What Is Miscellaneous Steel Detailing?
Structural steel detailing covers the frame: beams, columns, bracing and connections. Miscellaneous steel detailing covers everything else made of steel that isn't part of the main frame, and on most jobs it is the long list of small pieces that takes the most drawings per ton.
A misc steel detailer draws each piece so the shop can cut, drill, weld and finish it, then draws erection drawings so the field knows where it goes. Miscellaneous steel detailing services are often sold separately from structural detailing, because the work is many small custom pieces instead of repeated members.
How Misc Steel Detailing Works
- Approval drawings go to the general contractor and the architect or engineer for review
- RFIs (requests for information) settle what the contract drawings leave open, such as rail heights, stair widths and finishes
- Shop drawings give the fabricator every cut, hole, weld and finish
- Erection drawings show where each piece goes and how it attaches
- Cut lists and a bill of materials go to the shop for purchasing and nesting
Detailing vs Estimating Misc Steel
| Misc Steel Detailing | Misc Steel Estimating | |
|---|---|---|
| When | After award, before fabrication | Before the bid goes in |
| Starts from | Approved contract drawings and answered RFIs | The bid package |
| Output | Shop and erection drawings | Quantities, weight, labor and a price |
| Level of detail | Every hole, weld and cut | Every piece, by type and size |
The estimate has to price pieces nobody has drawn yet, which is why miscellaneous metals bids carry so much risk. A rail shown as one typical detail can turn into hundreds of feet with dozens of terminations once it is detailed, and finishes such as hot-dip galvanizing are priced by weight across all of it.
How The Takeoff AI Handles Misc Steel
The Takeoff AI reads the architectural, structural and civil drawings along with the specification, and takes off the miscellaneous steel end to end. It counts stairs, rails, ladders, embeds and grating, measures every length and works out the weight, then prices the material takeoff (MTO) and labor takeoff (LTO) into a priced bill of materials (BOM), including galvanizing and hot-dip galvanizing, at your own rates.
It builds a 3D model from the 2D drawings, so you can see where each piece sits, and its nesting fits cuts onto stock lengths to cut material waste. It is trained on more than 1 million drawing sets and runs at 95% accuracy. 113 estimators say The Takeoff AI is the best misc steel estimating platform they have used, and it helps them estimate projects in 3 to 4 hours that once took 40 to 50 hours.
