An Introduction to Machine Drawing and Design

It is now generally recognised that the old-fashioned method of teaching machine drawing is very unsatisfactory. In teaching by this method an undimensioned scale drawing, often of a very elaborate description, is placed before the student, who is required to copy it. Very often the student succeeds in making a good copy of the drawing placed before him without learning very much about the object represented by it, and this state of matters is sometimes not much improved by the presence of the teacher, who is often simply an art master, knowing nothing about machine design. It is related of one school that a pupil, after making a copy of a particular drawing, had a discussion with his teacher as to whether the object represented was a sewing machine or an electrical machine. Evidently the publisher of the drawing example in this case did not adopt the precaution which a backward student used at an examination in machine design: he put on a full title above his drawing, for the information of his examiner.

Now, if machine drawing is to be of practical use to any one, he must be able to understand the form and arrangement of the parts of a machine from an inspection of suitable drawings of them without seeing the parts themselves. Also he ought to be able to make suitable drawings of a machine or parts of a machine from the machine or the parts themselves.

In producing this work the author has aimed at placing before young engineers and others, who wish to acquire the skill and knowledge necessary for making the simpler working drawings such as are produced in engineers' drawing offices, a number of good exercises in drawing, sufficient for one session's work, and at the same time a corresponding amount of information on the design of machine details generally.