage you describe is correct. Flag notes are drawing notes that only apply where the flag symbol is used. But the flag should be applied both to the note and anywhere else on the drawing it is applicable. Your example that uses an asterisk next to the note and a triangular flag at the drawing callouts is odd. Why wasn't the triangular flag just added to the note?

I've worked in aerospace since before 1988, and a triangular flag note was commonly used long before I started working in the industry. Back then we even had special plastic templates for drawing the triangles around the flag notes, so that they always looked pretty.

 

[brandnew1]

Thanks for the response:

tbuelna: i don't know why they use an asterisk on one sheet and then actually use a triangle on the actual blue print. i don't know if this has anything to do with the note indicating that drawing is to be interpreted according to 40M114. Maybe that has a better explanation.

The drawing has 4 pages, first two pages reflect notes where it actually says: ---------DRAWING NOTES-----* ASTERISK INDICATES FLAG NOTE ---------

Page 3 is the forging drawing with notes specific to this page and finally page 4 final machined drawing with triangles to specific portions of the part.

Overall i don't feel that we need to submit a NOE based on someone saying that this was skipped when there is no flagging of it.

i just want to make sure that FLAG NOTES mean the same thing today as it did back in 1988. Like i said before Y14.100 only goes so far back but not 1988.

Another point of argument that i would like to present, if all the notes apply to the blue print (as it appears they are wanting to say for one specific note) then why even have triangles show up on the blueprint? Did the original designer want others to know, "please don't forget this one". And why not have all the triangles show up on the blueprint rather than certain numbered ones?

[highlight #FCE94F]It's just there is no consistency here....so ultimately i just want to make sure if the drawing says this is to be a flag note and then flag notes only apply to area's they are being called out (or "flagged" on).[/highlight]

 

[dgallup]

We require at least one note symbol on the drawing for every note. If it's a general note that applies all over then we put it down in the title block where it says "Unless otherwise specified". It the note applies to specific dimensions the symbol goes beside each applicable dimension. If it applies to a specific feature the symbol is used with a leader to point to the feature. When people make mistakes on drawings and mess things up all you can do is guess unless you can go back to who ever created the drawing and ask them what they intended.

I've avoided the term "flag" note as I've never seen that term before in my 38 years experience. They are all just drawing notes to me.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

 

[brandnew1]

thanks dgallup,

what you say makes sense, however in this case i see the term 'Flag Note' which is mentioned in Y14.100. Overall the purpose makes no sense to what we do here.

The customer wants a portion to be alodined (labeled as a flag note) yet the entire part is already anodized (corrosion-resistant) and the blue print doesn't even have a flag note for where they want this to take place.

So i don't know where the error lies; did the original planner make a mistake calling out the note as a flag note and not placing it on the actual blueprint Or was it suppose to be a general note applying to all areas of that part that has a specific call out but planner placed an asterisk ("*").

Either way i have to stick with what a "Flag-Note" generally means and was not called out on the blueprint, at least at our phase of production.