Structural Steel Detailing Services for US Fabricators

Structural steel detailing is the step between the design drawings and the shop floor. The detailer models every beam, column, brace and connection, then produces the shop drawings, erection drawings, NC files and reports that show how each piece is cut, drilled, welded, marked, shipped and set in place.

Design drawings give member sizes, grades and connection requirements, not cut lengths, copes or hole gauges. Detailing adds those dimensions, plus the piece marks, ship marks and minor marks that track each part from the saw to its grid location.

A structural package covers the primary frame: beams, girders, columns, bracing and the connections between them, detailed to the design of the Engineer of Record (EOR). Column base plates are detailed with the column assemblies, anchor rod layouts are added where in scope, and miscellaneous steel on the same job can share the model.

Vertex details connections as designed or specified by the EOR or a delegated connection engineer, without taking design responsibility; a connection the drawings leave undefined becomes an RFI. See connection detailing and miscellaneous steel detailing.

A structural package produces shop drawings, erection drawings, an SDS/2 3D model, NC files, bolt lists, material takeoffs and a submittal package. All of them come from one model revision, so piece marks, quantities and hole locations agree across the drawings, the purchasing reports and the files your machines cut from.

Sheet contents are covered under steel shop drawings and erection drawings.

Drawings are prepared in accordance with AISC 303, the Code of Standard Practice for Steel Buildings and Bridges, and AISC 360, the Specification for Structural Steel Buildings, with bolted joints shown to the RCSC Specification and welds shown with AWS A2.4 symbols. Where the contract documents set other requirements, they govern.

Under AISC 303, the owner's designated representative for design reviews and approves the drawings. Approval confirms the design was interpreted correctly; detailed dimensions and fit-up stay the fabricator's responsibility. AISC standards for steel detailing goes deeper.

Send the contract drawings, specifications, addenda, the current RFI log, your shop standards, your NC file format, the schedule and the planned erection sequence. The first review turns them into a scope confirmation, a list of open questions, an hour estimate and a schedule before modeling starts.

Open items are held or flagged, not assumed, and drafted as RFIs for you to submit to the EOR or architect.

Each package runs from intake through SDS/2 modeling, model review and drawing production to an independent check, an approval issue and a fabrication issue. Every drawing is checked by a second person who did not draw it, and approval comments come back as a clouded, re-checked revision.

1. Intake: scope, questions, hour estimate, schedule.
2. RFIs: drafted for you to submit.
3. Modeling: members, grades and connections from the design drawings.
4. Model review: SDS/2 clash review and comparison with the design drawings.
5. Drawings and reports: sheets, bolt lists, takeoffs, NC files, submittal package.
6. Independent check: against design drawings, specifications, RFI responses and shop standards; corrections back-checked.
7. Issue for approval: Rev A on the reference project.
8. Approval comments: incorporated, clouded, re-checked.
9. Issue for fabrication: Rev 0, with NC files and reports regenerated from the same model revision.
10. Post-release revisions: clouds, revision log, re-issued sheets and NC files.

The steel detailing process and how drawings are checked cover each stage in detail.

India Standard Time (IST) is 9 hours 30 minutes ahead of US Eastern Daylight Time, so the team's working day falls during the US night. Markups and questions sent at the end of your business day can be worked while your shop is closed and returned for next-morning review.

IST has no daylight saving time, so add one hour to each offset during US standard time.

The rhythm suits work sized to a working day: markups, revisions, RFI drafts and check corrections. Full packages move through several cycles. Same-hour answers during the US afternoon are limited, so batch written questions before your day ends. Outsourcing also costs your project manager's review time and first-job onboarding to your shop standards. See detailing support for steel fabricators.

Running one platform means the team works in the same environment every day instead of switching tools per project. Detailers know how SDS/2's connection design automation behaves and how its drawings, reports and CNC exports are configured, and that knowledge carries from one structural job to the next.

• Connection design automation speeds detailing; design responsibility stays with the EOR or delegated connection engineer.
• Automatic details for members, assemblies, submaterial and erection views.
• Clash detection before drawings are extracted.
• Reports including bolt lists and bills of material.
• Exports: DSTV (NC1) for CNC equipment, KISS for fabrication management software, IFC for model coordination.

The lead detailer has 8 years of SDS/2 experience. See SDS/2 detailing and 3D modeling.

Structural steel detailing is billed at a published rate of $15–20 per hour, depending on project complexity. Intake produces an hour estimate before modeling starts, so you see the expected hours and the rate together. Where a package falls in the range depends on its connections, miscellaneous steel content, revision volume and schedule.

Steel detailing rates explains the range and compares it with in-house detailing cost.

The team has completed five projects, and one can be described publicly: an airport terminal rehabilitation and addition in New England, detailed for an AISC-certified fabricator. The package covered HSS frame assemblies with structural thermal breaks at the frame-to-structure connections, with six days between the approval issue and the fabrication issue.

See the airport terminal thermal break framing case study and thermal break detailing.