Essentials of Drafting: General Drafting (FM 5-553)

This book has been written for the student who is taking drafting either to satisfy a curriculum requirement or as an elective, but who is not a drafting major. This student usually wishes to gain a basic working knowledge of drafting fundamentals so that he can apply it to other courses, but he is often hindered in obtaining this knowledge by a combination of limited class time and large class enrollments. To make it easier for the student to learn from this text, the material is presented using a step-by-step problem-solving format accompanied by many illustrations. This written portion of the text may be described as a “how to” approach. The idea is to present not only drafting theory, but also the procedures and conventions used to apply the theory. This will enable the student to work directly from the text to the board while doing his class and homework drawings. The scope of the material presented has been limited to those subjects most often needed to prepare technical drawings, with heavy emphasis on orthographic views and dimensioning. Fasteners, oblique, isometric and development drawings are also covered. Although limited in scope, the material is presented in depth.