Duties of a draftsman

Answer 1

I work as a Draftsman at a mid-sized fabrication company. My duties include drawing detailed prints of all projects to be fabbed, correcting any mistakes on existing drawings, and also redesigning existing drawings to better the project. Mostly i just sit in my office and draw stuff on the computer in AutoCAD. Depending on which company you work for, times can get VERY slow and you may have little to nothing to do. I have only done about 3 hours of work in the past 2 weeks, simply because all my drawings are finished and they workers in the shop are building the vessels. Until we get a new job in, I'll just be sitting around waiting on some work.

I got my position without having gone to drafting school. I have always been naturally good with computers and the transition from machine operator to draftsman was really quite smooth. I do feel, however, that I am a little underpaid, (mostly because I did not go to school, and therefore have no real "training") so I would strongly suggest taking at least some night classes on the subject.