Why are CAD Drawings so Important for Balustrades Manufacturing?




Balustrade manufacturers demand accurate balustrade drawings aligned with their specifications ensuring compliance with standards, building codes, harmonious with other building elements. This article outlines the importance of efficient balustrade detail drawings based on CAD for balustrades manufacturing.


But, ever since the advent of CAD technology, furniture manufacturing has evolved to produce impeccably accurate handrails, balustrades, and other elements.


CAD has completely transformed the way industrial parts are manufactured and has made design manageable and effective. CAM design has undeniably progressed due to its advanced technology giving users the ability to perform complex tasks with smart and efficient tools.


All manufacturers require design balustrade drawings to produce sturdy balustrades that are innovative and adequately balanced enough to offer support. By following detailed and accurate balustrade detail drawings based on CAD, manufacturers can deliver robust balustrades and custom fit to their specifications.

Balustrades – Supporting Staircases and Terraces Since Years!


Though seemingly complex, balustrades are a series of tiny columns with rails that line up staircases and terraces. They are usually known for offering security, such as keeping you from tripping over staircases and providing you with a sense of privacy.


To check whether balustrades are of the best quality, check out the following 6 attributes:

  • Selecting the right material: If the balustrades are aren’t made of the appropriate material they may fail to serve their fundamental purpose. For example, metal balustrades provide strength and offer safety on terraces, while the glass balustrades are more suitable for balconies.


  • Selecting the right building codes: Another important part of balustrade manufacturing is ensuring that it adheres to the correct building codes. For example, these codes specify the following with accuracy, protecting the structure from damage:
o applied loads,
o self-weights, and
o dead loads.

Errors in codes could cause the balustrades and dependant elements to malfunction almost immediately.

  • They adhere to compliance standards: If your balustrades aren’t adhering to compliance standards, they will face many future issues. For example, faulty balustrades that are not compliant to fire safety standards will increase the risk of not providing a safe and rapid passage for evacuation in the event of fire.


  • They are developed with the right design partner: It is essential to hire the right balustrade designer and the right partner before proceeding ahead with the manufacturing process. The experience of working with global standards and development of shop drawings for structural elements is paramount. This experience helps them address varying complexities involved in structural specifications.


  • The drawings feature the right visualization: It is essential to visualize the balustrades after design and before their production correctly. The balustrade needs to be visualized accurately as per your needs. The balustrade detail drawings based on CAD enable realistic recreation of the proposed structural models of balustrades. These drawings leverage animation systems for choosing the right parameters and defining key frames as per relevant viewpoints.


  • They should be planned in line with the overall project: It is crucial to properly plan and map out structural needs. One should design and manufacture barriers in line with the other elements of the structure and space. These balustrade drawings for example, can manually instantiate, place, and decorate geometric primitives, dependent on surrounding elements. These elements could be inherent to the balcony space or the internal staircase of an apartment.

How Leveraging CAD drawings can significantly improve your balustrades


CAD drawings can essentially be categorized into two major divisions. 2D CAD drawings and 3D CAD Drawings. Leveraging these two drawing types, TrueCADD can help you significantly improve your balustrades in terms of their sturdiness and quality. Here’s how:

2D CAD drafting and drawings for balustrades

A two-dimensional line drawing that only depicts one face of a structure is known as a 2D CAD drawing. These are the kinds of drawings that were once known as blueprints, and they can still be drawn on a drafting table the old-fashioned way. These drawings can also be extracted from 3D (Three-Dimensional) drawings.

Our efficient 2D CAD drawings comprise:

  • Physical dimensions and tolerances: It is crucial to have accurate depictions of physical dimensions and tolerances in all two-dimensional drawings/ blueprints. The best CAD drawings enable proper communication of the tolerances of each material. Thus, they help in the success in securing the stairs and barriers.


  • Hole sizes, location, and type of threads: Another major component of such drawings, if not followed, can cause major structural errors during production. Identifying the right hole sizes, their location and use of right threads is extremely important.


  • Surface flatness: If your 2D drawing does not carefully consider surface flatness, it can cause major alignment issues in your balustrade services. With our 2D CAD drawings, rest assured the drawings present the right.


  • Surface finish(es) and colour: If not followed correctly, an error in surface finishes and colour can lead to a decrease in the product’s aesthetic appeal and, thus, a decline in customer interaction.


  • Material types: As mentioned previously, if incorrect materials are used to manufacture your balustrade, it can cause major performance issues. These issues also impact shelf-life negatively. The CAD drawings can in effect choose the right materials with the right capacity and strength to make these balustrades secured.


  • Corner radii/critical dimensions: Another important part of 2D CAD drawings is its minute attention to detail. Even if the slightest values of your product’s corner radii/dimensions are missed, it can cause devastating flaws in the manufacturing elements and could lead to a defective balustrade. These critical dimensions also help in keeping in line with the rest of the interiors project.

3D CAD models for balustrades

3D CAD drawings are illustrations of models that depict all of their measurements/data at one given moment. Even though the 3D model isn’t visible on the screen at any one time, it includes all of the dimensional data for the part. As a result, what you see on the screen almost always appears to be a solid object that you can spin and examine from any angle thus, making manageability and manufacturing easier.

Our three-dimensional CAD drawings deliver:

  • Accurate depictions of the product in terms of volume and geometry.
  • A set of raw data integrals for CNC machining.

Importance of CAD Drawings in Balustrade manufacturing


CAD drawings are a modern solution to previously significant manufacturing problems. Here are a few reasons why balustrade drawings are crucial to balustrade production:

  • CAD modelling of balustrades: These CAD models of balustrades efficiently replicate the structure and dimensions that make manufacturing easier.


  • 2D manufacturing shop drawings with BOMs: The shop drawings deliver accurate BOMs with utmost efficiency that deliver optimal manufacturing processes.


  • Easy access to multiple important files: These shop drawings of balustrades provide DXF files featuring flat patterns for sheet metal and NC and CNC files.


  • Clear visibility: These drawings also provide isometric drawings with exploded views that deliver visibility into the bends, curves, handles, and thimbles, helping a lot in the manufacturing process.


  • Simple convertibility: Simple paper drawings can be converted into usable 2D CAD drawings in a user-friendly format for manufacturers.


  • Customizability: Using CAD drawings, the potential for balustrade customization is infinite, presenting opportunities to add patterns, bends, protrusions, and the like.


  • Affordability: These drawings ensure accurate measurements of the balustrades making the manufacturing process prompt and affordable.

Winding Up

Balustrade manufacturers need balustrade detail drawings that are accurate to the specifications. Ideal CAD drawing specialists ensure these drawings are aligned with given specifications, right to their sizes, positioning, material, and style. The accuracy benefits manufacturers to develop perfect balustrades based on their requirements.

About Author:

Usha B. Trivedi is a mechanical design engineer at TrueCADD – a company invested in industrial CAD drafting, modeling, and design automation. Ms. Trivedi writes about solution finding approach in CAD and design automation challenges backed by her years of exploration in industrial designing in furniture, millwork, and metal fabrication designs.