Real Dads Don’t Read Instructions

OK I’m sitting at my computer playing with Revit Structure wearing a tee shirt my kids bought me for Fathers Day which says “Real Dads Don’t Read Instructions”.

Well I do……. Well kind of………Well sometimes…….. Kind of a scan read…..

I’ve printed out the Users Guide and the Metric Tutorials which also come as adobe pdf files in a hand A4 format for us Brits, I bound these up with a comb binder, and have them at hand for downtime, you know for when you are not at the computer and your sitting in a doctors or dentist waiting room or having to spending some time in the living room with the wife. (See I can and do read instructions)

I’ve done the Getting Started Steel Project, and read the Concrete Project that comes with the disks, whilst on the train (one of those down times I was talking about) I use F1 –Help a lot

But…. I want to get cracking with Revit…….I want to fly it and I want to fly it now….. (I sound just like the little girl in Willy Wonka)
I did find a web site where you can download the tutorial manuals that come with the trial DVD in pdf format as well. (Link to tutorials)

I have been building the Revit Links page at my cadalot web site, and whilst surfing found Daryl Gregoires’ blogs:- Revit Rocks!, CADClips, Learn ADT, Learn AutoCAD, Sketchup Rocks! and CADClips University.

Daryl is a CAD Trainer and Architectural Designer based in Calgary, Alberta Canada. He has been using Autodesk products since 1988 . Revit Rocks! and CADClips, are MUST VISIT web sites - so much information.

I bought a full site subscription for three months to CADClips so that I could get my paws on his training videos to help me climb that learning curve. It took some time to get them all downloaded but they are now sitting on my hard disk and backed up on five DVD’s (3x Architecture and 2 x Structure) so that I can view at work or home.

I’m dipping in and out of The CADClip Video Tutorials and they are worth their weight in gold. I will go back and review the lot, but for now I’m trying to fast track my learning for a project I have at the moment, and I want to learn on something live and real.

The scheme I’m learning on is an extension to a number of six storey blocks of flats in Kensington & Chelsea that need new lifts fitted. The existing shafts are too small for modern lifts, so we are bolting on a structure which provides new landings and access to new lift shafts.

The design is a mixture of reinforced concrete and structural steelwork, and it’s a small scheme, that has concrete pile foundations with pile caps, reinforced concrete columns between the pile caps and the first floor cantilevered reinforced concrete profiled slab

Then from the first floor slab we switch to a steel frame with a holorib steel decking slabs. There are also a lot of novel, non-typical tutorial types of real life details that will need to be modelled. i.e. PFC and steel angles bolted to existing walls etc.

Jumping in at the deep end, my thought process for attacking this project based on my limited knowledge of Revit so far, kind of run in this order:-

* Load AutoCAD drawing as a reference

* Grids

* Levels

* Place Steel Columns Level 2 (Second Floor)

* Concrete Slab 1st Floor

* Concrete Columns (Level 1 – Ground)

* Masonry Load Bearing Walls

* Concrete Slabs (2nd Floor Level 2 – Roof Level 6)

* Beams

* Ground Level Topography

* Pile Cap Foundations

* Piles

* Lift Pit

* Roof Structure

* Drawing Sheets
This is a learning project so once completed I will review what I’ve done and learnt and probably do things completely differently on the next project, but Hay!, that’s what learning and gaining experience is all about …right?

More later, I’m now off to play with revit……..