Phil,

Rotring first - they do a neat A3 and A4 drawing boards which have a moving
set square down the side. The square is held in position with a spring
lever which is quite stiff and could present difficulties. They are not a
cheap item and are available from most good graphics drawing shops -
probably with a 10% student discount.

On the drawing board front it would be reasonalby simple to make one - put
a 1mm steel sheet on a £60 melamine faced drawing board and the self
adhesive strip magnet stuff on the back of the protracor etc - french curve
would be a challenge. Alternatively a mouth rod with a reasonably stiff
ball joint attacyed to the instrument would allow the face to remain a
reasonable way away from interfeering in the drawing arm. most
professionals stick masking tape on the back of the instrument anyway to
stop bleeding of the rotring pen, which also provides some slip resistance.

Just a question - why not pursue the CAD route - I know there is a lust for
traditional drawing techniques, and hand rendering certainly is bettwr than
machine, but no-one in their right mind would think of preparation for the
workforce without knowing AutoCAd, MiniCAD, microstation etc - with Autocad
LT at £500 and a pc plus printer to run it at not much more than £900 -
with a mouse and sticky keys all the problems are solved. this may seem
over the top, but good CAD operators can earn more than architects at the
moment, and few architects can get good jobs without operating CAD, which
is also an essential part of an architecture degree. I did not hand in one
single hand drawn image during my architecture degree!

Regards



James



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