An old wooden drawing set

[Bradley Gray]

Front view of drawing set

A friend recently brought this wooden drawing set to my shop for repair. The set belonged to his father, who used it as a student in industrial arts class sometime around 1935 in Niagara Falls, New York.
I have seen and worked on a lot of old handmade furniture over the years. When I look at a piece I think about the methods used in the making of it. What struck me about this set was the combination of simplicity and cleverness. The drawing board is just the right size for a 9 x 12 inch sheet of paper and is made of soft poplar wood to facilitate pinning the sheet in place. On the back is a simple storage system. The drawing triangles slide into grooves on 2 sides, then the T- square slides between them locking all in place.
Because of the simple construction, all of the parts could be made on a table saw. I think the set was probably made as a class project in the school shop, perhaps even nailed together by the student who would use it. Because of the cleverness, I wonder if this might have been a project from an industrial arts textbook.

This is the back of the drawing board showing the t-square and triangles snugly stowed away.

Has anyone seen a similar set? How about a shop class textbook from the thirty's?

[Shane Copps]

Haven't seen one before, but it's pretty cool!!!!!

[Howard Rosenberg]

Never seen anything like that but that is mighty cool!

Thanks for posting those pics.

Howard Rosenberg

[Shawn Pixley]

That is very cool. I learned under the old school drafting techniques (except for the bow pen). That would be a very nice student drafting setup. The simplicity of the design is quite elegant.

[William Adams]

I have a similar, commercial set, but it lacks the nifty storage technique for triangles --- unless there's some extra bit underneath I'm forgetting about --- will have to check (and compare w/ triangles) when I get home.