Abstract:
An apparatus for securing and drawing upon a piece of paper, includes a board having a drawing surface sized to receive the paper. The drawing surface is bounded along its perimeter by a border region. An array of border pieces is fastened securely to the border region, each border piece being aligned relative to the others to establish a precisely sized drawing surface area to accommodate the paper. Each border piece has a length shorter than that of the corresponding edge of the drawing surface.

Description:
The application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/633,436 filed Feb. 11, 2012 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/743,474 filed Sep. 5, 2012, and the entire contents of both applications are incorporated by reference herein. 
    
    
     This invention relates to drafting or drawing boards, to drawing instruments, and to related apparatus and, in particular, instruments to facilitate learning the skills and techniques of mechanical drawing. 
     The making of engineering and manufacturing drawings is conventionally done by draftsmen working with appropriate mechanical or computerized apparatus. Acquiring the skills necessary for proficient use of such apparatus necessarily requires access to apparatus that teach the techniques used in producing an image of an object on paper or computer. Where the object is to be drawn on paper, rulers, compass, triangles and the like are used to produce the image, Mechanical drawing apparatus is typically expensive, cumbersome, and too expensive for many schools to acquire for their pupils. Hence, the number of people, school-aged children in particular, who are exposed at an early age to technical drawing principles, is limited. 
     There is a need for a simpler, smaller, more cost effective instrument for instructing and performing fundamental drafting techniques, which techniques form the basis for proficient use of computer-based drafting tools. 
    
    
     
       DRAWINGS 
       The invention is illustrated by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: 
         FIG. 1  is an overhead view of the drawing board configured in accordance with the present invention; 
         FIG. 2  is a perspective view of the drawing board of  FIG. 1 , showing a piece of drawing paper turned up at a corner; 
         FIG. 3  is an edge view of the drawing board of FIG 
         FIG. 4  is a enlarged view of a portion of  FIG. 3  within the circ area approximated by line A-A; and 
         FIG. 5  is a perspective view of one corner of one embodiment of a drawing board having a tapered corner area with recessed areas used for grasping the drawing paper. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     According to a first feature of the present invention there is provided drawing apparatus  100  comprising a board  110  having drawing surface  101  bordered partially on each side by raised border pieces  102  or edges fixed to an edge of the board  110  to accurately and securely position a piece of paper  103  (See  FIG. 2 ) in preparation for drafting. In a common configuration shown in  FIGS. 1 &amp; 2 , the drawing surface  101  is sized to accommodate a piece of paper  103  measuring 8 ½″×11.″ The apparatus  100  can be sized, of course, to accommodate any number of paper sizes. 
     As shown in  FIG. 4 , the border pieces  102  are attached to the drawing surface  101  to serve as guides for drawing instruments such as triangle  106 . They are positioned such that when a piece of paper  103  is placed on the surface  101 , the four pieces together serve to locate and hold the paper in place for drawing purposes The border pieces  102  are sized and positioned such that their ends do not meet at the corners, thereby leaving an open area  105  at each corner of the drawing surface  101 . Each open area  105  is large enough to enable triangles and rulers to extend beyond the drawing surface  101  to not limit the effective drawing area on the paper. That is, the open areas  105  allow triangles or other instruments to be more freely manipulated within the drawing surface  101  without contacting and being restrained from movement by the border pieces  102 . This is illustrated in  FIG. 2 , where the triangle  106  is shown with one of its comers extending through one of the corners  105 . 
     The open corners  105  of the apparatus  100  effectively maximize the area of the paper  103  available for precision drawing with given instruments by increasing the range over which instruments can be manipulated on the paper  103 . The border pieces  102  are long enough, however, to guide drawing instruments even when a given drawing tool is positioned such that a large portion is outside of the drawing surface  101 . 
     A wide variety of drawing instruments may be selected to form part of a set or kit of instruments. Triangles, rulers, and curved instruments are sized to accommodate the size of the drawing board so as to easily utilize the entire drawing surface without being cumbersome. Triangles are provided in 45/45/90 and 30/60/90 angle configurations, with popularly-sized circles molded into the triangles so the user can readily create circles of the most commonly used sizes and draw lines at the most commonly used angles. A rectangular “spacer” piece can be used in conjunction with the triangles to provide more range of use of the triangles across the entire board. 
     In one particular embodiment of the present invention, the border pieces  102  fastened to the short sides of the rectangular drawing board are shortened as much as possible to maximize the range of use of a given drawing instrument by allowing for more of the instrument to overhang the edge of the drawing board. 
     In an alternative, a compartment located on the back side of the board is used to store drawing instruments. Using common practices and fasteners, such as hook &amp; loop, such a compartment can be configured to attach to slots on the back of the board  110  for easy removal from the board  110  when the board  110  is being used. 
     The board can be efficiently manufactured from durable ABS plastic using an injection molding process. It can also be assembled using a durable material such as Masonite®. If molding the board from ABS plastic, it is known in the industry to include an additive in the molten plastic that reduces the amount of static electricity in the molded plastic. For a drawing board, having a charge of static electricity present has been found to be beneficial in that it can provide an effective method of holding a piece of paper  103  in place on the board  110 . This allows the board  110  to be held at any angle while drawing. Accordingly, when fabricating the board from ABS plastic, foregoing such an additive is recommended. 
     In practice, before placing paper  103  on the board  110 , generating static electricity in the board  110  is easily accomplished by rubbing the board  110  on the user&#39;s clothing for 10-15 seconds. This process generates enough static electricity to attract and hold the piece of paper  103  so that the user can hold the board in many orientations without fear that the paper  103  will fall from the board  110 . 
     As can be seen in  FIG. 5 , each open corner  205  of drawing apparatus  200  has a small recessed area  208  to facilitate removal of the paper  103 . The recesses  208  are located such that when a piece of paper is placed on the apparatus  200 , the corners of the paper are positioned above respective recessed areas  208 , thereby creating a gap between the board and the paper  103  so that the corner of the paper  103  can be easily grasped. This is especially useful when the paper  103  is attracted to the board by static electricity as mentioned above. In addition, the corner of the board can be designed with an outward (or inward) taper, illustrated as an angle  212 , measured from the line parallel to the drawing surface  201 . An angle is chosen such that when a sheet of paper  103  is in place on the apparatus  200 , a gap exists between the corners of the paper  103  and the board. This gap, which is made larger when combined with space created by a recess  203 , allows the paper  103  to be easily grasped for removal. 
     It is noted that an open area  205  in this embodiment of the drawing apparatus exists for the same purpose as in other embodiments of the invention. The open area can be varied in size by altering the length of the border pieces  202 . Shorter border pieces  202  create a larger corner gap  205 , which in turn allows larger drawing tools to be used on the board. It has been found helpful to use a board with longer border pieces  202  when the board is being used by younger people because the longer border pieces provides a wider, more stable base for the drawing tools. 
     The various components can be made of metals, plastics, composites, other materials or combinations thereof, and the dimensions, shapes, tolerances and configurations can be altered as desired. Any of the various aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein can be combined in different combinations to create new embodiments within the scope of the invention.