CAD for Woodworkers: makes it easy to draw woodworking plans

Once you have learned the basics in CAD drawing, you will have a skill that will last you a lifetime.

Here's what a recent student on the course, Cady Dodds, a carpenter designer/maker who runs Perfect Space Carpentry, had to say in an email to me:

"The course has been great for me, first step towards electronic drawing.

I sat down this afternoon and drew up 2 elevations for a client, some wardrobes and storage. Although basic I think quite acceptable and took me about 2 hours or so, and after a bit of fettling I got them to print. So I am very pleased."

This was Cady's first ever CAD drawing. The 2 hours it took him, will soon become an hour. The time savings CAD offers you have to be experienced to be believed. What's more, you can send your finished drawing to anyone, anywhere in the world, as a PDF file which they can open to view and print. Its an unbeatable technology, using FREE software!

Here are some of the things the course teaches you to do:

• how to set up the CAD screen to draw more quickly and easily
• how to use a few basic tools to maximum effect, and build even complex drawings using simple techniques
• how to re-use existing drawings to create new ones, in a fraction of the time
• how to dimension your finished drawings in minutes using powerful CAD tools
• how to output your drawings as finished scale plans, either printed or as PDF files

Using a project based, step by step method I show you how to draw a complete set of elevations of an Apothecary's Chest.

A PDF version of the plans of the chest are provided to download for reference, and sequential versions of the relevant CAD files for you to work on as you progress through the course are also included. These files are prepared with a range of dimension scales to make it much easier to output your finished drawing, and can be re-used as templates in the future.

The course has 3 main sections

• Customising the workspace, where you learn how to streamline the CAD screen and tools to get the most out of them
• The project, where you learn through step by step video lectures, how to draw a complete set of woodworking plans
• Dimensioning, scales and output, where you learn how to add dimensions to the finished plans and output the drawing to print or as a PDF file