Piping Isometric Drawings Creation

SPOOLFAB PIPING ISOMETRIC DRAFTER — DISCOVERY CALL / EXPLORING A POTENTIAL ONGOING RELATIONSHIP (OIL & GAS FABRICATION)

WHAT THIS POSTING IS

This is a discovery post, not a bid request. We are not asking for a formal quote, a firm rate, or a committed turnaround time at this stage. We're simply trying to find out whether experienced SpoolFab drafters are out there who'd be interested in exploring an ongoing subcontract relationship with us, and to have an initial conversation about fit, experience, and general capacity before either side commits to anything. If there's mutual interest, we'll follow up with a real scope of work, you'll propose your pricing against it, and we'll provide a small pilot batch to get started.

ABOUT THE WORK

We are a pipe fabrication shop that bids and builds piping packages for oil & gas well-pad and midstream projects. When we win a package, the customer supplies us with piping isometric drawings (ISOs) as PDF files defining pipe routing, sizes, schedules, materials, fittings, and weld/flange details for each line or spool. Before we can release drawings to our shop floor, every customer ISO needs to be recreated as a native, shop-ready drawing inside SpoolFab, our fabrication drafting software.

We're looking to eventually bring on an experienced piping isometric drafter who already knows SpoolFab inside and out, for what we hope becomes an ongoing subcontract relationship — not a single short-term gig. As we continue winning packages over time, we'd want to keep sending new batches of ISOs to recreate, indefinitely, batch after batch. Right now we're just exploring whether that kind of partner exists and is interested, before we formalize anything.

WHY SPOOLFAB, AND WHERE SOLIDWORKS FITS IN

Our interest in SpoolFab specifically comes down to how easy it is to work in and how low the cost of entry is for a subcontractor — you don't need an expensive seat or a steep learning curve to get productive in it, which matters a lot to us for an ongoing, flexible relationship like this. That said, we also use SolidWorks internally, so if you feel SolidWorks is a viable way to produce the same kind of shop-ready isometric/spool output, and you already hold the necessary SolidWorks license and have genuine interest in this work, please express interest as well — we're open to hearing that case.

WHY WE'RE EXPLORING THIS

This is real production work that would feed directly into our fabrication schedule. Once a package is awarded to us, we typically have about two weeks before production must begin on the shop floor, so turnaround speed matters a lot to how we'd eventually structure this. We're not asking you to commit to a lead time in this post — we just want to understand, in general terms, whether your availability and experience could realistically support that kind of pace before we go further.

WHAT THE WORK WOULD LOOK LIKE, IF WE MOVE FORWARD

If this turns into a working relationship, the scope would generally include:

1. Recreating each customer piping isometric — provided as a native, CAD-exported PDF — as a true SpoolFab fabrication drawing, matching the source ISO's pipe size, schedule, material specification, fittings, weld and flange call-outs, and all dimensions exactly.

2. Generating the SpoolFab-native outputs for each isometric under our shop's configuration — spool breakdowns, cut lists, and BOM exports, as applicable.

3. Handling sub-spool breakdowns. After we deliver an initial recreated ISO, we may redline it ourselves to break it down into multiple smaller sub-spools for fabrication or shipping reasons. When that happens, you'd create a separate SpoolFab drawing for each resulting sub-spool as its own line of work.

4. Flagging problems instead of guessing through them. Customer-supplied isometrics aren't always perfect — dimensions can be missing, BOMs can be inconsistent with what's drawn, or a callout can be ambiguous. We'd want any of that flagged clearly with a specific question rather than an assumption pushed through to the shop floor.

HOW WE'D EXPECT TO START

Rather than throwing a large, unfamiliar batch of live work at a new drafter on day one, we'd want to start with a small pilot batch of maybe 10 to 20 ISOs pulled from packages we've already won and completed in the past. That would let us confirm you can produce clean, correct SpoolFab output matching our shop's conventions, work out file naming and hand-off logistics, and build real trust in turnaround and quality before scaling up to live, time-sensitive batches. None of that starts from this post — it's simply the shape of what would come next if there's mutual interest.

HOW WE'D EXPECT TO PRICE THIS, EVENTUALLY

We anticipate structuring pricing so it scales fairly with how much work is actually in a given isometric — tiered by the number of line items in that isometric's bill of materials (BOM), roughly: small (1-9 items), medium (10-25 items), and large (26+ items) — plus a separate rate for sub-spool breakdown work created after an initial ISO is redlined for splitting. We are not asking for your specific numbers in this post. If you have a general sense of your typical range for this kind of work, feel free to mention it, but it's optional and non-binding at this stage — we're not comparing bids here.

QUALITY EXPECTATIONS, IN GENERAL TERMS

Longer term, our approach to quality would be straightforward: if a delivered isometric or sub-spool contains an error you introduced, you'd correct it at no additional charge, since that's a normal part of careful drafting work, not a penalty. That wouldn't apply if the source drawing itself was ambiguous and you'd flagged it before drafting, or if we later redline something that was correctly drafted the first time — both of those would be new work, not free rework. We're mentioning this now just so you know how we think about the relationship, not because we need you to agree to it yet.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR IN THIS CONVERSATION

Required:
- Direct, hands-on production experience with SpoolFab, OR with SolidWorks if you currently hold your own SolidWorks license and can produce equivalent shop-ready isometric/spool output. AutoCAD, CADWorx, or PPO experience is good background but not a substitute on its own — we need someone already fluent in one of our actual working tools, not someone learning it on our drawings.
- Strong isometric-reading fundamentals: pipe specifications, ASME B31.3 and B31.8-style fabrication conventions, weld symbols, flange ratings and classes, and bend/cut data.
- Comfort working entirely from PDF source files — we have no native CAD files from the customer to hand you.
- Genuine interest in an ongoing relationship rather than a one-off project, since that's what we're ultimately trying to build.

Nice to have:
- Prior experience on oil & gas well-pad or skid piping packages, since our drawings follow those conventions.
- Experience producing shop-floor-ready spool sheets for an actual fabrication shop, not design/EPC-side isometric drafting.

WHAT WE'D LIKE FROM YOU RIGHT NOW

This is a low-commitment first step for both of us. Please reach out with:

1. Which software you'd be working in — SpoolFab or SolidWorks — and confirmation that you currently hold the license/software yourself and have real, hands-on production experience with it, plus roughly how long you've been using it.
2. A sample of an isometric or spool drawing you've personally produced in that software, if you're able to share one (redact any confidential customer information).
3. A general sense of your current availability and capacity — not a firm number, just whether taking on an ongoing subcontract relationship like this is realistic for you.
4. Whether you'd be interested in a short conversation to talk through how this might work before either of us commits to anything.

We're not evaluating applications on price or speed at this stage — we're just trying to find out who's out there, genuinely experienced in SpoolFab or SolidWorks, and open to exploring a long-term working relationship. If there's a fit, we'll define a real scope of work, you'll propose your pricing against it, and we'll provide a small pilot batch to get started.