Engineering as Art

I'll have a look at Alibre, thanks.

Apologies to all for dragging the thread away from the original proposition, 'Engineering as Art'. But I suppose Art can only be produced by people and the tools they use

Ches

I was enjoying all this archaic stuff when i remembered that my first days at uni were spent learning to draw in pencil.

By the time I graduated draftsmen using pens were no more, it was all 2D CAD. Within a few years I was using 3D parametric CAD.

That was twenty years ago now. I haven't drawn a part professionally in all that time as my current employer is a bit backward in its ways, I do powerpoint and spreadsheet engineering mostly.

The good news is that not only can we now get cheap domestic CAD but we can do additive manufacture too on 3D printers. Roll on progress.

well I didn't think I was that old, but I've actually drawn on linen sheets with a spring-bow pen. Admittedly only doing modifications, and I soon found that Rotring pens were a lot more controllable, but you needed a fleet of them to do different thickness lines.

BS308....we should club together and buy a copy for whoever does the drawings for ME and MEW. It wasn't a very weighty tome as I remember, and it would avoid some of the oddities that appear from time to time.

Edited By duncan webster on 13/01/2022 23:03:54

aaahhhh, spring bow pens!! I still use mine!! I've got a copy of BS308 tucked away somewhere, along with DefAus5085 which is an "Australated" version of BS308.........happy(ish) days!!

cheers

Bill

I have a set of my dad's spring bow pens. I recall him using the bottle of Indian ink, and administering a few drops to the end of the pen. It all seems rather Neanderthalic when you look back on it, like rubbing two sticks together to start a fire.

I recall that it was critical where you started inking on a drawing, to avoid smears, ie: at the top of the sheet, and working down if I remember correctly.

I think I have a set of the more modern ink pens, the ones with the weight and thin wire, and you shook it to clear out the point. The original pen plotters were notorious for the ink pen drying out late in a 45 minute plot, ofen in the last few minutes.

We use to keep the vellum sheets in drawers, in plastic bags.

On one particularly hot and humid summer day, we noticed that the plotter started losing accuracy, and was noticably off. We called in the plotter repair guy (back when you could actually call real people, and have real people come to your office; those were the days), and he put a sheet of mylar in the plotter, and plotted the same sheet.

The problem vanished. He said "lay your vellum sheets out on the tabletop a few hours before the plot, and let them acclimate to the moisture in the air, and expand a bit".  Problem solved.

We learned something new every day.

I was very happy to see the pen plotters go the way of the Dodo.

The next generation of plotters that we had was the inkjet, and we had a 36" wide inkjet.

They were high resolution (600 dpi), much faster than the pen plotters, and if an inkjet head clogged or ran out of ink, the plotter would pause, let you change cartridges, and then continue the plot.

It was about 1999 when the company I worked at purchases an HP injet, and computers and screens were beginning to improve greatly. I distinctly recall looking at that plotter and saying "With a plotter like that, I could start my own company" (due to the quality and relatively low cost; perhaps $10,000.00).

I did start my own company in 2003, and I have never looked back.

The corporate world is not something I miss.

There is only one rung on my corporate ladder, and I never have to worry about everyone else trying to climb over the top of me to get to the top.

.

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There was a short period of time where folks would copy notes and details onto semi-translucent sheets with a sticky back, and then stick entire details/notes etc. onto drawings.

This worked well until you had to change something.

The stick-on material could be erased and re-inked with a permanent marker, but of course it looked rough.

A blueline print of these types of drawings looked pretty bad, with the stick-on part generally being too dark, and the hand-drawn part being too light.

And you generally (but not always) would ruin the sheet if you had to peel off a stick-on.

I recall one new drafting fellow who used ink to add the wrong sheet number to a vellum sheet.

When told of his error, he used the new "whiteout" correction fluid to repair his mistake, which of course produced a huge blue blob when it was blueline printed.

And another fellow (perhaps the same one) used letters that were too large for the sheet number, and so the sheet number did not fit in the space in the titleblock.

He just erased the side of the titleblock, drew a box around his text that protruded out, and went on with his business.

We used I think it was called a Leroy lettering system for a while.

There were various letters engraved into a strip of plastic, and you used a pen with a scribe that rode in the engraved letter slot. All very crude stuff for sure.

But that is how we did it.

Looking back, the old methods seem only slightly more advanced than using a piece of charcoal on a cave wall.

.

Edited By PatJ on 14/01/2022 04:23:08

Edited By PatJ on 14/01/2022 04:23:31

Sorry to digress, but when I started school the first time, in 1976, there was a slide rule that was about six feet long hanging on the wall. The professor said "everyone needs to go out and purchase a GOOD slide rule !"

I had a math phobia (LOL, and yes, I became an engineer; I got better), and so I quit engineering school the next day, worked odd jobs, and then started back to school again two years later.

This time the instructor said "everyone needs to go out and purchase a good CALCULATOR ! ".

"Eureka, I am saved" I said, and the rest is history.

I never did learn how to use a slide rule, but I know some engineers who still have theirs hanging on the wall next to their desk.

Those slide rules were voodoo magic for sure.

.

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Edited By PatJ on 14/01/2022 04:29:45

PatJ you missed out on one of lifes gems!! I had to use a slide rule in two or three jobs, and became fairly proficient in it's use. To this day it remains entertaining and rapid, yes I still have it and yes it gets used every now and then, although the calculator is used more!

cheers

Bill

I used a slide rule until the early 1980's. The company I worked for was too tight for everyone to have the pocket calculators. They were for bosses who occasional lent them to ordinary engineers.

I have recently dug out my slide rule and now use it since it is very fast. Its case also props up my computer keyboard.

JA

Edited By JA on 14/01/2022 09:37:55