DRAFTING THROUGH THE AGES

DRAFTING THROUGH THE AGES

The above display was created for the 2019 Virginia State Fair. 

1.) T-Square: The T-Square was one of the most used items I had as a board draftsman. I held it against the side of the drafting board. The T-square then made a 90 degree angle with the side of the board. I moved the T-Square up and down on the drawing page to hold my templates. 

2.) Letter Guide for drawing lines: This was a useful tool. It was important to have a straight line to use when putting any lettering on the drawing. I would move the T-Square to where I had decided to put a description or note and draw the line.

3.) Lettering Guide with the alphabet  The T-Square would be moved to the letter guide line and then the lettering guide with the alphabet would be used to trace each letter of the description or note.
      The first several weeks of each school year in drafting class including college started with printing the alphabet over and over. It seemed crazy. We learned the alphabet in grade school. Why did we have to write it over and over in high school and then again in college. Once I started working it made sense. Many places I had to print the text on the drawings by hand. Some companies had us use lettering guides. The reason behind using lettering guides was that drawings may be worked on by several draftsmen but the drawing itself needed to appear consistent.
    A couple of companies had what was called the Leroy Lettering Guide. It was a pencil or inking pen attached to a handheld scriber. The other end had a pin that you could trace the letters in a sturdy letter guide. It was easier to use than the lettering guides like the one on the display. 

4.) Drafting Tool Set: The one on the display was mine. I also have one that was my father in law's that is similar. The compasses have a needle on one side, my father in law's set had extra needles in a little tube. The other side is the one you put the lead, or if you replace the lead end with the funny looking attachment you could use ink. There's also a larger inking pen, that also has that funny looking top. Ink was put in in-between the two metal sides. It was tricky but it worked. The small knob on the top adjusted the two metal pieces that controlled the line width. 
 The caliper is the compass looking item with two needles, it is used when something on a scaled drawing didn't have a measurement. You set the two needles on the ends of the item. Then the caliper was taken to the scale (three sided ruler). There a measurement could be determined.

5.) Tool Planner: This template is for drawing bolts, nuts, etc. I went to Gaston College in North Carolina, in 1977 - 78.  I took Architectural Drafting. During the year of classes we had to take a couple of classes in mechanical drafting. Our professor said, "It will help you get a job after graduation if you can't find an architectural job." 
When that class started, the mechanical drafting professor said, "You can strip a screw before you get it off the drafting board." I did get better, but I never got a passion for mechanical drawing like I had for architectural. So there is only the one template that is specifically for mechanical drawing. 

6.) Office Layout Template: This template is for designing and or drawing office space. There are desks, tables, chairs, a bench, file cabinets and aisle spacing. If you look closely at the file cabinets you can see small holes in front of the file drawer. That dot is to show how far the file drawer pulls out. A file drawer is of no use if it can't be opened.

7.) Professional Pocket General Purpose: This template has circles, square, hexagons, triangles and a ruler on the edge.

8.) Architectural Scale: A scale is similar to a ruler except it has three sides and 6 surfaces with different scales. Architectural drawings are usually drawn at 1/8" = 1'-0". Details  and section cuts are drawn at several different scales. Instead of having several rulers an architectural scale has 1/8", 1/4",1/2", 1", 3/16", 3/32", 3/8", 3/4", 1 1/2" and 3".

9.) Dry Cleaning Pad: This is a cloth bag filled with powdered eraser. It is dusted on the drawing. It helped to keep the drawing clean. Just imagine what the drawing would look like  without the powder. The triangles, templates, T-Square and other drafting tools going over and over the drawing smearing the pencil lead dust. The dry cleaning pad helped to keep the pencil lead dust from setting on the paper. NOTE: The Dry Cleaning Pad was not needed when going from pencil to using inking pens.

10.) Mini Draftsman's Brush: The brush was used to brush the eraser residue off the drawing.

11.) 45 Degree Triangle: Triangles were used for their angles and also as a straight edge. A straight edge is any line that is straight. The T-Square was the straight edge for lines that were horizontal and the triangles was the straight edge for lines that were vertical.

12.) Stair Planner: Stairs can be tricky to draw. The stair planner gives a starting point. Sometimes it's easier to draw something once you see something similar and have a plan in your head.

13.) Protractor: Used for determining angles

14.) Circleometer: A great tool for making circles. 

15.) Slide Rule: This was used for making calculations. The slide rule was last sold in 1976. In 1980, my father in law tried to teach me to use the slide rule on this display. The calculator was much faster to use than the slide, so I decided to stay with the calculator.

 When I was in high school my parents wouldn't let us get calculators. They believed we needed to learn how to do the math without the help of a calculator. When I was in college I bought a calculator. The math was a bit more complicated.

16.) Forma Line, Art Tape: I used art tape mostly for making outlines. I used it to outline the two pictures and the LEGEND on the display.

17.) Isometric Ellipse Guide: Different size isometric ellipses

18.) Perfect Circle Template: Different size circles

19.) Circle Template: Different size circles

20.) General Mapping Template: Street signs, buildings, etc.

21.) Small Shapes Template: Circles, squares, triangles

22.) Architects & Contractors Template: Door swings, counter tops, shelves, sinks, etc.

23.) Enlarged copy of Bathroom floor plan: This drawing was added so you could see some of the items templates were used to draw. Items that were common to all floor plans can be found in template form to speed up the drawing process.

24.) Architectural, Symbol Template: door swings, shelves, cupboards, wall cabinets, etc

25.) House Plan Template: circles, roof pitch, ranges, washers, door swings, etc.

26.) Plumbing Fixtures Template: bathtubs, sinks, water closets, shower stalls, etc.

27.) Erasing Shield: This small metal shield covered and protected lines I didn't want erased that were very close to lines I did want erased.

28.) Non print lead for drafting pencils: Pencil lead used to draw or write notes and changes that were written when I didn't want them to show up on blueprints. An example would be "Notes from a project manager that was researching a detail but not ready to change the original. The note was there so I didn't forget to get back to the project manager before finishing the project. I could still make blue lines for me to redline or for others to review without seeing my notes."

29.) Drafting pencil lead: Drafting lead comes in different sizes. House plans use different line weights for different types of line. Outside lines are darker than the inside wall lines. 

30.) Gum Eraser: Gum eraser is a soft eraser that is gentler on the drawing paper, vellum, mylar etc. 

31.) Drafting Text Book: This book is like the one I used in high school. 1974 - 1976 

32.) Electric Eraser: This is one of my personal favorite items in my possession. As a board drafting technicians in an office with 6 or more of us, I learned a new saying, "Don't draw more in the morning the you can erase in the afternoon." You see it could take just as long to erase work as it did to draw it. With CAD drawings you can just highlight and delete. Quick and easy.

33.) Small Wooden T-Square: This T-Square is smaller than the other, but a better choice in some situations..

34.) Lead for Drafting Pencils & Compasses: Drafting lead was used in Drafting pencils before mechanical pencils. 

35.) Sand Paper for sharping lead: Sand paper was used to sharpen the drafting pencil lead. There was no pencil sharpeners for just lead. 

36.) Small Ink Cartridges: Ink cartridges that could be refilled.

37.) Non reproducing pen - Notes could be written on drawings without those notes being reproduced 

38.) Mechanical Pencil and Drafting pencil: Drafting pencils came first and later came the mechanical pencils. Love the mechanical pencil. They were of course much more expensive in the early days. My first mechanical pencil, I remember it was clear. I had to change the lead type, H, HB, F, etc. I just couldn't afford a mechanical pencil for each lead.

39.) French curves: On the display is a drawing of a building. There are arches at the top, door, windows, and other places. French curves, circle templates and or ellipse templates could have been used to make these archs.

40.) Pen and Ink drawing, unknown draftsman: In 1984, I was working at VCU as a draftsman. It was my job to find any drawings that I needed for each project. I remember someone had retired and finding someone that could find the drawings I needed was an ordeal. I came to the conclusion that we needed one location for all the floor plan drawings. I was given a large room. Seemingly like magic this room was filled with file drawers, especially made for large drawings. 
       When I first walked in I was excited and confused. There were drawings crumbled up in and around the trash can. I picked the drawings up. I was told those drawings are no longer needed. That project is done. 
      Being a draftsman, I saw them as art not trash. I took the drawings home and carefully ironed them. The title on the drawings are rub on letters. The drawing on my display is missing a few pieces so you could see they are rub on no ink.  Some of the drawings' titles fared better than this one and some of the titles are in worst shape. 
       I chose this drawing because it shows how a beautiful drawing when drawn in pen and ink  can't be moved on the page once started. This drawing isn't centered correctly. I know this had to have driven the draftsman crazy. But there was nothing he could have done short of starting over.
      Looking closely you can see where the draftsman had to erase and redraw elements of the drawing. This happens to all draftsmen. Now that computers are used for drawing no one ever sees where corrections were made. Corrections are made, details, sections and elevations can be changed moved several times during the job to get them just right. Then when everything is just right the drawings are printed. (Put on the ink plotter.)

41.) C-thru 12" Rolling Ruler: This is a fun ruler. It can be used on a desk or table not necessarily on a drafting board. As long as the drawing had a straight line this rolling ruler could be used to draw another line parallel to it, or use a triangle to make vertical of angled lines.

42.) Reel to Reel tape: This is the earliest form of CAD drawing storage: My first experience of using Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) was in 1981, I think. I was a board drafting technician at Chevron. It was decided that all board drafting technicians should have a one week introduction to CAD. The computer room had a raised floor so the air conditioning could come from the floor. 
       My week started with being given a notebook with instructions for operating the Intergraph Computer and sitting at a large intimidating machine with the supervising drafting technician. The computer had two screens. They looked like TVs. One was 16", the other was 24" and a large digitizing board. The computer weighed about 900 pounds.
    I took to the computer quickly and stayed in the computer room. All the work I did was saved on reel to reel tapes. After awhile I had to give drawing names to the technicians in the next room. They would find the reel to reel tape that had that specific drawing on it. They would then download it back onto the computer so I could work on it again. The small reel to reel tape on the display represents my first CAD computer.

43.) Disk: The disk on the display is there to represent the floppy disks use in later versions of CAD computers.

44.) Early notes on CAD drawings: I worked for Heilig Meyers in it's last few years. I thought copies of instruction pages with names of drawings, layers, pen colors, etc was a good visual for what  a CAD draftsman used to prepare a set of drawings.

45.) Inking pen angle attachment: An inking pen with the ink cartridge attached could be removed from a pen holder and screwed onto the angled end of this attachment. To be honest I can't remember using this attachment.

46.) Inking pen parts and cleaning instructions: Inking pens come in many different line weights. Each pen had to be taken apart and cleaned periodically to keep them working. The examples on the display show the different parts. 

47.) CD & or DVD: This is to represent the advances drafting has taken since I've been out of the loop.

48.) Picture of my first CAD office in the early 80's w/ the raised floor: