Understanding of Machine Drawing for Mechanical Engineers

As the term “drawing” comes up in our mind, the sketches, and paintings pop out in the name of drawing done at our childhood age and that has the representation of a person, place, nature, location, etc. Before starting a drawing, an idea or visualisation of any object or anything comes to our mind and its picture talks about the appearance of the product and application part which is associated within.

Similarly, Engineering Drawing gives the basic descriptions about various regular object shapes with different conditions and cases to study that enhances one’s visualisation and inculcate the tools, techniques and practices to understand the concepts systematically. But the thing is that not every time, an object appears a regular one, first of all, the product appearance will be combinations of various regular or non-regular shapes and further provides a unique appearance and application as well so the precision work increases here with machine drawing rather than with engineering drawing or we can say engineering drawing gives only the base or basic concepts to machine drawing and that is useful for engineers, their team members to perform and act upon various engineering tasks. Machine Drawing represents either the component of machines (from smallest to largest) or machines along with a specific set of engineering rules. A machine drawing gives a clear understanding of component/product drawing externally and internally. It involves various symbols of material, quantity, the operation involved etc.

Without a proper understanding of machine drawing one cannot perform satisfactorily in the field of engineering, especially mechanical engineering. There are various areas/departments through which one can enter the manufacturing industry.

1) Project Dept.
2) Purchase/Procurement Dept.
3) Planning Dept
4) Design Dept/ R&D / Product Development
5) Engineering Dept.
6) Production Dept.
7) Maintenance Dept
8) Inspection Dept

All these above-written department of any manufacturing industry requires complete knowledge of at least reading the machine drawing and some may require the knowledge to design, draw (Software experience) along with visualization skills.

Prof. Dinesh Ramchandani
SIRT, Bhopal