A bad detail drawing from a supplier in Kansas City made me double check everything now.

I was working on a steel frame shop drawing last month and got a detail from the supplier that looked fine at first. The callout said a plate was 0.5 inches thick, but the scale on their PDF was off. I almost sent it to the shop floor. I caught it because I always lay a known dimension, like a standard bolt hole, over their drawing to check the scale. That one mistake would have cost us two days of rework and about $800 in material. Now I treat every outside detail drawing like it might be wrong. How do you guys check drawings you get from other companies?

3 comments

3 Comments

gibson.oliver2mo ago

Read a good tip about always checking the title block for the scale and revision date first. That quick look can flag a lot of basic errors before you even get into the details. Saves a ton of headache down the line.

king.lisa2mo ago

Yeah, checking the title block first is smart. A buddy of mine in welding got a drawing where the revision date was old, but the file name was new. He almost built a whole railing off the wrong version because he just glanced at the file name. Now he makes a point to check that date against the last email from the sender. It seems simple, but you can really get burned if you skip that step.

anna_hill1mo ago

Man, that's so true. It's like @gibson.oliver said, you have to check the basics first because trust is not a good plan. I see this everywhere now, from work stuff to just reading the news online. You really can't take anything at face value anymore.