Blast from the past - remind us of a thing
Discussion
Abbott said:
DickyC said:
The offices above the shops in town were full of drawing boards.
Not above a shop - thats me in the top righthand corner early 80sDickyC said:
In the mid 80s my boss spoke to me about the emergence of CAD. "Computers," he said, "they're expensive, they don't work well, no one likes them, but they're coming anyway." And he was absolutely right. In the late seventies I abandoned the drawing board for modelmaking and worked on - usually - 1:33 models of refineries and offshore platforms. By the late eighties they were finished, as computers took over the clash checking role of the model. To me, a drawing office full of drawing boards looked better than a room full of CAD workstations.
Agreed. This, all day long. And a proper drawing on paper is so much easier to follow (for me anyway) than scrolling around a CAD image on a laptop screen. In the early eighties when I worked at designing and making tooling for remote, subsea operations we had a draughtsman called Alex Duthie whose work was exquisite. As he had little to no understanding of hydraulic circuits or electronic multilayered circuit boards he would get me to do the preliminary "sketches" which he would use to produce drawings of beautiful clarity. My drawings were so-so, useable but scruffy, but his were superb and I would call them works of art in their own right.
But he was also a gifted cartoonist and would decorate the preliminary drawings with little cameos which were always funny and occasionally very rude. This included salacious caricatures of the clients representatives which inevitably led to trouble when they fell into the wrong hands.
Error_404_Username_not_found said:
Agreed. This, all day long. And a proper drawing on paper is so much easier to follow (for me anyway) than scrolling around a CAD image on a laptop screen.
In the early eighties when I worked at designing and making tooling for remote, subsea operations we had a draughtsman called Alex Duthie whose work was exquisite. As he had little to no understanding of hydraulic circuits or electronic multilayered circuit boards he would get me to do the preliminary "sketches" which he would use to produce drawings of beautiful clarity. My drawings were so-so, useable but scruffy, but his were superb and I would call them works of art in their own right.
But he was also a gifted cartoonist and would decorate the preliminary drawings with little cameos which were always funny and occasionally very rude. This included salacious caricatures of the clients representatives which inevitably led to trouble when they fell into the wrong hands.
Ah, yes, this all sounds deliciously familiar. My few O levels and I scraped into engineering courtesy of the North Sea boom when companies were taking on anyone who could hold a pencil the right way round. The spread of draughting abilitiy was extraordinary, from works of art to worse than the engineers' sketches they were based on.In the early eighties when I worked at designing and making tooling for remote, subsea operations we had a draughtsman called Alex Duthie whose work was exquisite. As he had little to no understanding of hydraulic circuits or electronic multilayered circuit boards he would get me to do the preliminary "sketches" which he would use to produce drawings of beautiful clarity. My drawings were so-so, useable but scruffy, but his were superb and I would call them works of art in their own right.
But he was also a gifted cartoonist and would decorate the preliminary drawings with little cameos which were always funny and occasionally very rude. This included salacious caricatures of the clients representatives which inevitably led to trouble when they fell into the wrong hands.
Good times. My theory was, when it's good it's very, very good and when it's bad, it's okay. With a few spectacular exceptions that carried my through forty years of draughting, modelmaking and CAD. Right up until it didn't. From nowhere came a rule of, Don't take on any of the old boys. And that was it, all the old school were out. The timing worked okayish for me but I still had two or three years of driving until my pension. Forty years' experience in a skil no one wanted and a driving licence. I wasn't alone. One former colleague became a butcher, which seemed unlikely. "What experience do you have of butchery?" "I worked in a drawing office." "Ideal. Start Monday."
Lotobear said:
'Onion Johnnies' anyone?
French chappies who used to arrive in urban areas (in my case NE England) during certain months of summer and ride around on bicycles selling onions which were hung in festoons from the handle bars.
Blue and white horizontal striped shirts? Not your common or garden French, they were Bretons, I believe.French chappies who used to arrive in urban areas (in my case NE England) during certain months of summer and ride around on bicycles selling onions which were hung in festoons from the handle bars.
DickyC said:
Error_404_Username_not_found said:
Agreed. This, all day long. And a proper drawing on paper is so much easier to follow (for me anyway) than scrolling around a CAD image on a laptop screen.
In the early eighties when I worked at designing and making tooling for remote, subsea operations we had a draughtsman called Alex Duthie whose work was exquisite. As he had little to no understanding of hydraulic circuits or electronic multilayered circuit boards he would get me to do the preliminary "sketches" which he would use to produce drawings of beautiful clarity. My drawings were so-so, useable but scruffy, but his were superb and I would call them works of art in their own right.
But he was also a gifted cartoonist and would decorate the preliminary drawings with little cameos which were always funny and occasionally very rude. This included salacious caricatures of the clients representatives which inevitably led to trouble when they fell into the wrong hands.
Ah, yes, this all sounds deliciously familiar. My few O levels and I scraped into engineering courtesy of the North Sea boom when companies were taking on anyone who could hold a pencil the right way round. The spread of draughting abilitiy was extraordinary, from works of art to worse than the engineers' sketches they were based on.In the early eighties when I worked at designing and making tooling for remote, subsea operations we had a draughtsman called Alex Duthie whose work was exquisite. As he had little to no understanding of hydraulic circuits or electronic multilayered circuit boards he would get me to do the preliminary "sketches" which he would use to produce drawings of beautiful clarity. My drawings were so-so, useable but scruffy, but his were superb and I would call them works of art in their own right.
But he was also a gifted cartoonist and would decorate the preliminary drawings with little cameos which were always funny and occasionally very rude. This included salacious caricatures of the clients representatives which inevitably led to trouble when they fell into the wrong hands.
Good times. My theory was, when it's good it's very, very good and when it's bad, it's okay. With a few spectacular exceptions that carried my through forty years of draughting, modelmaking and CAD. Right up until it didn't. From nowhere came a rule of, Don't take on any of the old boys. And that was it, all the old school were out. The timing worked okayish for me but I still had two or three years of driving until my pension. Forty years' experience in a skil no one wanted and a driving licence. I wasn't alone. One former colleague became a butcher, which seemed unlikely. "What experience do you have of butchery?" "I worked in a drawing office." "Ideal. Start Monday."
Abbott said:
My drawings were OK but my annotation was a complete mess so I welcomed the clarity that CAD brought to my output.
^^^ This too. Mine was very poor. Even more fun when some of the stuff I designed had to be annotated in English and Russian! A language I don't speak using an alphabet I didn't understand. Luckily, I had a Natasha to help. Somewhere I think I still have the plastic lettering stencil for Cyrillic characters.
DickyC said:
Abbott said:
In the mid 80s my boss spoke to me about the emergence of CAD. "Computers," he said, "they're expensive, they don't work well, no one likes them, but they're coming anyway." And he was absolutely right. In the late seventies I abandoned the drawing board for modelmaking and worked on - usually - 1:33 models of refineries and offshore platforms. By the late eighties they were finished, as computers took over the clash checking role of the model. To me, a drawing office full of drawing boards looked better than a room full of CAD workstations.Om said:
DickyC said:
Abbott said:
In the mid 80s my boss spoke to me about the emergence of CAD. "Computers," he said, "they're expensive, they don't work well, no one likes them, but they're coming anyway." And he was absolutely right. In the late seventies I abandoned the drawing board for modelmaking and worked on - usually - 1:33 models of refineries and offshore platforms. By the late eighties they were finished, as computers took over the clash checking role of the model. To me, a drawing office full of drawing boards looked better than a room full of CAD workstations.It wasn’t long before I moved to a CAD machine - this was the late eighties.
Ford were early adopters and some of our tech was already quite old (our database was in a climate-controlled room in the middle of the office). I started out on a mixture of Ford’s own system, PDGS with a light pen on the screen, then mostly CADDS5 with a more traditional mouse arrangement, before moving on and have since experienced several systems.
Producing a drawing on paper was definitely an art-form and certainly you can tell CAD drawings produced by those who started on paper in my experience.
I cut my teeth on a drawing board when I started in an Architectural practice in the west end of Newcastle around 1982 - first on an ebony edged tee square and set square, then onto proper posh parallel motion and eventually onto what we called a 'drawing machine' - a fixed vertical and horizontal axis with a rotating head scribed to degrees (never liked them, the head used to 'wander'). I never graduated to CAD but recall things like erasing shields and electric erasers, copy negatives, rapidographs and the dyline (ammonia) printer - a great cure for a hangover on a Monday morning!
We even used to colour wash the plans and practiced the ancient technique of 'sciography' (look it up!).
Happy days
We even used to colour wash the plans and practiced the ancient technique of 'sciography' (look it up!).
Happy days
All this talk of drawing offices brings back memories of many happy hours sat/stood in front of an A0 draughting board/machine.
With the demise of manual draughting it was said that we wouldn't see those works of art that a good draughtsman could create. I think this was generally held as a truth at the time, 1980's, but gradually style began to become noticeable with CADD. CADD style is definitely a thing, some can create a superb drawing, something that is a joy to look at. Others create scruffy drawings that are not.
I'm ignoring the subject of the drawing, I've seem some absolute howlers beautifully drawn and superb design drawn so badly there was a real problem persuading the decision makers it was worth going with.
The whole idea of an engineering drawing seems to becoming a thing of the past with 3D modelling. That last project I was involved in produced no drawings other than a few schemes and general arrangements so we could stand around a table and scribble ideas and corrections on them. Once that was done everything was a computer file.
With the demise of manual draughting it was said that we wouldn't see those works of art that a good draughtsman could create. I think this was generally held as a truth at the time, 1980's, but gradually style began to become noticeable with CADD. CADD style is definitely a thing, some can create a superb drawing, something that is a joy to look at. Others create scruffy drawings that are not.
I'm ignoring the subject of the drawing, I've seem some absolute howlers beautifully drawn and superb design drawn so badly there was a real problem persuading the decision makers it was worth going with.
The whole idea of an engineering drawing seems to becoming a thing of the past with 3D modelling. That last project I was involved in produced no drawings other than a few schemes and general arrangements so we could stand around a table and scribble ideas and corrections on them. Once that was done everything was a computer file.
Gordon Hill said:
Watch with mother, remember that? Pogles wood, Trumpton/Chigley/Camberwick Green, tales of the river bank. I can still remember pre school sat watching these even though it was almost 6 decades ago.
Add Mary, Mungo & Midge to that list.Trumpton
Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble & Grub.
Oh and Windy Miller in Camberwick Green.
Edited by cuprabob on Friday 3rd May 18:56
Edited by cuprabob on Friday 3rd May 18:56
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