Self Employed CAD draughtsman
Discussion
There is certainly a market for this stuff, although limiting yourself to 1 CAD system can bring problems. Personally, I would recommend offering enough different systems to be able to deal with most types of customers. I would say just AutoCAD isn't enough. For people to pay for your services they expect you to have the best software about (Catia V5, Pro/E, NX).
As part of my company we offer a basic CAD drafting service to various smaller companies which simply cannot afford the licence costs of most CAD systems, let alone paying for a user. I've found there is a space in the market for offering services from simply putting prototypes into CAD (2D/3D) and we then expand this by offering some kind of component optimisation for either cost/weight/ease of manufacture, depending on how well designed the basic product is.
For us its work that can keep us ticking over when we're quite, it doesn't involve much real engineering time as in most cases the basic design is given to you. It can be quite lucrative as well, I have my rates set pretty high as it keeps away alot of the crappy jobs - if your too cheap you end up always working with people who have produced bad designs so you end up doing the designing as well as the draughting, yet your only charging for cheap draughting rates!
Anyway, good luck. Its a good time to get into this. Alot of the smaller firms are saving money by outsourcing alot of their CAD stuff.
As part of my company we offer a basic CAD drafting service to various smaller companies which simply cannot afford the licence costs of most CAD systems, let alone paying for a user. I've found there is a space in the market for offering services from simply putting prototypes into CAD (2D/3D) and we then expand this by offering some kind of component optimisation for either cost/weight/ease of manufacture, depending on how well designed the basic product is.
For us its work that can keep us ticking over when we're quite, it doesn't involve much real engineering time as in most cases the basic design is given to you. It can be quite lucrative as well, I have my rates set pretty high as it keeps away alot of the crappy jobs - if your too cheap you end up always working with people who have produced bad designs so you end up doing the designing as well as the draughting, yet your only charging for cheap draughting rates!
Anyway, good luck. Its a good time to get into this. Alot of the smaller firms are saving money by outsourcing alot of their CAD stuff.
Nightdriver. I have been doing a small amount of Freelance CAD work between contracts and have been considering taking it further.
I am most experienced in CATIA V5 as well as being taught AutoCAD, Unigraphics and Solidworks.
Like you have described my most recent work was self machined and prototype parts into 3D models and then Drawings. As well as offering advice on optimisation based on my experience in mechanical design.
Could you offer any advice as to how to pursue this work (it's been casual so far) and offer any contacts of companies or agencies of people who may be looking for someone with my skill set?
Please feel free to PM me if this is not to bold of an ask?
I am most experienced in CATIA V5 as well as being taught AutoCAD, Unigraphics and Solidworks.
Like you have described my most recent work was self machined and prototype parts into 3D models and then Drawings. As well as offering advice on optimisation based on my experience in mechanical design.
Could you offer any advice as to how to pursue this work (it's been casual so far) and offer any contacts of companies or agencies of people who may be looking for someone with my skill set?
Please feel free to PM me if this is not to bold of an ask?
Engineer1 - Offering the service does not neccesarily mean you need to have a computer and machine sitting waiting costing you money. You can hire computers complete with software from quite a few companies (have used Contechs in the past) meaning you only need to pay for the software when you need it, usually on a weekly rate. Consultancy's which have bought yearly licences for every peice of software they *may* use are the ones currently going under.
Callan - Catia V5 and Solidworks tend to be a good combination to offer, it covers most budgets of customer as well as being very similar to get to grips with so easy enough to jump between.
I setup much the same way as you seem to hoping to - I was made redundant and thought it was a waste to sit around when I had skills that someone somewhere would pay for! I basically made up some small info packs (listing the services I could offer, showing some previous work, a breif bit about my personal experience) and sent them off to all the engineering firms within a 30mile radius of my house. I picked up quite alot of small bits of work from doing this, and made sure that I did all the work very well and kept good communication with all the customers so they knew what was going on and understood any inputs I might make to the design/optimisation of the part.
After I had done a few jobs and got satisfied customers my name got floated around various places and I had work coming in purely from word of mouth which was ideal! I started getting pretty busy with 'simple' work i.e. modelling prototypes etc which I started to find a bit tedious so I got another guy in to take care of this work. I have always been involved in motorsport so I decided I would focus my efforts on working with our motorsport clients and try to develop this into a more technical area of business. Managed to get some good breaks in a few areas and we are now doing various bits of work ranging from FFord through to F1.
Unfortunately I don't have any kind of positions open at the moment, or otherwise I would be very interested in speaking further to you. But what I would say is that if you prepared to, you would be far better off trying to go it alone for a few months, you'll soon see if you can make it. The benefits, both financially and otherwise, are so much greater.
If you have any more q's or if you want to discuss anything further then feel free to drop me a message, you should be able to through my profile.
Callan - Catia V5 and Solidworks tend to be a good combination to offer, it covers most budgets of customer as well as being very similar to get to grips with so easy enough to jump between.
I setup much the same way as you seem to hoping to - I was made redundant and thought it was a waste to sit around when I had skills that someone somewhere would pay for! I basically made up some small info packs (listing the services I could offer, showing some previous work, a breif bit about my personal experience) and sent them off to all the engineering firms within a 30mile radius of my house. I picked up quite alot of small bits of work from doing this, and made sure that I did all the work very well and kept good communication with all the customers so they knew what was going on and understood any inputs I might make to the design/optimisation of the part.
After I had done a few jobs and got satisfied customers my name got floated around various places and I had work coming in purely from word of mouth which was ideal! I started getting pretty busy with 'simple' work i.e. modelling prototypes etc which I started to find a bit tedious so I got another guy in to take care of this work. I have always been involved in motorsport so I decided I would focus my efforts on working with our motorsport clients and try to develop this into a more technical area of business. Managed to get some good breaks in a few areas and we are now doing various bits of work ranging from FFord through to F1.
Unfortunately I don't have any kind of positions open at the moment, or otherwise I would be very interested in speaking further to you. But what I would say is that if you prepared to, you would be far better off trying to go it alone for a few months, you'll soon see if you can make it. The benefits, both financially and otherwise, are so much greater.
If you have any more q's or if you want to discuss anything further then feel free to drop me a message, you should be able to through my profile.
Edited by NightDriver on Tuesday 25th August 21:08
NightDriver said:
Engineer1 - Offering the service does not neccesarily mean you need to have a computer and machine sitting waiting costing you money. You can hire computers complete with software from quite a few companies (have used Contechs in the past) meaning you only need to pay for the software when you need it, usually on a weekly rate. Consultancy's which have bought yearly licences for every peice of software they *may* use are the ones currently going under.
Callan - Catia V5 and Solidworks tend to be a good combination to offer, it covers most budgets of customer as well as being very similar to get to grips with so easy enough to jump between.
I setup much the same way as you seem to hoping to - I was made redundant and thought it was a waste to sit around when I had skills that someone somewhere would pay for! I basically made up some small info packs (listing the services I could offer, showing some previous work, a breif bit about my personal experience) and sent them off to all the engineering firms within a 30mile radius of my house. I picked up quite alot of small bits of work from doing this, and made sure that I did all the work very well and kept good communication with all the customers so they knew what was going on and understood any inputs I might make to the design/optimisation of the part.
After I had done a few jobs and got satisfied customers my name got floated around various places and I had work coming in purely from word of mouth which was ideal! I started getting pretty busy with 'simple' work i.e. modelling prototypes etc which I started to find a bit tedious so I got another guy in to take care of this work. I have always been involved in motorsport so I decided I would focus my efforts on working with our motorsport clients and try to develop this into a more technical area of business. Managed to get some good breaks in a few areas and we are now doing various bits of work ranging from FFord through to F1.
Unfortunately I don't have any kind of positions open at the moment, or otherwise I would be very interested in speaking further to you. But what I would say is that if you prepared to, you would be far better off trying to go it alone for a few months, you'll soon see if you can make it. The benefits, both financially and otherwise, are so much greater.
If you have any more q's or if you want to discuss anything further then feel free to drop me a message, you should be able to through my profile.
Very positive, and just what we need to hear. Excellent.Callan - Catia V5 and Solidworks tend to be a good combination to offer, it covers most budgets of customer as well as being very similar to get to grips with so easy enough to jump between.
I setup much the same way as you seem to hoping to - I was made redundant and thought it was a waste to sit around when I had skills that someone somewhere would pay for! I basically made up some small info packs (listing the services I could offer, showing some previous work, a breif bit about my personal experience) and sent them off to all the engineering firms within a 30mile radius of my house. I picked up quite alot of small bits of work from doing this, and made sure that I did all the work very well and kept good communication with all the customers so they knew what was going on and understood any inputs I might make to the design/optimisation of the part.
After I had done a few jobs and got satisfied customers my name got floated around various places and I had work coming in purely from word of mouth which was ideal! I started getting pretty busy with 'simple' work i.e. modelling prototypes etc which I started to find a bit tedious so I got another guy in to take care of this work. I have always been involved in motorsport so I decided I would focus my efforts on working with our motorsport clients and try to develop this into a more technical area of business. Managed to get some good breaks in a few areas and we are now doing various bits of work ranging from FFord through to F1.
Unfortunately I don't have any kind of positions open at the moment, or otherwise I would be very interested in speaking further to you. But what I would say is that if you prepared to, you would be far better off trying to go it alone for a few months, you'll soon see if you can make it. The benefits, both financially and otherwise, are so much greater.
If you have any more q's or if you want to discuss anything further then feel free to drop me a message, you should be able to through my profile.
Edited by NightDriver on Tuesday 25th August 21:08
Justin Baker - AutoDesk Inventor / Solidworks person. (Currently trying to grow a business on a design I came up with).
We need more people with an outlook like Nightdriver. Thumbs up.
I did this for a few months up until the beginning of this month whilst between jobs, I've been working as an architectural technician for 10 years using autocad and vectorworks.
Basically I wrote to all the local practices with my cv offering freelance services and had a reasonable response. If you have experience in a field such as engineering or architecture etc I would approach companies doing similar work as a knowledge of what your trying to achieve really helps.
I worked for a 1 man band who had tried other much cheaper CAD operators and always been disappointed, not with there ability to use CAD but with there ability to know what he wanted / expected. not the operators fault in anyway.
Basically I wrote to all the local practices with my cv offering freelance services and had a reasonable response. If you have experience in a field such as engineering or architecture etc I would approach companies doing similar work as a knowledge of what your trying to achieve really helps.
I worked for a 1 man band who had tried other much cheaper CAD operators and always been disappointed, not with there ability to use CAD but with there ability to know what he wanted / expected. not the operators fault in anyway.
Engineer1 said:
Does anyone have any ideas how to find out if there would be a market for setting up doing CAD draughting using Autocad? Also any one got any ideas where would be best to advertise? Anyone got any other useful advice?
Go to Engineering and architectural practices and ask them if you can work contract for big jobs.
justinbaker said:
Very positive, and just what we need to hear. Excellent.
Justin Baker - AutoDesk Inventor / Solidworks person. (Currently trying to grow a business on a design I came up with).
We need more people with an outlook like Nightdriver. Thumbs up.
Good luck with your business, things are certainly a bit trickier at the moment but if you can get things going in this climate you'll be laughing when everything picks up again!
Edit - Just had a look at your website - some really nice stuff on it! Impressive how low you seem to have got your prices for such nicely made stuff! Good luck pushing forwards!
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