Steel Detailing Process: From Contract Drawings to Fabrication Release

There are eight stages, from the moment you send documents to revisions after fabrication release. The table shows what you send, what happens and what you receive at each one. The old three-step summary of review, model and deliver still holds; this is what sits inside it.

When you send a package, the team reviews your contract drawings, specifications, addenda and shop standards against the scope you describe. The output is a scope confirmation, a list of open questions and missing information, an hour estimate against the $15–20 per hour range, and a proposed schedule. Modeling does not start until scope is agreed.

Inputs at intake

• Structural and architectural contract drawings, with addenda
• Specification sections for structural steel and metal fabrications
• The RFI log and any responses to date
• Shop standards: piece-mark conventions, sheet templates, connection preferences, bill of material format, NC file format
• Target dates for the approval submittal and fabrication release, and the erection sequence if one exists

Outputs from intake

• Confirmed scope, including the split between structural and miscellaneous steel
• Open questions, drafted as RFIs where they need the design team
• An hour estimate and schedule

Packages can be sent through the project inquiry form. How the estimate turns into a cost is explained on the pricing page.

Vertex drafts RFIs with sheet, grid and detail references and sends them to you; you submit them through your contractual channel to the Engineer of Record or architect. Detailing continues on areas the question does not affect. Pieces that depend on an open answer are held or clearly flagged on the drawings, never detailed on an assumption.

Every RFI goes into a log with the question, references, date sent, status and answer. When an answer comes back, the affected pieces are updated and the change is checked before release. Writing questions so they can be answered without a phone call matters more across a time-zone offset than it does in the same office.

The SDS/2 model is built from the design drawings: grids and elevations first, then members with their sizes and material grades, then connections input to the Engineer of Record's design and your shop standards, then miscellaneous steel. Your piece-mark conventions, drawing templates, bill of material format and NC settings are set up before drawings are extracted.

Keeping structural and miscellaneous steel in one model means a stair stringer and the beam it hangs from share coordinates, and a canopy connection is detailed once rather than reconciled across two sets. It also means shop drawings, erection drawings, bolt lists, material takeoffs and NC files all come from one source. The SDS/2 detailing page covers how the platform is used in more depth.

Before any drawing goes out, the model is reviewed against the design drawings and clash-reviewed in SDS/2, then every sheet is checked by a second person who did not draw it, against the design drawings, specifications, RFI responses and shop standards. The detailer corrects each markup and the checker back-checks the corrections before the sheet is released.

The full checking sequence, the sheet-by-sheet checklist and how revisions are controlled are on the quality control page. The short version: nothing leaves without a second reader, and nothing corrected leaves without that reader confirming the correction.

Checked drawings are issued as an approval submittal, typically with a letter revision such as Rev A. The Engineer of Record or architect reviews them under your contract and the approval provisions of AISC 303, and returns comments. Comments are incorporated in the model, clouded on the drawings, re-checked and resubmitted or released for fabrication, as the reviewer directs.

On the reference project, Rev A was issued for approval on September 3, 2026, and Rev 0 was issued for fabrication and field use on September 9, 2026: six days between the two issues. That was a single package, and the six days included the reviewers' time as well as the detailing work, so treat it as one data point rather than a schedule promise. The case study describes the package.

The fabrication release is a set issued from one model revision, typically numbered Rev 0: shop drawings with assembly and part details, erection drawings, shop and field bolt lists, material takeoffs and NC files, with a transmittal listing every sheet and its revision. Because everything comes from the same revision, the drawings, reports and machine files agree.

A revision after release starts with a change document: an architect's supplemental instruction, a bulletin, or an RFI response that changes the design. The model is updated, affected sheets are clouded and their revision advanced, the change is re-checked, and the sheets are reissued with regenerated bolt lists and NC files. The revision log records what changed and why.

Revision volume is one of the factors that sets where a package falls in the rate range, and design changes during detailing add hours. Both are covered on the steel detailing rates page.

The team works in India Standard Time, which is 9 hours 30 minutes ahead of US Eastern Daylight Time. Markups and answers sent by the end of the US workday are waiting when the team's day begins, and work sized to a working day comes back for the next US morning's review. Same-afternoon answers are limited.

A package of any size moves through many of these cycles, so the offset shapes the rhythm rather than the total duration. What drives total duration, including document completeness, RFI response times and review cycles, is covered in steel detailing turnaround times.

Communication runs in writing: email to start the conversation at sales@vertexsteeldetailing.com, written RFIs with sheet and grid references, marked-up PDFs for comments, and transmittals with every issue. Writing things down suits a time-zone offset, and it leaves a record of every question, answer and change that anyone on your team can pick up.

One point of contact on your side for scope questions and RFI answers keeps the cycle moving. When approvals, answers and change documents arrive through one person, nothing waits in someone else's inbox.