OTHER TOOLS

3/4- or 1-oz bottles of black, red, and green ink are found in the standard draftsman kit. Larger bottles are available for refilling the small bottles. The stopper for a small ink bottle is equipped with either a squeeze dropper or a curved pipette for filling pens. When you are working with ink, always keep the stopper on the ink bottle when you are not filling the pen, and keep the bottle far away from your drawing. Nothing is more frustrating for a draftsman than to spill a bottle of ink on a finished drawing. Special bottle holders are available to minimize this hazard. If you do not have a bottle holder, it would be to your advantage to devise your own. OTHER TOOLS Many tools other than the ones already presented in this chapter are currently used to help create technical drawings. A variety of drafting machines (not in the draftsman kit) are available at several shore-based support activities. Dependent upon the requirements of that particular activity, an EA assigned to staff or independent duty may also be exposed to a more advanced and sophisticated computer-assisted drafting method. The standard drafting machine combines the functions of a parallel ruler, protractor, scales, and triangles. Various drafting operations requiring straight and parallel lines may be performed advantageously with a drafting machine. The majority of drafting machines are constructed so that the protractor head may be moved over the surface of a drafting table without change in orientation by means of a parallel- motion linkage consisting of two sets of double bars. Figure 2-33 shows a rigid metal connecting link or arms, commonly called pin-joint linkage. Another type of drafting machine has two steel bands enclosed in tubes working against one another (fig. 2-34) (although this type may also 45.137 Figure 2-33.-Drafting machine with rigid arms. 2-26