You know your an old draughtsman when...

[welldriller]

Hi CyberAngel Now that you mention it I think you are correct about the 64 kilobytes. Short on tiome right now but will be back later tonight (I think).

 

FOR INFORMATION ONLY: Walmart -> Koh-i-Noor adhesive DRAFTING DOTS with 7/8" diameter white 500 to a box

You order them on line -- have them shipped to your local stoor free of freight charges

OFFICE DEPOT -> Steedtler artist tape 3/4" X 360" white Item #609696 $3.59

 

SEARS ROEBUCK & CO. -> To many types and brands of drafting tape to list here.

 

NOTE: If The local store does not have the items on the shelf -- most stores now days will have it shipped to their store

and no freight charges, but you need to check with them to be sure.

 

Got to go for now

[CAD'n'Briar]

...And I heard the part about smoking was allowed. There always seemed to be some guy in the engineering room who had to smoke a pipe and the room was filled with vanilla smelling tobacco....

 

Dear Bill Tillman:

 

Dave "CAD'n'Briar" here, with my first post...and the "briar" part of my handle DOES refer to my 39+ years of ongoing pipe enjoyment (with a very "rarely occasional" Dominican cigar, of seriously generous dimensions, from time to time here at home), something that goes great with a serious ACAD or DesignCAD session ("DC" is an affordably priced CAD environment, that I've been around as long as I've used ACAD!) on my home PC to keep my skills up after five YEARS of unemployment, and even well before then. To expand my skill set, though, I'm even teaching myself the basics of SolidWorks 2000 (since mid-2011) when time permits these days on my home PC when not practicing with ACAD or DC, as I've got that, too.

 

When I learned drafting (as a career change away from "strictly electronic manufacturing" work) at a small institute in Cambridge, MA in 1990-91, pipe enjoyment was still OK in the entry area of that small school (not in the classroom, of course), and enjoying my briars in the entry area was quite OK at that time, even in a "barely-indoor" situation. I first had to start enjoying my briars out in my car in the mid-to-late 1980s while at work before the workday started, and during break-times and lunch, and I've been completely fine with doing that ever since...but being WITHOUT work from the recession since September 2008 has NOT been a fun time.

 

Regarding doing manual drafting, the skills I learned in doing THAT just over two decades ago were critically important in getting my first (and so far only) drafting job in August/September 1997. I worked for eleven years doing manual and AutoCAD with the firm that's now known as UC/Synergetic, at their former office location in Norwood, MA. Their line of work, as a "consulting" firm, was partly wrapped up in working on client firms' telephone network drawings for telcom providers like Verizon, which was my "bread'n'butter" while I was there.

 

During the first three years there — before I started doing my work in AutoCAD 13 & 14, from July 2000 through to the end of the week that Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008 — once in a great while I DID run into ancient, coated linen "plats", as the telephone network drawings (both manual and CAD) were all called. Many of the so-called linen "plats" were so "ancient", that they dated from just about a century back in time, when Verizon was called "New England Telephone" in the Ma Bell days. The very same varnished tool box I had made up with thin birch plywood, to hold all of the manual drafting tools I had used in that small tech institute in Cambridge, MA got brought in every day for my work at the time - and is still very much in sight of me whenever I get up out of my computer workdesk's chair here at home.

 

Before I realized it, by the start of 1998 everyone was marveling at my apparently "innate" ability to draw EVERY single letter of text on any manual drafting document from Verizon that I worked on, completely WITHOUT any form of lettering guide whatsoever. And not long after people began to notice the fact I was not using any "lettering guide" of any sort, that single fact about my manual drafting skills earned me the nickname "the human plotter"...no kidding.

 

In fact, I still have that degree of skill, as any handwritten job application I've filled out at a potential employer's office seems to still earn similar appreciative comments on a continuing basis...so I'd have to guess it IS a natural for me to do printed text that decently.

 

Perhaps it's those nearly four decades of "ongoing-ly" quiet indulgence from my pipe enjoyment at home that's kept me somewhat sane during that ongoing job search, since the recession's outbreak half a decade ago — I'll never doubt that as being likely, and I'm always mindful that to enjoy a bowlful in a briar properly, I can't bother anyone with it, either — something that's made enjoying a briarful a much easier thing to do.

 

There was quite a sizable number of other situations "from the manual drafting past" that I recognized in this thread's earlier posts, too, as I was never very far from the engineering areas in any electronic manufacturing situation I worked in. I clearly remember one pipe-fan draftsman in the late 1970s, at one of my earliest electronics workplaces, who held his briar together with drafting tape after the shank-to-stem joint on his oldest briar got too loose to stay snug by itself. There was also an engineer in the same firm (that "went under" at the end of the 1970s, just over a year after I left it) whose handsome-looking, well-dimensioned straight-stem briar, always had way too much "perique" blend (the most potent varietal tobacco around, from Louisiana) in the mixture, that actually had the same "Pemberton" name for the blend as his family name. That mixture in his briar was SO strong, it nearly knocked everyone over whenever he lit it up in the late 1970s, described by some at that long-ago firm as smelling somewhat like a peat-soaked inner tube.

 

I stay away from such strong mixtures myself, though...perique blends are simply too strong for yours truly, but I DO remember a lot of those experiences I had with other drafters and engineers, and the manual drafting that I could still do if ever called upon to do so....

 

...but CAD is SOOO much easier to work with !!!

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

CAD'n'Briar.....!!

[PotGuy]

I got this email a while ago, Maybe not AutoCAD museum, well I guess it had to start somewhere! All before my time but I'm sure some of you might find it relevant!

 

You know you are an old Draughtsman when............................

You know how to control line weights by rolling your pencil. Yup

You know that a French curve isn't a grade change on a language exam. Yup

You've erased sepias with chemicals. Nup

You've had a roll of toilet paper on your drafting board. Nup

You remember when templates were plastic and not a type of electronic

file. Nup

You know what sandpaper on a stick is for. Yup

You know that compasses draw circles and are not used to find the

North Pole. Yup

You remember the head rush from the smell of ammonia. Nup

You own a roll of masking tape so dried out, it will never be tape

again. Nup

You've done cut and paste with scissors and sticky back. Nup

You've etched your initials into your tools. Yup

You have had a brush tied to your drafting board. Nup

You've come home with black sleeves. Nup

You've made hooks out of paper clips to attach to your lamp. Yup

You know an eraser shield isn't a Norton program. Yup

You've used "fixative" spray. Nup

You've had a middle-finger callous harder than bone. Nup

You have a permanent spine curvature from bending over your table. Nup

You could also smoke in the office Nup

You could put the 'page 3' calendar up in a prime location with no one

complaining Yup

There were a lot of 'cowboys' about but now it's all Indians Nup

The Evening News printed the words "Piping Designers wanted" on a

Wednesday Nup

Agents didn't sound like spotty kids Yup

You'd change jobs for an extra 50c Nup

You'd have a set of blunt razor blades but not for shaving Nup

You'd have the 'taste' of an old white rubber on your tongue Nup

You'd be able to speak to the engineers in English Yup

There'd be more than one way to sneak back into the office after lunch Yup

You'd actually do a time sheet on a Friday Yup

You learnt to fold an A0 drawing to get the title on the front Yup

You'd have to be nice to the print room staff Yup

You had to find new ways of persuading the stationary bloke to give

you a pencil Yup

The old Doris in the office looked like she was 'chewing a wasp' Yup

There were NO old draughtsmen Yup

You also were accurate from 100 paces with an elastic band. Yup

Your personal phone calls were in front of the chief draughtsman. Yup

You went to the pub most lunchtimes. Yup

Friday afternoons were spent colouring in. Yup

There was an office junior. Yup

Everybody hated the same person. Yup

The chief draughtsman wore overalls with ink stains on the pocket. Nup

And your timesheet bore no relevance to the hours you had worked!! (Well....something's don't change!!!) Yup

 

Wow. I'm 18 and I can say yes to more than a few.

[Eurodude]

LOL I've been on the buttons so long I forgot how to do joined up writing and can no longer write neat capitals either.

 

Last time I saw 55 was on someone's front door and if I took a post in a UK design office now I would probably still be the tea-boy.

 

Nice post (for those of us who started when windows were made of glass with wood around the edges and the only guy with a carbon footprint was Santa-Claus.)

[ayethzerothree]

and also...

you dont write a letter without the guidelines. . ..

[Dinochrome]

I have an oak drafting table and a K&E drafting machine at home.

[ROBP]

You also know your an old draftmen if you still purchase white out liquid by the gallon and use a larger brush to hide things.

If you still have lines not meeting in corners and have alot of red circles when corrections comes back.

If you looking to replace the transperent edges on the T bar because of the wiggly lines on the plans because you used it for cutting with the x-acto knife.

 

If you still have layouts with sepia colored tint all around the edges in your study.

 

If you remember the koh-inor ink bottle with the pump action cap.

 

If you still send copies on the faxed machine that was copied over and over again and rounded shapes are now oval ones.

 

If you cant find replacement parts for your xerox copier.

[Oldtimer]

Hi guys, I'm a newbie here but couldn't pass up the chance to post on here. I didn't read all the posts but one thing I have not seen is:

"You know you're an old draughtsman if you know how to use a Leroy lettering set."

I've been in the civil field since 1975 when I started with a surveyor right out of high school. I learned CAD in 1986 on Acad v2.6 and then we got DCA with version 2.9 and a Calcomp 8 pen plotter. Ah, the good old days...

[f700es]

if you know how to use a Leroy lettering set

 

Ewww, Leroy fonts. Good one.

Welcome to CADTutor BTW

[ReMark]

I still have my own personal Leroy Lettering Set I purchased as a draftsman for C.E. Maguire. The case is a little dusty now but it still has every lettering guide and the scribe along with a spare ink holder.

 

Welcome to CADTutor "Oldtimer".

[tzframpton]

Ewww, Leroy fonts.

Haha, I had to Google that one....

 

If anyone's interested: http://www.ebay.com/bhp/leroy-lettering

[ReMark]

I have the "vintage" set in the green plastic case. Really wish I had the one in the wood case.

 

Oh and I have the pen holder too!

 

Reminds me I have a beam compass with an attachment that could accept a technical pen along with the original lead holder and ruling pen nib for ink. I bet you're all jealous!

[Oldtimer]

Thanks guys, good to be here. Looks like a fine forum. The reason I signed up was because the forum here provided me with an answer to a minor issue I was having. Hopefully I can contribute in some small way as well

ReMark - I remember using one of those beam compasses with the technical pen attachment back in the early 1980's. Boy, I had forgotten about that until you mentioned it.

BTW - what was everybody's first hand-held calculator? Mine was a Texas Instruments SR-51 I got from my dad when his business machine business folded. He left me a note asking if I wanted one for $3! They were about $150 or more at the time. That one came in handy on my job as a draftsman working for a surveyor.

[ReMark]

I'm sure my first hand held calculator was from TI as well (since it was such a well known company) but I do not recall the model number. However, I still have two slide rules in working condition even though neither one has a case!

[Dana W]

My first hand held calculator was a "Bowmar Brain". Add, subtract, multiply. divide, end of story.

[ReMark]

Come to think of it my first hand held calculator was probably an abacus.

[ROBP]

Come to think of it my first hand held calculator was probably an abacus.

 

 

The good old days fingers did the job mistakes included hihihihi, then came the sliding ruler and finally the Texas Instrument and so on...

[Dana W]

When you plot only in royal blue, and spray some ammonia on the paper to remind you of the good old days.

 

Or, although it's not directly related to drafting...

 

When your kids dress like you did in high school, only it's Hallowe'en.

[Oldtimer]

Anyone remember the Bruning non-ammonia repro machines? Smelled bad and had an oily feel to the prints because of the reactive agent they used. Kinda nasty.

[ReMark]

I recall having one brought in for a one week trial. I wasn't impressed with the output.