Shop Drawings - History and Origin

[archprecast]

Anyone have resources you can point me to on the history of shop drawings in construction? When did they first begin to be used by various trades and why? Often when I look at old contract drawings, they seem very complete. And so I wonder when shop drawings arose.

http://www.caryconcrete.com

 

[MikeHalloran]

I'm curious about them too, mostly because I'm expected to produce them, and the various interested parties seem to have, um, divergent, expectations of them.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[JAE]

Try this link: short lecture on design history


Another lecture

Not too much out there...

 

[archprecast]

Thanks, JAE, but they do not touch on the question of when they first arose as a common practice.

http://www.caryconcrete.com

 

[SlideRuleEra]

This Smithsonian Institution online exhibit briefly covers your question

http://www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/doodles/cf/controlling.cfm

The whole exhibit is quite interesting, the "Resources" links lists books such as "A History of Engineering Drawings" that probably go into more detail.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[JAE]

heh...out linked by SlideRuleEra - what's new.

 

[sundale]

I once did a structural analysis of a 1905 (or so) cupola tower for a larger flagpole. It was constructed of rivetted steel angles and, amazingly, they had copies of the original steel shop drawings. The 1905 shop drawings were as good as (or better than) our modern steel shop drawings...

 

[archprecast]

SlideRuleEra - thanks for the Smithsonian link. I too found it interesting, but not germane in that I am concerned with shop drawings only in the context of the construction industry. There were no such examples in the exhibit.

sundale - I too have been struck by the quality of old drawings. Are you sure you were look at steel shop drawings as opposed to the original architectural drawings? Did they have a fabricator's name on them?

http://www.caryconcrete.com

 

[sundale]

archprecast, it was a dozen years ago, but as I recall they were the steel fabricator's shop drawings.

 

[Redfish205]

A guy in our office has a inked shop drawing on linen his grandfather made back in 1911 of a girder. Double angles riveted to a web plate at top and bottom to make the flanges. Labor was cheap back then. According to him it was first done in pencil and then traced in ink. A beautiful piece of work.