A bit of pre-AutoCAD drafting history

[zars]

AC.....I was expecting to see everything made out of stone.

 

LOL now you're gonna tell me that the cavemen made their drawings with these tools

[ReMark]

I have a chisel, mallet and a slab of granite. God forbid you make a mistake! All that fine stonework gone to waste. Bummer.

[yedan]

i have some of my old rotering pens and pencils somewhere also have a hole template, letter templates and a srew thread and head template, bows compass and of course the old eraser shield

[Geoffers]

the reason we wrinklies keep all this old equipment might just be that although we revel in the high tech stuff, if and when the electricity fails (and it could, see recent events in NO and west of England ) we can bring them out again and the world will be saved! - by us crusty old heroes.

 

get back to sleep grandad

[Guest Alan Cullen]

the reason we wrinklies keep all this old equipment might just be that although we revel in the high tech stuff, if and when the electricity fails (and it could, see recent events in NO and west of England ) we can bring them out again and the world will be saved! - by us crusty old heroes.

 

get back to sleep grandad

 

I'm exempt from returning to the bad old days of manual drafting......no drawing board......just a desk and side table......so when the power goes off, I just sit around and wait for it to come back on. :lol:

[dbroada]

I've even forgotten which end of the pencil you hold. And I'm no longer allowed near razor blades.

[Guest Alan Cullen]

I've even forgotten which end of the pencil you hold. And I'm no longer allowed near razor blades.

 

Can you still buy razor blades ????

 

I remember we used them for scratching out way back when......I kept getting too excited with them and breaking them.....and cutting my fingers......then I would end up with blood on the drawing.....which I then had to scratch off.......

[dbroada]

I don't think a bic disposable would be too good at removing ink from tracing paper would it.

 

Of course, now we are used to CAD everything would be right first time!

 

 

 

 

Which reminds me of some of the early stories about CAD. The users were so proud about how easy it was to change things they found they never completed any jobs. The boss would keep moving things "a little bit to the right" etc. Us on the board would just say "sure - what's the budget".

[Geoffers]

i could cope with razor blades, it was the erasing machine defeated me, allways ended up with holes in the tracing sheet, much too fierce (the machine, not me).

 

my first job at GLC (Greater London Council for you young 'uns) was keeping up to date the 'gold-backs' presentation scheme drawings of a big building opposite Madame Tusaudes (wrong spelling i know). it seems these were lines of real gold deposited on the reverse of the tracing sheet. its the only time i met this process and never learned why it was used. possibly because the lines were 'on' the surface and easily removed; not ink soaked into the fabric ofthe paper?

 

i told you before grandad Geoffers - get back to sleep, or work

[Guest Alan Cullen]

With me it was always, "sure.....come back next week and we'll see how I'm going"......

 

We've actually got an Engineer at the moment who knows how easy it is to change things now....so he is forever changing things to suit how he wants it all.......but I don't cop him that much.....

 

I once told him I was not a tracer......and if he wanted the drafting done to how he wanted it, then he'd better get a tracer.......

 

I also told him not to tell me how to design to suit what he wanted.......either he designed it and used his tracer to draw it....or he accepted my design and presentation......at the moment I'm winning......

[dbroada]

was keeping up to date the 'gold-backs' presentation scheme drawings of a big building opposite Madame Tusaudes (wrong spelling i know). it seems these were lines of real gold deposited on the reverse of the tracing sheet. its the only time i met this process and never learned why it was used.

during my apprenticeship we used a system of "secondary masters" which we called cyclopoles. These were created using the dyeline machine and gave you a clear(ish) print with brown lines on the back, similar I guess to your "goldback". It was the old way of doing a "saveas". The first time I discovered that the "drawing" was on the back was when I drilled right through the film with the erasing machine.

[Guest Alan Cullen]

:lol: ...the good old days of always being on the "learning curve"......

 

I would hate to remember the number of times I drilled through the film....or scatched though it......thank god for "magic tape"...... :lol:

[ReMark]

My first drafting assignment was done in pencil on treated linen. It wasn't until the state department of transportation began the process of using mylar that we too switched over to it.

 

Our procedure for drawing was to flip the mylar over and draw the existing topo on the back with a lightweight pen (#000) then draw the proposed changes on the front with a heavier weight pen (#1). Text for existing objects was done in freehand (remember to slant the lettering) while text for proposed item was done using Leroy lettering templates.

 

Anyone here ever use a pantograph? We had two sizes. The largest of which had to be used on a 48"x84" drafting table. A pantograph allowed the user to enlarge or shrink a drawing by tracing the original with a metal stylus while a piece of lead reproduced the drawing at the proper scale.

 

How about flexible curves and spline holders? Ring any bells? We used to refer to the spline holder as a "whale". And finally, we'd hold down rolled up drawings using "hamburgers". These were round, made of leather, and filled with buck shot.

[Tiger]

I'm really enjoying this!

 

The only experience I have with all this stuff (and it's extremely limited) is that my teacher in my first Arch-course insisted that our first assignment (floorplans for a house, 5 people max 100sqm) had to be done with pen and paper... the following assignments could be done on either paper or in CAD. So I got a bunch of stuff (proper pens, eraser shield, letter and circle templates) to do ONE drawing..... but they are still in my drawer at home and sometimes they do come in handy

[Guest Alan Cullen]

Yeah, mate.....I remember all that stuff.....my dad was the chief draftsman for the Forestry Dept in New Guinea (read the Chief Draftsman for the Gov in New Guinea).....and his office was huge......and he had all that gear.....and when I used to return to New Guinea for term holidays from College in Brisbane....I had to go into his section to work (fortunately on adult wages....which I loved). So, yeah, I gues that's where I got my grounding......

 

pantograph...I haven't heard that term in so many years.......I used to have to do all the that stuff...along with the overhead thingys (can't remember the name) for viewing stereo aerial photographs.....massive bloody machine.......

 

I was there at one time when dad was organising map making using aerial photography......cutting out old xrays from the hospital as templates....putting slots in them from each corner and overlaying them using these special pins to hold the all together.....so they knew how the photos had to line up.......pretty cerfisticated stuff......but primitive compared to today.....

 

Dad also used to get all the salesman coming to New Guinea trying to get contracts for supply (Steadler and all the rest) and they always gave him pen sets, drafting sets etc as samples....and dad always gave them to me....so I was the best equiped bloke at college for tech drawing......

[brassworks]

I'm exempt from returning to the bad old days of manual drafting......no drawing board......just a desk and side table......so when the power goes off, I just sit around and wait for it to come back on. :lol:

 

We've got a few drafting tables still hanging around the place - we use them for layout conferences mostly, and print-collating tables. In the flat-file storage area in our basement, the rubber cut-mats from these tables are now employed as protective layers under which we flatten rolled-up plans for filing, while protecting them from any moisture (we had a leaking in-house drain pipe a few weeks ago - overhead in the basement - so having as-yet unfiled plans under cover was a good idea).

 

Does anyone out there in the Old-Timey World of Hand-Drafting have a railroad ruling pen? Twenty years ago, I could have still bought one new, but they were only sold in pairs (Why pairs? If you've got one, you don't need two.), and at $90(US) for the pair, I couldn't justify the expense for the hobby. So I just draw my parallel lines very carefully.

[Geoffers]

just pulled out a container of 'Pelikan' Pulver for cleaning drawings; powdered pumice i think. i tried to attach a photo but it seems i need html - which i don't know - so no piccy.

i looked on 'Pelikan' site and guess what? they don't sell it anymore.

 

it's marked 4 shillings and 6 pence for the 125grams which seems very expensive for the 70s

 

hey Geoffers, that might work on your screen

[dbroada]

it's marked 4 shillings and 6 pence for the 125grams which seems very expensive for the 70s

depends which end of the 70s. I started on less than £5/week but towards the end we had the "social contract cost of living threshold" where our wages went up each time inflation hit a certain figure. With all wages incresing this month, next months inflation figures would go above the threshold limit so all wages went up that month which meant......

 

I finished my apprentiship and got a pay rise each month for the next 6 months.

 

Even on £5 a week, 22,5p wasn't a great fortune though.

[Geoffers]

i have just realised 4/6 must be before 1971 when we went decimal, ok 1960's then.

 

Geoffers are you really that old? why do i have to work beside you, you old git?

[ReMark]

Got a 6H pencil in the drawer along with my 24" steel straightedge and a "burnisher" for use with Letraset (rub-off) transfer letters. I may even have one good J.S. Staedtler "Mars" 2H Lumograph pencil (pale blue lead) made in Germany in there somewhere too.