A drawing board (also drawing table, drafting table or architect's table) is, in its antique form, a kind of multipurpose desk A desk is a furniture form and a class of table often used in a work or office setting for reading or writing on or using a computer. Desks often have one or more drawers to store office supplies and papers. Unlike a regular table, usually only one side of a desk is suitable to sit on . Not all desks have the form of a table. For instance, an which can be used for any kind of drawing, writing or impromptu sketching on a large sheet of paper or for reading a large format book A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other various material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an electronic book or other oversized document or for drafting Technical drawing, also known as drafting, is the academic discipline of creating standardized technical drawings by architects, interior designers, drafters, design engineers, and related professionals. Standards and conventions for layout, line thickness, text size, symbols, view projections, descriptive geometry, dimensioning, and notation are precise technical illustrations. The drawing table used to be a frequent companion to a pedestal desk A pedestal desk is usually a large free-standing desk made of a simple rectangular working surface resting on two pedestals or small cabinets of stacked drawers of one or two sizes, with plinths around the bases. Often, there is also a central large drawer above the legs and knees of the user. Sometimes, especially in the 19th century and modern in a gentleman's study or private library A library is a collection of sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed; it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. It can mean the collection, the building or room that houses such a collection,, during the preindustrial and early industrial era.
During the Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transport and technology had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions starting in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spreading throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world. The draftsmanship gradually became a specialized trade and drawing tables slowly moved out of the libraries and offices of most gentlemen. They became more utilitarian and were built of steel and plastic instead of fine woods and brass.
More recently engineers and draftsmen use the drawing board for making and modifying drawings on paper with ink or pencil. Different drawing instruments (set square A set square or triangle is an object used in engineering and technical drawing, with the aim of providing a straightedge at a right angle or other particular planar angle to a baseline, protractor In geometry, a protractor is a circular or semicircular tool for measuring an angle or a circle. The units of measurement utilized are usually degrees, etc.) are used on it to draw parallel, perpendicular or oblique lines. There are instruments for drawing circles, arcs, other curves and symbols too (compass A compass is a navigational instrument for determining direction relative to the Earth's magnetic poles. It consists of a magnetized pointer free to align itself with Earth's magnetic field. The compass greatly improved the safety and efficiency of travel, especially ocean travel. A compass can be used to calculate heading, used with a sextant to, French curve A French curve is a template made out of plastic, metal or wood composed of many different curves. It is used in manual drafting to draw smooth curves of varying radii, stencil A stencil is a used to draw or paint identical letters, numbers, symbols, shapes, or patterns every time it is used. Stencil technique in visual art is also referred to as pochoir. Stencils are formed by removing sections from template material in the form of text or an image. This creates what is essentially a physical negative. The template can, etc). However, with the gradual introduction of computer aided drafting and design (CADD or CAD Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided drafting and design (CADD), is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Design describes the way in which technology is folded into a design process. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer. CADD software,) in the last decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21st century, the drawing board is becoming less common.
A drawing table is also sometimes called a mechanical desk because, for several centuries, most mechanical desks were drawing tables. Unlike the gadgety mechanical desks of the second part of the 18th century, however, the mechanical parts of drawing tables were usually limited to notches, ratchets, and perhaps a few simple gears, or levers or cogs to elevate and incline the working surface.
Very often a drawing table could look like a writing table A writing table has a series of drawers directly under the surface of the table, to contain writing implements, so that it may serve as a desk. Antique versions have the usual divisions for the inkpot, the blotter and the sand or powder tray in one of the drawers, and a surface covered with leather or some other material less hostile to the Quill or even a pedestal desk when the working surface was set at the horizontal and the height adjusted to 29 inches, in order to use it as a "normal" desk. The only give-away was usually a lip on one of the sides of the desktop. This lip or edge stopped paper or books from sliding when the surface was given an angle. It was also sometimes used to hold writing implements. When the working surface was extended at its full height, a drawing table could be used as a standing desk.
Many reproductions have been made and are still being produced of drawing tables, copying the period styles they were originally made in during the 18th and 19th centuries.
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Modern-day idiom
The expression "Back to the drawing board" is used when a plan or course of action is unsuccessful and needs to be changed, often drastically; e.g., "The battle plan, the result of months of conferences, failed because the enemy retreated too far back. It was back to the drawing board for the army captains."
The phrase was coined in the caption to a Peter Arno Born Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr. in New York, New York, and educated at the Hotchkiss School and Yale University, his cartoons were published in The New Yorker from 1925–1968. They often depicted a cross-section of New York society from the 1920s through the 1960s. He is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York cartoon of The New Yorker The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications. Starting as a weekly in the mid-1920s, the magazine is now published forty-seven times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans of March 1, 1941 (cartoon).
Contemporary drafting tables
A drawing board with drafting machine, eliminating the need for a T-square A T-square is a technical drawing instrument that is primarily used as a guide for drawing horizontal lines on a drafting table. It is used by draftsmen. It is also used to guide the triangle that draws vertical lines. Its name comes from the general shape of the instrument where the horizontal member of the T slides on the side of the drafting A modern drafting table with a parallel motion ruleDespite the prevalence of Computer aided drafting, many older architects and even some structural designers still rely on paper and pencil graphics produced on a drafting table.
Modern drafting tables typically rely on a steel frame. Steel provides as much strength as the old oak drafting table frames and much easier portability. Typically the drafting board surface is a thick sheet of compressed fiberboard with sheets of formica laminated to all its surfaces. The drafting board surface is usually secured to the frame by screws which can easily be removed for drafting table transportation.
The steel frame allows mechanical linkages to be installed that control both the height and angle of the drafting board surface. Typically, a single foot pedal is used to control a clutch which clamps the board in the desired position. A heavy counterweight full of lead shot is installed in the steel linkage so that if the pedal is accidentally released, the drafting board will not spring into the upright position and injure the user. Drafting table linkages and clutches have to be maintained to ensure that this safety mechanism counterbalances the weight of the table surface.
The drafting table surface is usually covered with a thin vinyl sheet called a board cover. This provides an optimum surface for pen and pencil drafting. It allows compasses and dividers to be used without damaging the wooden surface of the board. A board cover must be frequently cleaned to prevent graphite build up from making new drawings dirty. At the bottom edge of the table, a single strip of aluminum or steel may serve as a place to rest drafting pencils. More purpose built trays are also used which hold pencils even while the board is being adjusted.
Various types of drafting machine may be attached to the board surface to assist the draftsperson or artist. Parallel rules often span the entire width of the board and are so named because they remain parallel to the top edge of the board as they are moved up and down. Drafting machines use precalibrated scales and built in protractors to allow accurate drawing measurement.
Some drafting tables incorporate electric motors to provide the up and down and angle adjustment of the drafting table surface. These tables are at least as heavy as the original oak and brass drafting tables and so sacrifice portability for the convenience of pushbutton table adjustment.
See also
- List of desk forms and types Any list of desk forms and types encountered in the modern office or home, and in antique stores, is incomplete and contradictory given the variations in the naming of desks, as a simple lookup in two or three of the reference books below will demonstrate. Each article discusses the name variations and the most general article of all, desk, makes
- Studio A studio is an artist's or worker's workroom, or an artist and his or her employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of architecture, painting, pottery , sculpture, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, cinematography, animation, radio or television broadcasting or the making of music. The term is also used for the
- Surface computing
External links
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Tue, 15 Jun 2010 05:26:47 GMT+00:00
Votes On Budget WFMZ Allentown web exclusive -- In a turnaround vote, a local school board decided to go back to the drawing board for a new plan regarding teacher and staff cuts Monday ...
