This job is all about metals, machines and tools. Your tasks range from metalworking and the manufacture of components and finished metal products to the production and monitoring of entire machines and systems.

During your apprenticeship, you will learn how to work with metals and other materials using various techniques such as drilling, sawing, bending, welding, soldering, gluing, turning, milling, etc., how to use special tools, and how to maintain and repair machines.

You create technical drawings, produce final artwork and ensure that the drawings are corrected, copied and stored. Technical drawings include, for example, working drawings of molds and metal items, detailed and assembly drawings of systems and machines, plans of steel structures, as well as wiring and circuit diagrams. These are required in steel, mechanical and plant engineering. In addition to conventional drawing instruments such as compasses, rulers, tables, fonts and drawing templates, the computer (CAD computer-aided design) has become the central working tool in recent years.

As a technical draftsman, you take on the role of a link between the designers and the workshop. On the basis of the data and drafts provided by the project planning, you produce a detailed, precise and standard-compliant drawing for the manufacture of machines and systems. A complete technical drawing contains data on the shape, size and dimensions of the component shown, on the material to be used, on the surfaces to be machined (e.g. drilling, turning, milling) and on the number of pieces to be produced.

• Standard-compliant production of hand drawings (in vocational school)
• Participation in project team meetings
• Developing projects in working groups
• Creating technical documents, such as sketches and production drawings
• Designing machines and systems using 3D drawing programs