My name is Chad Langhans. I have been using AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT since version 10, around 1988-1989. I have been a framing foreman, Framing & General Contractor, Framing Manager since 1976.
As a framing foreman, I did all my figuring on the opposing plan page and then showed it to the people doing the work. If it needed to be changed, well, good luck with that, and I hoped the plans never got wet or torn!
Since high school I had done drafting as a hobby. When I was a framing contractor I did drafting workups, by hand, for my foremen to show how to assemble the particularly difficult items so that they would understand how l had envisioned it being built. When AutoCAD first came out it required what was then called a minicomputer and it cost around $50,000.00 to get going - way beyond anything I could envision. With the advent of the 386 computer and version 10 of AutoCAD, everything became more realistic. I spent about $3500.00 to get the computer, AutoCAD version 10, 40 hours of training and a drawing tablet. That's right, a drawing tablet - not a mouse!! This was before Windows and a mouse. This proved to be very cumbersome, slow, frustrating and not worth the powder to blow it up. So I gave up on it.
Then came Windows, a mouse, and AutoCAD LT around 1997 and the rest, as they say, is history! We now have a powerful graphics program on screaming fast computers that can do the work in minutes that used to take us hours. There are things I do in AutoCAD LT graphically in a couple of minutes that could only be done with a trig calculator: i.e. stair headouts so that the bottom of the horse matches the ceiling line. Or, finding the radius of a squash arch without a formula? Anybody remember the formula? How about Groin Vaults? Or, correctly placed hold downs within a 1/16th of an inch - just by dropping a graphic into the drawing and dimensioning it afterwards? Joist layouts that miss all the lights, toilets, fans, etc. without head outs?
One of the things I have seen about the learning process of LT is that not everyone has the patience to make all the little tools, templates and other items that make AutoCAD LT a productive tool. When you first install and open the program it is absolutely overwhelming: all those tool bars, icons & other stuff in a blank page. What the &%$# do you do with it? How do you organize it? How do you begin to learn it? You could go to a local junior college and take a class in AutoCAD (not LT). This will get you the basics of the use of that program but it will not get you any practicalities for use in your trade. Nowhere else are you going to get the tools & the training for using AutoCAD LT as a General Contractor doing your own framing or as a Framing Contractor.
That knowledge, experience, tools and training is what I offer here. LT is a great tool! Let's get started!
