drafting software

Do any of you use drafting software when designing a knife? do any of the makers get requests from cusomers in a file showing what the customer has in mind?

 

Don Nguyen does/has.

 

Ian Haburn uses some software to design profiles. He then print them on paper and stick them on metal blanks to visually aid shaping/grinding.

 

As Wagner said, Don does (he's semi local...150 miles away in Tucson, GREAT guy!). I have a free student version of the Autodesk suite, but I use it for designing custom automotive suspension on my cars, not my knives.

 

I use Solidworks because I have access to it through school. I'm not sure how else to get similar programs as a non-student, as they can be very expensive. I know Google Sketchup is free, but I haven't had any experience with that so I can't tell you.

Solidworks is a very powerful tool, but it also has a really steep learning curve (though there are practically infinite resources out there for free). It's definitely not something that's crucial to a knife, but it helps with visualizing profiles and dimensions

 

Thanks guys