Line weight question?

  • To All:
    When printing drawings, either shop drawings or bent views, what line weight do you use for the timber?
    And what line weight do you use for the dimension lines?
    Are they the same or different and why?
    By line weight I mean thickness of the line.
    Thanks in advance.
    Jim Rogers
    Jim Rogers Timber Designs

    Jim Rogers
    Georgetown, MA, USA


    Version 20.02 13.04, 12.03, 11.06, 10.02, 9.05, 8.04, 7.03, and 5.05

  • Hi Jim,


    usually there are standards in every country for things like line type and line weight.
    Line weights had more influence on drawings before color printers came out. What line weights did before, now colors mostly do.


    As a general rule: the drawing should be clean and easy to read.


    As a general guidleine:
    There are a couple of line groups in the german DIN15 T1 and T2


    Object lines (beam edges) 0.5mm
    Other lines (hatch patterns, dimension lines, ...) 0.25mm
    Text and Symbols 0.35mm


    Object lines (beam edges) 0.7mm
    Other lines (hatch patterns, dimension lines, ...) 0.35mm
    Text and Symbols 0.5mm


    Object lines (beam edges) 0.35mm
    Other lines (hatch patterns, dimension lines, ...) 0.18mm
    Text and Symbols 0.25mm

  • Markus:
    Thanks for your advice.
    I'll check my program settings, once I convert from mm to inches.


    Also, I've been converting almost all my drawing to black line color as I felt that's what a customer would expect to see.
    I've printed some drawings with color lines on some beams and found that some colors are hard to see on the drawing paper, by me and by others. That's why I usually convert all colors to black.
    Some of the beams in red, blue and green do show up nice, but the yellows and light blue don't.
    Maybe it's just me.
    Jim Rogers Timber Designs

    Jim Rogers
    Georgetown, MA, USA


    Version 20.02 13.04, 12.03, 11.06, 10.02, 9.05, 8.04, 7.03, and 5.05