A drafting machine is a tool used in

technical drawing Technical drawing, drafting or drawing, is the act and discipline of composing drawings that visually communicate how something functions or is constructed. Technical drawing is essential for communicating ideas in industry and engineering. ...

, consisting of a pair of scales mounted to form a right angle on an articulated

protractor A goniometer is an instrument that either measures an angle or allows an object to be rotated to a precise angular position. The term goniometry derives from two Greek words, γωνία (''gōnía'') 'angle' and μέτρον (''métron'') ' me ...

head that allows an angular

rotation Rotation or rotational/rotary motion is the circular movement of an object around a central line, known as an ''axis of rotation''. A plane figure can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise sense around a perpendicular axis intersect ...

. The protractor head (two scales and protractor mechanism) is able to move freely across the surface of the

drawing board A drawing board (also drawing table, drafting table or architect's table) is, in its antique form, a kind of multipurpose desk which can be used for any kind of drawing, writing or impromptu sketching on a large sheet of paper or for reading a la ...

, sliding on two guides directly or indirectly anchored to the drawing board. These guides, which act separately, ensure the movement of the set in the horizontal or vertical direction of the

, and can be locked independently of each other. The drafting machine was invented by Charles H. Little in 1901 (U.S. Patent No. 1,081,758), and he founded the Universal Drafting Machine Company in Cleveland, Ohio, to manufacture and sell the instrument.The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol.36 (1950), p.341. Drafting machines were present in the design offices of European companies since the 1920s. The Encyclopædia Britannica explicitly specifies 1930 as the year this tool was introduced, but an advertisement of "Memorie di architettura pratica" from 1913 places it twenty years before this date—at least in Italy. In the older design sets, the movement of the protractor head was assured by a

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a Linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a se ...

system that could keep the head in the same angular position throughout its range of motion. The arms were balanced by a system of counterweights or springs. Typically, the machine is mounted on a

with a hard and smooth surface, anchored to a base that allows its tilting and lifting. Thus, the realization of a

drawing Drawing is a Visual arts, visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to make a drawing include pencils, crayons, and ink pens, some ...

can be achieved in the most convenient way on a working surface that can be tilted at any angle from horizontal to vertical. There are special versions for A0 double-sized boards, to make large drawings, or copying-boards with background illumination, which have all that is necessary to provide specific support. With the drafting machine one can perform a series of drawing operations that otherwise could only be achieved with a much more complex use of the classic

ruler A ruler, sometimes called a rule, scale, line gauge, or metre/meter stick, is an instrument used to make length measurements, whereby a length is read from a series of markings called "rules" along an edge of the device. Usually, the instr ...

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

and

, as, for example, drawing

parallel Parallel may refer to: Mathematics * Parallel (geometry), two lines in the Euclidean plane which never intersect * Parallel (operator), mathematical operation named after the composition of electrical resistance in parallel circuits Science a ...

lines,

orthogonal In mathematics, orthogonality (mathematics), orthogonality is the generalization of the geometric notion of ''perpendicularity''. Although many authors use the two terms ''perpendicular'' and ''orthogonal'' interchangeably, the term ''perpendic ...

lines, inclined lines according to a preset angle, measurement of

angle In Euclidean geometry, an angle can refer to a number of concepts relating to the intersection of two straight Line (geometry), lines at a Point (geometry), point. Formally, an angle is a figure lying in a Euclidean plane, plane formed by two R ...

s, etc. With the development of

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

(CAD), the use of drafting machines, especially in the professional sector, has drastically declined, supplanted first by pen

plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like Polyvinyl chloride, vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes k ...

s, and then by large-format

inkjet printer Inkjet printing is a type of printer (computing), computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper or plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range f ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drafting Machine Visual arts materials Technical drawing tools