the shop drawing
→
finished CAD — 1 pass
A hand drawing with four numbers on it, turned into a clean editable model. No guessing, no revisions.
From a Shop Drawing to CAD
Modeling a jack adapter in Fusion 360 — and a reminder that a good drawing beats a hundred photos.
A Pilatus PC-12 is a single-engine turboprop. To lift one for maintenance you jack it at hard points near the landing gear, and this little steel part is what bridges the jack to the plane — a length of round bar with a fork cut into one end that straddles the jack point. It's a product I sell; I wanted it as clean CAD. I drove an AI agent that runs Fusion 360.
The whole part lives on one hand drawing: 1-15/16″ round steel bar, 10″ long, with a 0.6875″ slot milled through one end, its rounded bottom 1.5″ in. That's it. The agent read those four numbers and built it correctly on the first pass — bar, fork, done.
I'd just spent 28 revisions on a tiny ski connector because all I had were photos. This took one. The difference wasn't the part — it was the reference. A dimensioned drawing is worth a hundred guesses.