Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

This forum is dedicated to the Live Steam Hobbyist Community.

Moderators: cbrew, Harold_V

User avatar
Greg_Lewis
Posts: 3014
Joined: Wed Jan 15, 2003 2:44 pm
Location: Fresno, CA

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by Greg_Lewis »

I don't draw much at all. I usually just noodle it out in my head using the TLAR principle (That Looks About Right). But CAD is very handy for doing the math on things. Just draw it out and ask the software to give you the angles, etc. And for stuff that's mostly cosmetic you can print out a drawing and paste it on your raw stock and hack up to the lines.
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
klarkwhite
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:27 am

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by klarkwhite »

Interesting, very interesting. Something like this just can't help but inspire a person who is passionate about drawing. I wonder if there is another museum of drawing. When I saw these mechanical engineering photos, I immediately thought of the platform https://engre.co/ where you can find many technology companies or specialists and engineers of various specialties. In any case, thank you for the moment of inspiration. All the best!
Mr Ron
Posts: 2126
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:36 pm
Location: Vancleave, Mississippi

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by Mr Ron »

I started my work history as a junior draftsman back in 1956; had taken drafting in college. I worked for a naval architect in NYC and did ink on vellum for U.S. Navy ships, like battleships and aircraft carriers. In 1964, I moved to the west coast (SF) and continued drafting, this time with pencil and paper. When I finally moved to the Gulf Coast, I learned Autocad and that was around 1996. when I retired in 2002, I continued using Autocad on my home projects. What a difference Acad is over manual drafting. At first when CAD started being used around 1990 in the marine industry, naval architect companies were skeptical about CAD use for ship drawings, although CAD was being embraced by aircraft and automotive companies. CAD is now the only drafting tool used in industry. There may be a few places where manual drafting is still being used and that is usually for updating old drawings that were drafted before CAD. Even still, companies are digitizing their old drawings and maintaining using CAD. I may still have an old drafting instrument lying around in a drawer. I still have my K&E log-log duplex deci-trig slide rule, a polar intergrader and an erasing machine but no longer used.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
User avatar
Bill Shields
Posts: 10459
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:57 am
Location: 39.367, -75.765
Contact:

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by Bill Shields »

Is amazing how much of that stuff I have in my office..and used as an engg student.

If the power ever goes out will be looking for India ink and linen..
Too many things going on to bother listing them.
RONALD
Posts: 754
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2003 7:27 am

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by RONALD »

Why back, when EMD switched to CAD, they gave my high school a number of Drafting Machines.

Most were too big to be used by the Mechanical Drawing Department, and the Department Chairman Bill P., knowing I was a scroonger of anything, let me have some; they were still in original boxes.

I put one on my drafting table in the basement, and use it to this day, I turned the aluminum extrusions on two into two saw horses as seen in the photo below, and saved another two to make a welding platform for my MIG Welding.

The same thing happened with slide rules, when calculators came on the scene, a slide rule manufacture gave the school several hundred slide rules.

They were brand new in boxes, leather cases, magnesium construction, Log Log, and were sold to students and staff at 50 cents each; I bought several.

In my Physics Department, and the Math Department, there were those real large demonstration slide rules hanging in each room, but not used anymore.

I rescued some of those demonstrators for their wood, probably worth more in their original condition, but that was my mistake.
DSCN8245.jpg
User avatar
Greg_Lewis
Posts: 3014
Joined: Wed Jan 15, 2003 2:44 pm
Location: Fresno, CA

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by Greg_Lewis »

I have five slide rules; one lives in my Gerstner box in the shop, the others in my desk, and while all of them sit next to digital calculators, I still use them at times. A calculator will give you a single answer to a number of digits but a slide rule will show you the answer in relation to all the other values involved. This can be helpful if you want to know how far away you are from some other point. It's sort of like telling time. A digital clock will tell you it's 8:43 (which may be wrong) but an analog clock will show you how close the time is to 9 o'clock.

Also, slide rules are useful for proportions when working with multiple examples. Set the rule for the proportion and just read the result for the cases quickly and easily.
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
User avatar
Bill Shields
Posts: 10459
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:57 am
Location: 39.367, -75.765
Contact:

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by Bill Shields »

My favorite is my 6" diameter circular slide rule.

I show it to people and they laugh.
Too many things going on to bother listing them.
Glenn Brooks
Posts: 2930
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:39 pm
Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Here is a drafting process that I use quite often: indelible marker on plywood mock-up, whiteboard sketch, or graph paper sketch to retain measurements for multiple parts, followed by layout on steel plate. I punched key measuring points, such as part centers and diameters on the steel plate layup to retain critical dimensions and what I call True Point of Beginning and key Benchmarks on the layout- sort of borrowed from land surveying methods, so I can layout and verify critical dimensions.

This part is an 8x10” x 5/8” mounting plate that will bolt to the end cap of a 7” ID dc traction motor. Doesn’t look like it, but in this case I would like to hold around .002” on the mating part. The precision is all in measuring and recording to a thou.

8E1FD255-4575-46CA-B882-1B6480814FC7.jpeg
13B00F7D-28AA-4EC0-82C5-BBD131C61EBB.jpeg
69C29B34-D794-49FF-A11E-5B4ED6B6025B.jpeg



Glenn
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
User avatar
rudd
Posts: 754
Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:21 pm
Location: savannah ga.

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by rudd »

I had a copy of curve 27. May still have it, not sure. I did a bunch of ink on mylar for the Historic American Buildings Survey. CAD was just coming in, their first ever CAD project was the Texas State Capitol, from 1986 to 89. I was the "straw boss" the last two years.
This sheet was done with a Leroy Letter set, but I set it up and traced it from prints off my Mac computer to get the kerning and justification. Anyone else remember using "the bug" to letter? This sheet took a few days.
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/h ... et.00001a/

Here's a partial section I drew.
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/tx0398.sheet.00071a/

This was all drawn with CADvance, which was a part of Calcomp, and went away.
A guy on our team modeled the dome in ACAD (ACAD v. 2) but we never could get it to plot. A shop in DC had a copy of the file, on a hot rod (at the time) 486, it would hide lines for about 4 days then crash.

Later I was in private sector and they used mylar and plastic lead, an invention of the devil himself.
User avatar
Greg_Lewis
Posts: 3014
Joined: Wed Jan 15, 2003 2:44 pm
Location: Fresno, CA

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by Greg_Lewis »

When you look at a drawing from 100 years ago you quickly have a lot of respect for the draftsman that made it. I can't imagine getting down to the last line and having the pen blurp ink onto the velum.
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
User avatar
Bill Shields
Posts: 10459
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:57 am
Location: 39.367, -75.765
Contact:

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by Bill Shields »

Best Leroy person I ever knew was a lady. She did all the final draft lettering work for the office...at the Springfield armory during WWII.

All the men in the office were perfectly happy to give her the bow pen ink work.

One of them was so impressed that he married her on what they later found out was D-Day.
Too many things going on to bother listing them.
jcbrock
Posts: 511
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:50 pm
Location: Oregon

Re: Museum of Obsolete Drafting Technology

Post by jcbrock »

Greg_Lewis wrote: Sun Feb 28, 2021 8:25 pm When you look at a drawing from 100 years ago you quickly have a lot of respect for the draftsman that made it. I can't imagine getting down to the last line and having the pen blurp ink onto the velum.
Or equally bad, have an engineer stroll in with "sorry old chap, but we have a revision".
John Brock
Post Reply