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Thread: Any Old Draftsmen out there?

  1. #16
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    I was reading this thread and I had to look up the difference between a lead holder and a mechanical pencil - this short youtube video set me straight

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L5rxYw_ISg

    Now, can anyone recommend a good pencil sharpener, either electric or manual?

  2. #17
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    [QUOTE=Mark Gibney;2682862]I was reading this thread and I had to look up the difference between a lead holder and a mechanical pencil

    Now, can anyone recommend a good pencil sharpener, either electric or manual?

    Check this site:

    https://www.amazon.com/X-ACTO-Manual...cil+sharpeners


    I have a similar one mounted on a side bench in my shop.

  3. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Ted Calver View Post
    .... the onionskin on my drafting table gets all the creative ideas first.
    I used to work with a guy who like to call it "bum wad" but I never figured out if that was a wide spread term or just him...

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Gibney View Post
    [edited]
    Now, can anyone recommend a good pencil sharpener, either electric or manual?
    Do you want a pencil sharpener or a lead pointer?

    Searching > lead pointer < on ebay brings up a lot of good choices.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  5. #20
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    I had one of those and then went to the Fugle. The Fugle allowed me to be a "shirt pocket" designer.

    A shirt pocket designer was a guy that would show up with two pencils, a 30-60 and 45 degree triangle, 6" scale (ruler), and eraser, and lead pointer.

    He would changes jobs for 25 cents an hour. Those were the days.

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    Occasionally a piece of old sandpaper is used.
    In high school, back in the mid eighties, we used sandpaper to get a fine point, then swiped it across something to get the dust off. Don't recall what the latter was. Might have been tape. We also used a little manual handheld rotary sharpener. I at one time toyed with the idea of drafting or architecture. I went in into graphic design instead.

    On that note, I was on the cutting edge of computer use as a graphic designer. Our firm in Minneapolis brought computers for graphic design production to the midwest. However, we still used drafting tables with very complex mechanical arms on pullies. They were beautiful. Amazing devices really. I miss the hand work of those days. Production and design almost solely via computer was not sexy at all. That's partly why I'm drawn to woodworking.
    Last edited by Kurtis Johnson; 04-21-2017 at 1:54 PM.

  7. #22
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    My lead pointer is an ancient Koh-I-Noor identical to the first photo. It clamps to my drafting table at any comfortable angle. I spent many years on the drawing board for McDonald-Douglas and Xerox Electro Optical Systems. My drafting board is somewhat similar to the second photo.

    vintage-koh-i-noor-992-engineering-drafting-pencil-lead-pointer-f9404c7726cc8f0456fb8bb0fbdf9f01.jpg
    2004-10-03_170500_DraftingMachine.jpg
    "Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're doing."

  8. #23
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    My lead pointer is an ancient Koh-I-Noor identical to the first photo.
    That is also one of my lead pointers, couldn't remember the name.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  9. #24
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    JK--it's amazing how long these little plastic things keep doing the job!
    "Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're doing."

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by andy bessette View Post
    My lead pointer is an ancient Koh-I-Noor identical to the first photo. It clamps to my drafting table at any comfortable angle. I spent many years on the drawing board for McDonald-Douglas and Xerox Electro Optical Systems. My drafting board is somewhat similar to the second photo.

    vintage-koh-i-noor-992-engineering-drafting-pencil-lead-pointer-f9404c7726cc8f0456fb8bb0fbdf9f01.jpg
    2004-10-03_170500_DraftingMachine.jpg
    ooo that's a nice one. I just have my old circa Frank Loyd Wright wooden drafting table, bought from a 90 year old for $15.00. Had to shamefully cut it down to 4 ft. wide to fit it in my original shop. Learned the old fashion way in high school and a semester in college. Have learned just enough cad to get me into trouble. A lot of time, over the years spent at that table staring at a semi blank piece of vellum. I too was taught to use the sand paper for a fine tip.
    Last edited by Ron Bontz; 04-22-2017 at 12:02 PM. Reason: mis spelling

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malcolm Schweizer View Post
    That's a real beauty! When I get a shop with more room I intend to build something like that.
    Yes that's the one I have. I added a drawer to the underneath of the table and a ( bruening ? )drafting machine. I was told it was a Frank Lolyd Wright era table. True?

  12. #27
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    I learned technical drawing in high school, but when I worked in the tool and die shops, I sometimes had to pull drawings of progressive dies out of the large cabinets that held the old drawings for safe keeping.
    The engineers I worked with really knew their stuff when it came to layering the many aspects of the tools in progression, and using correct datums for ease of building the tools.
    Some of those prints were extremely complex, and took time to work with.
    I also worked for an Engineering firm that had about 30 draftsman in the early 1970's. They were Enviromental Engineers for civil projects and boy, those guys liked to drink at lunch time. The draftsman that is.

  13. #28
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    Al, That picture brings back memories. My dad worked for GE in Pennsylvania in one of their plants as a mechanical engineer. I used to sneak his mechanical pencils from his drafting table when I was very young. He had the same sharpener on his table.

  14. #29
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    Cool! That mechanical arm thingy in your second photo is very similar to what I was talking about using at the graphic design firm I worked for. Might be the very same. Ahh. Miss those days.

  15. #30
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    Yup. I started out on the drafting board in the job shops of Detroit. I was a detailer drawing machine parts first, then graduated to designer. Then went to college. I worked on the Pontiac Fiero project in '81 drawing the machinery that welded together the underbody. Just a room full of guys with huge drafting boards cranking out a lot of paper. It was a great foundation for CAD a couple years later. After college I found that most of the Engineers coming out couldn't design squat. Rather than teaching kids to design and document, the schools were teaching them to run a CAD program. At the time, 2D CAD was just an expensive pencil.

    I still have all my old gear. Several lead holders (chuck pencils) and lead pointers, templates and triangles, and a big batch of boxwood scales. I have a batch of compasses and dividers too. They all come in handy for layout work.
    Sharp solves all manner of problems.

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