A draftsman or drafter is someone who’s trained in creating technical drawings. Their job is to take the sketches, concepts, and specifications of professional architects, engineers, machinists, or inventors, and build the necessary illustrations from which that idea can be implemented or fabricated in a methodical and practical format.
The tools of the trade are mostly computer programs called CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) programs. The most popular is AutoCAD. In years past, the tools of the trade were the drafting board, tee square, engineering scale, triangles, etc., although some still use these tools today.
Some of the various types of drafters are:
The Architectural Drafter, which is the one who creates residential and commercial drawings for the construction of homes and other buildings.
The Steel Detailer is a drafter who creates steel fabrication drawings for structural members for the erection of buildings.
The Mechanical or Machine Drafter is the one who works for engineers and machinists to create machine and shop drawings for the fabrication of mechanisms and fixtures. A sub field for this discipline would be for woodshop drawings for furniture manufacturers and woodcrafters.
The Survey Drafter would be the one that creates boundary and topographical drawings for surveyors plats and site plans.
The Industrial Drafter is the one who draws layouts of large plants so that the industrial engineers may work out the best methods for production on a plant floor. He or she also creates drawings for the design of fixtures to be used in the manufacturing process, crossing them over into the mechanical field as well as commercial architectural.
The Patent Drafter takes the ideas of inventors and places them in a drawing format that is accepted by the patent office to protect the inventors ideas.
A General Drafter is one who has studied most or all of the fields mentioned above and is sometimes given the title of master drafter. Other fields of drafting include aviation, automotive, nautical, archaeological, electrical, etc .