Shop Practice and Use of Detail Shop Drawings. When the shop details are prepared they go first, if the stock list has not previously been made, to the stock department, and a detailed bill of material required in fabrication is made. This is used either to make up the rolling lists or the lists of stock to be taken from the yard. The next step is the making of templates. These are patterns in wood of the exact size and shape of each piece, with the holes located, so that they can be used to mark out the piece itself. Formerly, the template maker did a good deal of the work now done by the draftsman, but in most shops the policy at present is to do as much in the engineering department as possible and to leave nothing to be worked out in the template room or shop.
The templates are sent to the shop and the material goes from one machine to another, being cut to length, coped, mitred, bevelled, sheared and punched as required.
When all the pieces are ready they go to the Assembly Shop and are then riveted up to form the finished piece as required by the drawings. Each piece has its letter or mark to designate it in its passage from the template room to the Assembly Shop; and when the whole piece is assembled it has a mark conforming to what is given on the setting or erection drawing, so that, when received at the job, the erectors will know where it goes.
The final work is the painting, marking, invoicing and weigh ing and then the shipment.
Relation of Shop Drawings. The basis of all shop details is the setting plan, or erection plan. This shows the framing of the floors and roof, generally a separate plan being required for each floor and one for the roof. This framing plan has all the necessary dimensions to fix the location of each piece, the numbers or marks designating each piece, the size of piece, and such necessary sec tions and notes as are required to fix the relation of the different members and to cover any special features.
Each piece must be detailed fully, with cuts, punchings, and framings clearly shown. In general, a standard size beam sheet, col umn sheet, and girder sheet are used ; truss sheets are made to standard sizes as far as possible but on account of the different types and sizes of trusses, more variation is necessary.
Only one tier of beams is put on a single sheet even if of identical detail; also but one section of columns is covered by the same details. If the drawings are going into the mill, a further
separation of the different sizes and shapes is necessary so that materials which have to be made in different mills shall not be detailed on the same sheet.
Standard Forms. The specific types of sheets and details will be taken up later.
There are standard forms of connections which cover all but special cases and which are used wherever practicable.
Figs. 146 to 148 show framed, coped, and bevelled beams.
There are certain conventional sizes and standards which should be known to those who have anything to do with working drawings.
A setting plan can be so jumbled and confused by careless arrangement of data, and by poor execution that it will take longer for the man on the job or in the shop to determine its inten tion than to work out independently what he wants to know. The draftsman should aim to put himself in the place of the shop foreman or erector, who, when he takes up the work, must rely entirely on this plan for all the information. He must aim to give all the necessary information and give it so plainly that it can be quickly seen and cannot be misinterpreted.
Wall lines are shown by red lines in order not to be confused with the beam lines. The walls shown are those upon which the beams rest. For instance, the setting plan of the first floor beams will have the basement walls shown and the second floor plan will have the first story walls shown. Columns are represented by a single line indicating the members composing the columns ; this is illustrated by the columns shown in Plate I. It is important to indicate clearly the composing elements so as to show which way the web of the column sets.
Beams and girders are indicated by single lines corresponding to the center lines of webs of beams and backs of channels. All lines indicating the steel members should be heavy black lines. Beams framing into a girder or column are indicated by stopping the line of this beam a little short of the line of the girder or of the column. Where a beam runs over another, the lines indicat ing them cross or, if there is likely to be a question, a note is put on to this effect.
Lintel beams are shown on the framing plan of the floor just above the opening ; for instance, lintels over the first story open ings would be shown on the second floor plan.