After the drawing number, title and revision, the Drawing Notes are usually the next thing the someone will look at on a print. The drawing notes provide more information then what is normally provided by the drawing itself. The notes can be used to better describe the part, provide information about finishes, describe inspection requirements or just provide more information to the machinist. Usually if the dimensions alone do not tell the whole story then the notes will provide the rest.

Almost everybody who has created a drawing has created notes but did you know there were actual rules governing the usage and creation of notes. Section 4.26 of ASME Y14.100-2000 provides guidelines and explanations of elements of drawing notes. I will do my best to describe the proper way of creating drawings notes per the standard and I hope you won’t be doing a face plant into your keyboard before I am done.

First, drawing notes are usually located in one corner of Sheet 1 of your drawing. I prefer to have my notes be located in upper left corner of the sheet. Here they can stay out of the way of the titleblock, BOM and Revision Table, if the notes begin to get too long. If you must have your notes located any where else other then Sheet 1, place a note referencing the location. For example, you can place note stating “SEE SEPARATE PARTS LIST FOR PARTS AND NOTES”. Refer to your internal company standards on creating separate parts list. I do not tend to recommend doing this since it can be a documentation nightmare.

Despite what you might of heard on the streets, the order of the notes do not actually mean anything. I cannot recall how many times I have heard that the order of the notes refer to the order of precedence or the order of operations. Of course, if your company has adopted this approach to drawing notes then that is completely alright. The standards police are not going to come to your company and drag everybody out just for violating the standard. It should be kept in mind, however, drawings are not always going to remain internal. Someone outside of your company who may not be familiar with your standards may actually be reading the print, such as a vendor making your parts . They may not know that you intend the notes to be followed in sequential order causing your entire lot to be scrapped. What I always tell people is to act as if your sweet grandmother is reading your print and does not know anything about processes. If it is obvious to her then it is obvious to your vendors. To be on the safe side if the order means something to you then add a note alerting all those who read the print of your intentions.

There are three types of notes on a drawing; General Notes, Local Notes and Flagnotes. General notes are notes the apply to the entire drawing and local notes apply only to specific areas or points in the drawing. Local notes are not included in the notes themselves, instead they are normally attached to leaders or reside somewhere in the drawing and apply only to that area or point. Flagnotes are listed with the general notes but only apply to a specific point or area like a local note. Flagnotes are designated as such in the general notes with a flagnote symbol, below illustrates some common flagnotes used in the industry.

If you are to designate a note as a flagnote. do not under any circumstances drop a polygon on top of the note. If I ever caught you performing this heinous practice…I would take away your birthday. The proper way to insert a flagnote in SolidWorks is the use the Symbol Library. The Symbol Library is a SolidWorks supplied library that is already pre-populated with the most common flagnotes. (Later this week I will be covering using the Symbol Library and even how to add your own custom symbols to the library.) Once you place the flagnote in the general notes, a corresponding flagnote symbol with the number is then placed on your drawing at each point of application.

Your general notes must be numbered consecutively starting at with Note 1. Each unrelated requirement for the drawing must have its own note, do not try to save numbers by creating one long note with a bunch of unrelated specifications. When adding notes always add to the end of the list, do not insert between two existing notes. Note numbers must not be reused on a drawing, meaning if you are need to remove a note in future revisions, do not use that space for an unrelated note. It is not required that you fill in the void when you remove a note. I have seen several companies add “REMOVED” or “NOTE REMOVED”. If you company requires this then obviously follow your company standards but the best practice is to remove the note completely and do not reuse the number. If you remove Note 2 from the general notes the your notes will go from Note 1 to Note 3. Adding “REMOVED” to your notes only clutters up the drawing and make it look messy.

Next Tuesday I will be covering more on Drawing Notes per ASME Y14.100-2000 including the language the proper use of language of notes. I hope you didn’t fall asleep on me there is a lot of information to cover on drawing notes…who knew? Anyway, I hope you have found this “Standards Tuesday” informative and you will applying what you learned here today to next drawing you create.

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