The guide

Millwork shop drawings,
the book nobody wrote.

31 chapters, about 77,000 words, in six parts. Every number on these pages names its source. Start at chapter one if you are new; jump to the part you need if you are not.

Part I

The job

What the work is, who it is for, and where a drawing sits in the chain.

01 What millwork is Custom woodwork made in a shop for one building and fixed in place. Where millwork ends and furniture and carpentry begin, and why the UK calls it joinery. 8 min read 02 Where drawings sit The architect draws what it looks like; the millwork drafter draws how it gets built. What a submittal is in contract terms, what approval covers, and what it never covers. 9 min read 03 Who is in the room Architect, designer, contractor, estimator, project manager, drafter, machinist, bench hand, finisher, installer: what each wants from a millwork set, what each can check, and who signs. 11 min read 04 The document chain Design intent to as-built in eleven steps: who holds each document, where the time goes, which step carries the legal weight, and why "approved" is the riskiest word in the sequence. 11 min read

Part II

The set

The anatomy of a submittal. Mechanical, learnable in a week, and what a new drafter is judged on in the first month.

05 The order of the sheets A millwork submittal starts far away and moves closer, and the scale climbs with it. The sheet order, read off two real sets and the standard. 11 min read 06 Callouts and cross-referencing How a letter in a bubble ties a millwork set together, the two ways it fails, and how to count every callout in both directions before you issue. 10 min read 07 Title blocks, revision blocks, general notes The three blocks that repeat on every sheet of a millwork set: what each field is for, what the standard requires, and how revisions and notes carry the record. 10 min read 08 Scale, dimensioning and drawing conventions Which scale for which view, dimension strings that close, lines, abbreviations and the metric-imperial boundary, checked against the standard and two real sets. 14 min read 09 Reading an architect's set to draw from Where the millwork information hides in an architect's drawings and specification, what to extract before you draw, and the questions to ask on day one. 12 min read

Part III

How it is built

The shop's side of the wall. You cannot draw a joint you cannot picture.

10 The carcass Face frame and frameless casework, box heights, backs, bottoms, stretchers, nailers and toe kicks, with the published standard's numbers and a worked base cabinet. 12 min read 11 Sheet goods Particleboard, MDF, plywood, melamine, HPDL, veneered panel and compact laminate: stocked thicknesses, screw holding, stiffness, wet areas, and who picks the core. 12 min read 12 Edges, faces and grain Exposed, semi-exposed and concealed surfaces, edge banding types and thicknesses, veneer cuts and matching, and how solid timber moves, from the standard and the Wood Handbook. 13 min read 13 Joinery and fixings Dowels, dowel screws, biscuits, loose tenons, pocket screws, dadoes, rabbets, mitres and wall fixings: what the standard requires of each, and how each reads in a section. 13 min read 14 Doors, drawers and fronts Overlay, inset and reveal; gap tolerances by grade; drawer box sizes, bottoms and capacity; handing; slab, framed and profiled fronts, from the standard and Blum's own documents. 13 min read 15 Hardware Hinge boring, overlay, drawer runner clearances, lifts and the 32 mm system, every number taken from the Blum and Hettich technical documents and cited by page. 15 min read 16 Tops, benches and junctions Stone, solid surface, laminate and timber tops: who supplies what, support and overhang limits, cutouts, edges, and who owns the tolerance where trades meet. 12 min read 17 Finishes Shop and site finish, sheen, colour and the approved sample: what "finishes to be reviewed and approved before fabrication" protects, and what the set must say. 9 min read 18 Installation Scribes, shims, blocking, fixings, out-of-plumb walls, service penetrations and what ships assembled. Where drawing assumptions become an installer's afternoon. 11 min read

Part IV

Standards and grades

What “to standard” means when a specification says it.

19 Who publishes what AWI, the Woodwork Institute and AWMAC, the standards each publishes, which edition a specification means, and how their certification programmes work. 11 min read 20 Grades Economy, Custom and Premium: what the standards actually change between grades in materials, grain matching and tolerance, and what a drafter checks. 11 min read 21 Submittal requirements What a millwork submittal must contain, read from AWI 100, the Woodwork Institute's sample set and the federal guide specs: sheet size, scale, cover, index, views, material lists and samples. 12 min read 22 Accessibility and code Reach ranges, knee and toe clearance, counter heights and operable hardware from the 2010 ADA Standards, and where they land on a millwork drawing. 13 min read

Part V

Practice

Habits, not knowledge. Why some drafters are trusted and others are checked.

23 Don't pass unanswered questions An approval signature is a contract event, not a technical check. Where the questions hide in a millwork package, and the three moves that beat guessing. 10 min read 24 RFIs, assumptions and the paper trail How to write a question that gets answered, when to proceed on a stated assumption, and how the revision block and the RFI log keep the record. 10 min read 25 Checking your own set The checklist and the order to work it in: the set as an object, the numbers, the materials and hardware, coordination, code, and the last pass with the shop floor. 12 min read 26 2D or 3D Model it or draw it? Both sides of the trade's argument, what the submittal actually requires, and a test for which one a given job deserves. 9 min read 27 Software AutoCAD, Cabinet Vision, Microvellum, SolidWorks, SketchUp and Revit: what each is for, where you meet it, and which to learn first with no experience. 9 min read 28 Working with the shop floor How to ask a machinist a question, what a week on the floor teaches that a year at a desk will not, and how to read your set as the person cutting it. 10 min read

Part VI

The trade

Getting in, getting paid, and who is buying.

29 Getting in Into millwork drafting from architecture, from the shop floor, or from other CAD work: what transfers, what does not, and what a first portfolio should hold. 9 min read 30 What it pays Millwork drafter pay from the US government's wage survey, a salary aggregator and an offshore vendor's price list, and why the three disagree. 8 min read 31 In-house, freelance or outsourced The sums from the shop owner's side: what an employed millwork drafter costs, what freelance and offshore rates are claimed, and the review and rework costs the hourly rate leaves out. 9 min read

Millwork shop drawings,the book nobody wrote.