Draughting Pens

G'day.

Whilst browsing a local second hand shop I came across a box containing a comprehensive set of Rotring draughting pens (at least a dozen) complete with accessories (compasses, lettering templates, bottles of ink, spare tips etc).

I loved to use these when I was a technical instructor many years ago and although I have mastered basic CAD I still have a preference for a hand drawn plan - it's very satisfying to produce something by hand.

The whole box is priced at $45 Au (about £23), which is about the original cost of a few pens.

Tempted to purchase the set. It's a bit sad that the 'old skills' are becoming redundant. Progress?

Would you buy them or am I just being romantic?

* Danny M *

As an ex draftsman, there was a time when I had a box full of drafting pens, compasses, a beautiful beam compass, general drafting ephemera collected over 20/25 years. I've still got the compasses, the beam compass, (made by a former model engineer in Southampton!!) and some odds and ends, but the pens were ditched some time ago. Although I now use TurboCAD, I'm with you Danny in that it does seem sad that all the old skills are being lost. To me a CAD drawing has no soul, whereas a well drawn "hand-draulic" drawing tells a story about the person who drew it.

cheers

Bill

I haven't touched a pen since I got CAD in the '90s. I remember the hassle of the old ruling pens. When the Rotrings came along they were a godsend.

I also have a set of Pens, and a couple of sets of beautiful set of cased instruments, also found secondhand shopping. nice to look at and handle. Trouble is CAD has changed the way I work. If the set you are looking at is in good condition buy it as a recognition of the way we used to work.

Rotring pens are great to use when they are working but they were always a fiddle particularly the fine ones, the fine wire cleaner built into them was very fragile and the tended to clog.

These days I prefer the throw away variety, they simply work.
Rotring pens offer much thicker precise lines... Not available as throw away. Felt tips are not precise. Line thickness is no problem with CAD

Regards
John

I expect the ink has long since dried up in all the pens so may not be worth the effort getting them to work again. I doubt they were last put away clean

During my apprenticeship, in the 60s, we drew on tracing paper, thick stuff but tracing paper all the same, using wood backed pencils. One of the "Trainer" draughtsmen got us to use a MINIMUM of a 6H pencil, 8H if you could get it, sharpened to a sharp chisel point. One of his checking routines was to feel the back of the drawing to see if he could feel the dent where a line had been drawn, then he would inspect to lines with a loupe to see if they were the correct width, for outlines, hidden details, centre lines etc. It seemed like a PITA at the time but it stood me in good stead later on!! We had to maintain pencils for lines and another one for writing dimensions and notes etc. The move to pens and mylar draughting film was a major leap forward!!

In Australia a person who prepares drawings is usually spelt "Draftsman", "Draftsperson", it took me about 20 years to stop spelling it the UK way, "Draughtsman".

I feel a chorus of "Happy days are here again.................." coming on.

cheers

Bill

If I had the cash handy, yes and yes

That said In have a few Rotring pens dating from my teenage years, unused since the 80s.

neil

I have heard that ultrasonic cleaners with the right detergent can work wonders on them.

N.

That's right Neil, at least one of the pen manufacturers, used to market a small desktop ultrasonic pen cleaner. They obviously also sold their own "special" cleaning fluid. We used water with a single drop of washing up liquid, you know the one that was safe for your hands. The pen cleaners were also used (by me) to clean clockwork DT timers for model aeroplanes. If anyone is going to go rattling off on a nostalgic trip, I would strongly urge them to

1/ Get Rotring pens

2/ Get the best ink they can afford, from memory Rotring ink is good. I think there are several different types of ink for different media. If you are going to draw on mylar (recommended) use the correct ink, it will say on the bottle. If you try and use the wrong ink, the Earth will spin of its axis into the Sun and we will all be fried.

3/ if you are not planning any more nostalgia to happen within a day or so, empty and clean the pens after use. When the ink in the pen is still liquid, it can be rinsed out under a running tap, but you will probably be surprised how far diluted ink can go.

4/ Get some drafting mylar, you can do layouts in (2H) pencil, ink over the pencil, then when the ink has dried erase the pencil marks with a plastic eraser. Few people can afford rolls of draughting mylar, but fortunately there are cut sheets available in A4, A3, A2 etc

5/ Practise your printing, NOTHING looks more amateur than rubbish printing on an inked drawing. As a minimum try and get it all the same height, use faint pencil guidelines

6/ Tracers use stencils for printing, draughtsmen print properly. Sorry, some of my favourite people were Tracers.

If nostalgia gets too much, use CAD!!

cheers

Bill

Edited By Bill Pudney on 21/05/2016 08:55:42

I've got a couple of Rotring pens, and some drafting instruments, they're in the same drawer as my old slide rule...

When the newspaper industry was in its transition period from hot metal to litho printing and a fully computerised operation, compositors used Rotring pens for drawing column rules. Our lads used petrol for cleaning their pens at the end of the day. From the pens I have, I get the impression that the composition of Rotring ink has changed to a water-based compound. I recently cleared a clogged pen with nothing more than warm water.

There are (were ) different types of mylar ,or at least different plastic drawing paper. Some have a roughened surface, this can wear your pen nib very quickly. Works ok until someone else tries to use it. Just check , if poss. there are no sharp edges on nib.

If you are going to play on drafting film then use the correct nibs, the abrasive surface will quickly wear the standard nibs, you need the "film nibs" with the gold plated tips. Same goes if using the etching ink don't put that through a standard pen.

There were always two types of Rotring ink. One was water based and the other an "etching" ink which would slightly softwn plastic drawing films so when it dried the line was absolutely indelible. That ink also dissolved the standard pens so they made specials for it. It turned out that the etching ink, applied with the proper pen, made an excellent resist for hand-drawn printed circuit boards.

My brother-in-law discovered this, and when I was developing RF circuits at Marconi in Chelmsford in the late 70s, which had to be made in prototype form with the same layout as the final unit, I decided to use one for speed. (It took weeks to get even a prototype board made through the company.) So, got PO from my boss, pedalled down to the local drawing office supplier, tried to buy on account. "What company is that?" man says? Marconi I say - biggest employer in town at the time, part of UK's biggest company (at the time). "No way, they never pay their bills!". So I have to buy it out of my own pocket. Worked though!

Sounds as if these are destined to sit in your memorabilia cupboard alongside the weaving shuttles, carbide lamps etc (in my case). But for actual occasional drawing, there are a few alternatives to Rotring and Staedtler, both refillable and disposable, like this and this.

I have a couple of Japanese disposable proper drawing pens that I use occasionally for small drawings and are very nice to use. For infrequent use, refillable pens are going to be a royal pain.

Funny that, I've got a similar container with the same old stuff in it!!

cheers

Bill

I did a stint in Electrical Drawing Office during my apprenticeship at Brooklands, circa 1983-84. I was mostly doing modifications to existing drawings. All on drawing film with ink using Rotring pens. Erasing existing lines, etc with an abrasive rubber and then doing the update. Most time consuming was doing the change notes with stencil. epecially if an error was made. Looking back on it it there was some incredible skill involved, but it was horribly inefficient. CAD was just coming in at that time.

I'm trying to remember the (visual) difference, didn't film nibs have yellow on them?

Nobody has mentioned tracing linen. We used it in the Water Co. drawing office back in the 60's it was lovely stuff to use but almost impossible to correct errors. The offcuts of linen made wonderful wipes after you had washed the coating off it. I couldn't afford Rotring pens but a pen with a crossover point that was adjustable for line thickness, I think that they were called Graphos pens.

I've just Googled Graphos, that is the correct name but they weren't adjustable, 50 years on memory plays tricks!

Edited By norman valentine on 21/05/2016 11:55:56

Rotring pens were also used by technical artists. In my album are two of a series of drawings done for me by my colleague Andrew Mackintosh. Andrew used just the pens and some sticky dotted tint.