Structual Steel Work drawings

[Engineer1964]

Hi all, I've started to do quite a bit of structual steel work and was looking for an Easy and ideally Free cad package that does structual steel drawings??

I got a full blown edition of AutoCad, but i cant for the life of me get into it, Is there anything out there easier???

Mainly its just the drawing of the beams, and flats with the option of letting me add holes and cut outs where needed, oh and dimensions

Might have to go back to MS Paint

 

[ChrisJohnsSculpture]

If you just want 2D drawings then Autosketch is pretty good as it's pretty much computerised drawing without any of the complications of 3D modelling. Not free but cheap compared to more complex packages.

 

[rtbcomp]

Once again, Cad Std Lite is well worth a look, and it's free.

This topic has been done to death, well worth a search for CAD.

 

[FranV8]

Not free, but MS Visio can do scaled and dimensions drawings. It has libraries of standard shapes and symbols too.

 

[Wedg1e]

I don't see how any CAD package is significantly easier than any other once you start drawing at full detail level... it's either a sketch or it's an engineering drawing, in which case you have to put in what you need to get out.
I've been using AutoCAD since R13, taught myself through that, R14, AutoCAD 2005 and 2008 plus TurboCAD and CADLite and they're all about the same to me. In fact some of the older AutoCADs were easier to use with recent variants changing things apparently just for the hell of it.

Which AutoCAD do you have, Eng64?

Here's one I did just now...

 

[Big Pete]

I used to use masterframe for structural steelwork stuff, it does all the cals, knows the steel tables, and IIRC, will produce the component part drawings as well. Not free, but way cheaper (and more capable) than the competition at the time. Might be worth a look.

http://www.masterseries.co.uk/

 

[Engineer1964]

Which AutoCAD do you have, Eng64?

AutoCAD Architecture 2009

i just can't seem to get into it, seems to be a lot to learn just to do a simple drawing

 

[Engineer1964]

I used to use masterframe for structural steelwork stuff, it does all the cals, knows the steel tables, and IIRC, will produce the component part drawings as well. Not free, but way cheaper (and more capable) than the competition at the time. Might be worth a look.

http://www.masterseries.co.uk/

Now that looks interesting Big Pete

They do a steel work module which might just be what i'm after, Its pointless having a mega big software package if your only using 5% of it, Better to expand that 5% to 100% and use a standalone product