Services · Drafting

Outsource CAD drafting for steel fabricators

Short answer: outsource CAD drafting to StepToCut when your design office is full. You send the STEP assembly and a drawing you already use. We send back fabrication drawings for every part in your title block, with DXF cutting files and nesting. A mechanical designer reviews every drawing.

Who it is for

Steel fabrication shops, shipyards and design offices that work on welded steel structures and need drawings and cutting files from a 3D model.

What you send

• A STEP assembly. Hundreds of bodies and no parts list are fine.
• A drawing you already use. Title block, file names, layout: every file follows it.

What you get back

• Dimensioned fabrication drawings for every part, with the marking code, bevels, thickness, material and quantity.
• PDF drawings and DXF cutting files. Drawings are also available as DWG or native Inventor files.
• Nesting on standard sheets.
• On request, a single booklet with every part.

Inventor fabrication drawings

We work in Autodesk Inventor. If your office uses Inventor too, ask for the native drawing files.

A real job: 160 hours of drafting, done in 104

A project with two welded steel assemblies and no parts list for their plates. We delivered 266 cutting drawings. The same scope by hand: 160 hours. With StepToCut: 104. Read the case study.

How we check

One system produces the files, a second one checks them: code, thickness and quantity of every part are measured against the 3D model, the material is checked against the bill of materials. A mechanical designer reviews every drawing before delivery. More on the drawings: steel fabrication drawings.

Questions

Do we need to send a parts list?

No. We build it from the 3D: type and thickness read from the geometry.

What if the design changes?

Send the new revision. We update the drawings and run every check again.

Are our files confidential?

Yes. We sign an NDA before you send any file.

See also: Put us to the test.