Old drafter at my first job said I was 'over-dimensioning' everything

Way back in 2016 at a shop in Tulsa, this guy named Jerry kept telling me I was adding way too many tolerances to my steel details. I thought he was just being lazy or old school, you know? But after three revisions on a simple beam connection (and the shop foreman getting mad), I realized he was 100% right. I was calling out +/- 1/16 on stuff that just needed +/- 1/8, which made fabrication take twice as long. Has anyone else had a senior drafter call them out on something that felt wrong but actually saved the whole job?

2 comments

2 Comments

janahenderson6d ago

Jerry sounds like a legend. Had a guy named Dave at my first place tell me I was doing way too many redundant callouts on my schematics. Made me mad at first but he saved me from looking like an idiot in front of the whole shop.

perez.cole6d ago

Yeah, that Dave guy really did you a solid. I had a buddy who ignored a similar heads-up about his layout once and ended up having to redo 40 hours of work because the senior guy just signed off without checking it. So yeah, eating a little pride upfront beats eating a ton of rework later.