4
Overheard a senior drafter say something about line weights that stuck with me
I was grabbing coffee before my shift last week and overheard this older guy at the next table talking to someone. He said something like "line weights are what separate a drawing you can read from a drawing you have to study." It got me thinking because I have been rushing through my drafting lately, just getting dimensions down and not caring much about the thickness of my lines. I went back and looked at a few of my old drawings compared to some from a coworker who takes his time. The difference was pretty clear. His stuff had hierarchy, like you could tell at a glance what was important and what was just reference. I spent an hour last night reworking a floor plan with just a 0.3 and 0.5 pen and it felt like a different drawing. Has anyone else had a moment like that where a simple comment changed how you work?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
finleym431mo ago
Spent like 3 hours last night obsessing over line weights on a simple section detail. My girlfriend came in and asked if I was drawing architectural plans or writing a love letter. Might be overthinking it a bit.
5
john6501mo ago
Might be an unpopular take, but line weight is overrated in the age of digital drafting. CAD makes everything crisp and clean anyway. I have seen plenty of drawings that looked great with thick lines on the outside and thin on the inside but still had the wrong dimensions called out. That hierarchy thing sounds nice until you have a contractor on site who just wants to find the door swing and cant see it because the 0.3 pen was too light when they printed it. If you spend an hour on line weights instead of checking your work for errors, you are missing the real point.
0