EDR 101

Lecture 2: Lettering, numbering, and heading,

Drawing scales and conventions

Mumtahina Rahnuma
Lines
Overview
• Engineering drawing consists of organized combination of different types of lines.
Therefore, to acquaint the students with various types of lines and their relative
importance as far as the whole drawing is concerned.

• Lettering plays an important role as far as logical comprehension of the drawing is

concerned, particularly for those parts of the drawing which cannot be shown by
lines. A well meaning drawing must be associated with clean dimensioning with
good letter quality. Therefore, lettering should be lucid, legible, and uniform in
appearance and easy-to-write for rapid freehand writing.
 Types of Lines
▪ Outlines: Lines drawn to represent visible edges and surface boundaries of objects are
known as outlines or object lines or principal lines. These are represented by
continuous thick lines.

▪ Dimension lines: Continuous thin lines, used for giving dimensions of the drawing,
are known as dimension lines. A dimension line is terminated at its outer end with an
arrow head touching the outline, extension line or center line.

▪ Extension lines or projection lines: These are continuous thin lines used for
dimensioning an object. They extend by about 3 mm beyond the dimension lines.

▪ Construction lines: These are thin continuous lines used for construction of objects.
Types of Lines (cont.)
▪ Section lines or Hatching lines: These are thin continuous lines used for showing the section
evidently. They are uniformly spaced thin lines drawn at an angle of 45 degree to the main
outline of the section. The spacing between the lines is generally 1 mm to 2 mm.

▪ Leader or pointer lines: These are continuous thin lines and are drawn to connect a note
with the specific feature in the drawing.

▪ Short-break lines: These are continuous, thin and wavy freehand lines drawn to show the
break of an object for a short length. These are also used to show irregular boundaries.

▪ Long-break lines: these are thin ruled lines provided with short zigzags at suitable intervals.
They are drawn to show long breaks.
Types of Lines (cont.)
• Hidden or Dotted lines: These are closely and evenly spaced dashes lines of equal lengths.
They are of medium thickness and are used to show the invisible or hidden parts of the of the
object on the drawing.

• Centre lines: These are thin, long, chain lines composed of alternatively long and short
dashes spaced at an approximate distance of 1 mm. The proportion of long and short dashes
is 6:1 to 8:1. The short dashes are about 1.5 mm long. These are used to indicate the axes of
cylindrical, conical and spherical objects. These are also used to show the centers of circles
and arcs. Centre lines should extend for a short distance beyond the outlines to which they
refer. Locus lines, extreme positions of movable parts and pitch circles are also shown by
these lines.

• Cutting-plane lines: These are long, thin chain line with thick ends. These are used to show
the location of cutting plane.
Types of Lines (cont.)
• Chain thick: These lines are used to indicate special treatment on the surface.

• Chain thick double-dashed: These lines are used to show outlines of adjacent
parts, alternative and extreme positions of movable parts, centroidal lines and parts
situated in front of the cutting plane.
Lettering
 Overview
• The verbal information, in writing, given in the drawing is known as lettering. Lettering
plays an important role as far as logical comprehension of the drawing is concerned,
particularly for those parts of the drawing which cannot be shown by lines.

• A well meaning drawing must be associated with clean dimensioning with good letter
quality. Therefore, lettering should be lucid, legible, and uniform in appearance and easy-to-
write for rapid freehand writing.

• The art of writing letters such as alphabets and numbers etc. is known as lettering. Lettering
forms an important part of drawing and is used to write letters, dimensions, notes and such
other necessary information as may be required for complete execution of the drawing of an
object.
Overview (cont.)
• It must be kept in mind that use of drawing instrument takes considerable amount
of useful time and hence must be avoided as far as possible.

• Certain principles need to be followed for developing good writing skill for
lettering. One must have knowledge of the following parameters in order to master
the art of good lettering.
1. shape and proportion of each letter
2. order and direction of the stroke
3. general composition of letters
4. rules for combining letters into words
5. skill of writing the letters in plain and simple style so that the lettering can be
done freehand
Single-stroke letters
• The word single stroke should not be misconstrued to mean that the letter should be made
in one stroke without lifting the pencil. It actually means that the thickness of the line of
the letter should be such as is obtained in one stroke of the pencil.
• The horizontal lines of letters should be drawn from left to right and vertical or inclined
lines from top to bottom.

• Single-stroke letters are of two types:

1. Vertical and
2. inclined

• Inclined letters lean to the right, the slope being 750 with the horizontal. The size of a
letter is described by its height.
Single-stroke letters (Cont.)
• According to the height of letters, they are classified as (Bureau of Indian Standards (IS: 9609-
1990)
i. Lettering ‘A’ (d=h/14)
ii. Lettering ‘B’ (d=h/10)

• In lettering ‘A’ type, the height of the capital letter is divided into 14 parts, while in lettering ‘B’
type, it is divided into 10 parts. The height of the letters and numerals for engineering drawing can
be selected from 2.5, 3.5, 5, 7, 10, 14 and 20 mm according to the size of the drawing. The ratio of
height to width varies but in case of most of the letters it is 6:5. The details of the characteristics of
the types of lettering are given in Table 1and Table 2

• Lettering is generally done in capital letters. Different sizes of letters are used for different
purposes. The main titles are generally written in 6 mm to 8 mm size, sub-titles in 3 mm to 6 mm
size, while notes, dimension figures etc. in 3 mm to 5 mm size.
Single-stroke letters (Cont.)
• The drawing number in the title block is written in numerals of 10 mm to 12 mm size.

• Single-stroke inclined capital letters and figures are shown in Figure 4. The lower case
letters are usually used in architectural drawings. Vertical and inclined lowercase
alphabets are shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6 respectively. The width of the majority of
letters is equal to the height.

• All letters should be uniform in shape, slope, size, shade and spacing. The shape and slope
of every letter should be uniform throughout a drawing. For maintaining uniformity in
size, thin and light guide lines may first be drawn, and lettering may then be done
between them. The shade of every letter must be the same as that of the outlines of the
drawings, i.e., intensely black. Therefore, H or HB grade of pencil is recommended for
this purpose.
Single-stroke letters (cont.)
• The spacing between two letters should not necessarily be equal. The letters
should be so spaced that they do not appear too close together or too much
apart. Judging by the eye the background areas between the letters should
be kept approximately equal. The distance between the words must be
uniform and at least equal to the height of the letters (as in Figure 7).

• Lettering should be so done as can be read from the front with the main title
horizontal, i.e., when the drawing is viewed from the bottom edge.

• All sub-titles should be placed below but not too close to the respective
views. Lettering, except the dimension figures, should be underlined to
make them more prominent.
• Lettering A (d=h/14)
• Lettering B (d=h/10)
Drawing Scales
What is a scale?
• Drawings of small objects can be drawn on a drawing sheet as the actual size they
represent. For example, a paper of size 20cm X 25cm can be shown by a rectangle
of size 20cm X 25cm on a drawing sheet. Drawings are drawn of the same size as
the objects are called full-size drawings. The ordinary full-size scales are used for
the above drawings.

• It is not always possible to draw a drawing of an object to its actual size. For
instance, drawings of large objects like buildings, large equipment, machines, etc.
cannot be prepared full size as they would be too large to accommodate on the
drawing sheet. Similarly, drawings of small objects like small watches with its
parts, small electronic instruments, etc. cannot be prepared full size because they
would be too small to draw as well as to read.
What is a scale? (Cont.)
• A scale is defined as the ratio of the linear dimensions of the element of the object as
represented in a drawing to the actual dimensions of the same element of the object.

• A suitable scale is always chosen to draw the drawings of big as well as small objects in
proportionally smaller or larger sizes. Thus, scale can be expressed in the following three
ways.

❑Full-size scale

❑Reducing scale

❑Increasing scale
Full size scale:
• If the actual dimension of an object is shown in the drawing then the scale used is
said to be full size scale.

• It can be represented as 1cm=1cm

Reducing scale
• If the actual dimension of an object is reduced so as to accommodate that object in
the drawing to be drawn on the provided drawing sheet, then the scale used is
called reducing scale.

• Such scales are used for drawing large machine parts, buildings, bridges, survey
maps, etc.

• Civil Engineers and Architects generally use reducing scale.

• This scale is represented as for example, 1cm=2m. This indicates that the linear
dimension of 2m of an actual object is represented by 1cm in the drawing of that
object.
Increasing or Enlarging scale
• When the drawings of very small objects are made larger than their actual
dimension in the drawing sheet, the scale used is called increasing/enlarging scale.

• Such scales are used for drawing small machine parts, mechanical/electronic
instruments, watches, etc.

• Mechanical, Electrical and Electronics Engineers use both reducing as well as

enlarging scales as per their requirements.

• This scale is represented as for example, 1cm=2mm. This indicates that the linear
dimension of 2mm of an actual object is represented by 1cm in the drawing of that
object
Representative Fraction (R.F.)
• Representative Fraction (R.F.) is the ratio of the drawing size of an object to its
actual size. This is another method of representing scale.

• For reducing scale, the R.F. value is less than unity.

• For enlarging scale, the R.F. value is greater than unity.

• For full-size scale, the R.F. value is equal to the unity

Types of scales
• Simple or Plain Scales

• Diagonal Scales

• Vernier Scales
Plain Scales
• A plain scale is simply a line, which is divided into a suitable number of equal
parts.

• The first part is again sub-divided into small parts.

• This is used to represent either two units or a unit and its fraction such as metre
and decimeter, kilometre and hectometer, etc.

• When a particular scale of our requirement is not available, it becomes necessary

to construct a scale.
Construction of Plain Scales
• For the construction of plain scales following information are required.

❑R.F. of scale to be constructed

❑Maximum length to be measured

❑Divisions to be shown.

❑If the length of scale and distance to be measured are not mentioned in the
problem, then the scale length of 15cm is taken.
Problem 1: Construct a plain scale to show meters if the R.F is 1:400 and long
enough to measure 50metres. Show a distance of 28m on the constructed scale.

• Procedure of Construction of Plain Scale:

➢First step is to find out R. F. of the scale to be constructed. In the present problem, R.F. is
given as 1:400.

➢Determination of length of scale(L).

L= R.F x Maximum length to be measured = (1/400)x 50x 100cm =12.5cm

➢Draw horizontal line of length 12.5cm (L)

➢Then draw a rectangle of size 12.5cm x 0.5cm on the above horizontal line. The width of
scale is
usually taken as 5mm

➢As the total length to be measured is 50m, divide the above rectangle into 5 equal
divisions, each division representing 10m.
Problem 1 (Cont.)

➢Mark 0 at the end of first division.

➢From 0, number 10, 20, 30 and 40 at the end of each main division as shown in Fig.1.

➢Sub-divide the first main division into 10 sub-divisions to represent meters using any of
geometrical construction method.

➢Number the subdivisions as shown in Figure.

➢Write the names of the main unit and sub-unit below the scale with R.F. below the scale
as shown.

➢Indicate on the scale a distance of 28m (=2 main divisions to the right side of 0 +8 sub-
divisions to the left of 0.
Diagonal Scales
• Diagonal scales are used to represent either three consecutive units (i.e. m, dcm,
cm) or to read to the accuracy is correct to two decimals.

Principle of diagonal scale

• It consists of a line divided into required number of equal parts.

• The first part is subdivided into small parts by diagonals. In Fig 2, let AB be the
small length (sub-division) to be further divided into 10 equal parts.

• Draw verticals at A and B. Divide AD into 10 equal divisions of any convenient

length (say 5cm) and complete the rectangle ABCD.
Diagonal Scales(Cont.)
• Join the diagonal AC. draw horizontal lines through the division points to meet c
at 1’, 2’, 3’, …,9’.

• Let consider similar triangle ADC and A66’.

66’/DC=AB/AD;
But, A6=(6/10)AD;

Thus, (66’/DC) =6/10; 66’=(6/10)DC=0.6DC=0.8AB.

Similarly it can be shown that the horizontal lengths 11’, 22’, 33’ etc. are equal to
0.1AB, 0.2AB, 0.3AB etc. respectively. This principle is used in constructing the
diagonal scale.
Problem 2: On a building plan a line 10cm long represents a distance of 5m. Construct a
diagonal scale for the plan to read up to 6m, showing metres, decimetres and centimetres.
Indicate the lengths 3.35m and 5.78m on the constructed scale.

• Procedure of Construction of Diagonal Scale:

➢R.F. = 10cm/5x100cm = 1/50

➢Length of scale, L= (1/50)x 6 x 100 cm =12 cm

➢Draw a rectangle ABCD of size 12cm x 5cm.

➢Max/ min = (6 x100 cm)/1cm =600 =6 x 10 x 10.

➢Divide AB into 6 main divisions, each representing 1m. Mark 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and draw the
vertical lines through each point.
Problem 2 (cont.)

➢Sub-divide the first main division into 10 equal sub-divisions each representing
decimeter. Mark 0 to 10 towards the left of 0.

➢Divide AD into 10 equal parts and draw horizontal lines from each division on
AD. Join D to the first sub-division from A on the main scale AB. Thus, first
diagonal is drawn.

➢Similarly remaining 9 diagonals parallel to the first diagonal are drawn.

➢3.35m and 5.78m are shown on the constructed diagonal scale (Fig. 3).