buy one used

hahahah - yeah I still have my drafting table set up and I love it - I ordered mine from

www.reprint-draphix.com

Dont forget to get one with a metal edge and metal rollers.

Plenty of 4h, HB and 4B lead - and tons of drafting dots.

and of course you can't forget the "old mouse" ( that soft bag of eraser shavings that you blot all over the graphic smired drawings to keep them clean)

Yeah, it also makes a handy weapon for your overly-anal, black-clad studiomates...

We always called those things "scumbags".

And an erasing shield is important too. Both for using and for flicking under your studio-mates' several layers of taped down trace.

designrocks: Make sure to check the size of your future drafting table. In school, I ended up buying a short mayline for my first studio only to replace it with a longer one for subsequent studios (the tables for upperclassmen were wider).

If you'll be building wood models, I would highly recommend the purchase of The Chopper. It makes cutting sticks of bass and balsa wood easy. And each one is hand inspected by Norm.

The Chopper

by the way, I've heard good things about ordering from Dick Blick.

Mayline

liberty: hahahaha, toootally

oh man, a chopper would have helped me enormously in school... dammit

another thing i found too late was the Rabbit: for cutting off edges of foamcore to make seamless corner joints. sweet!

Spiroliner is the Cadillac of parallel edges:

link

i feel bad that i am siting behind one of the few 72" mayines i have ever seen. the thing is magic, but the old drafting table is too cluttered with computers, mouse pads, printers, etc. to put it back into production. i will have to say the feeling of a rapidograph on mylar is only second to . . .

Does anyone have any experience running VirtualPC on a Mayline? I'm interested in running 3D Studio and it is only available for Windows.

But seriously, don't spend too much money on this widget unless you know that hand drafting is your thing. Even when I was drawing a lot, I hardly ever used my mayline because it is only really well suited for drawing stacks of parallel lines (like construction documents).

or twelve million bricks

and yes i did

jh, I feel the same way about the feeling of drafting with soft lead on mylar...like bathing in oil or something....sweet.

my mayline is in the basement....along with the old oak drafting table, with file boxes on top of it...don't get to romantic about it.

I recall asking Mr. Smith of SOM....shouldn't we as students be using
computers in School? His response was no...it is something you will learn in an office. Geeze that was years ago... and now we see another one of his miss guided thoughts....coming out of the ground in New York.

i have some other choice quotes from mr smith of som, all of which are irrelevant here. you should learn to draw by hand first, get good at it, and then get hungry to do things faster and/or more efficiently with CAD.

nobody starts out with a calculator, and i still do most of my math in my head. the simple stuff, that is.

liberty bell,

yep, lead on mylar is a beautiful process. i always used plastic lead to avoid smugging, but lead on was an art - had to work to make a drawing ledgible. my right hand ring finger would bleed from twisting the grip on my lead holder. definately a manlier injury than carpal tunnel.

My Mayline:

But seriously, like stephanie suggests, buy it used.

The mayline bar at the top that JohnProlly posted is what works best for me a drill a hole at the bottom for a lock too.

for good deals

At my office I've taken the time to duct tape and old keyboard to the end of an old Mayline, making me the envy of air guitarists everywhere... I use it most every day.

Rim Joist, your verbal description of that bizarre contraption is insufficient, we demand a photograph of you using it as described.

Let me work on that, Liberty -- and although it does have a cord, I don't recommend actually powering it up without first enjoying a few adult beverages... the really strange thing is, my bosses seem to not even see the value of the thing...???!!! Okaaaay... I gotta go -- the Dandy Warhols require my assistance on keyboard guitar...

Oh damn... I played a very mean air keyboard guitar in my day... And I'm all too serious about that too.

Oh.

If I ever own a bar, I'm going to name it 'The Mayline.'

Mayline is for sissys, get a Hamilton Drafting Table

bought mine thru local print shop.
i'd assumed the plastic rollers would be better, but i see someone above says steel are better? (which is what i received)

funny thing about tables is that too often they're too small...
doors are pretty long, but too narrow...


i use a straight edge,xacto, and cutting pad to cut the roll (for the long drawings) on te roll wrapper, i make a note of how much i cut each time, just so i have an idea of what remains.
and yeah, lots of dots. 60/30, 45, and large adjustable tri, a decent curve. ink edges. templates: max range sizes of circle (sometimes ellipses). multiple (common shapes)

whiteout and white eraser. metal shield. some people like the power erasers. pale blue 'nonprinting' pencil. (seems the non-photocopy are unavailable, but may be available via net/mail)
felt tips (nonbleeding) but kohinoor for the finest lines. rag.
a few colerase for the flimsy phase.
mechanical (leadholders seem stupid mess to me): 2b or h .5. red (brittle!) for poche (rare) ... hard .3 for 'pale texture'

after printing: color chalk pastels. markers. color pencil for tiny important spots, edging, etc. hang color charts (homemade on whatever paper you use) on the wall.

Janosh, wha'd'ya mean "only good for drawing stacks of parallel lines" -- ever geard of an adustable triangle?

er, HEARD of an adustable triangle -- one of the more important drafting instruments if I do say so myself...

at my first drafting job, I drew on linen with a drop bow compass, and ink ruling pens. The kind where you use an eye dropper to put a blob of ink in the pen, not a rapidigraph. Sigh....... Made beautiful drawings, but you better think before you draw- erasing was with a razor blade.
Yes, it was tedious and stupid, but if you ever have a chance to see old linen hand drawings of buildings from the 20's, they are a work of art. (I am not THAT old- they guy I worked for was a cranky old guy who owned an antique shop on the side, so he liked to do things the old fashioned way....)

Bothands - It's been a while, so I would have to check the owners manual, but:

I'm pretty sure that if the lines don't need to be parallel, you can draw them with a triangle or straight edge without a mayline.

Find an Alvin Parallel Glider for quick sketching. It replaces a parallel bar and an adjustable triangle for quick sketching, and you can throw it in a briefcase or bag.

Parallel gliders are from satan. I've seen too many students think that those things can replace a parallel bar and therefore nothing on their drawings is actually parallel.