What kind of accuracy can one expect from older Starrett tools?

[mikey]

Thanks for the encouragement, guys, but as my son is fond of telling me, "Suck Is Suck!" I'll look into Fusion 360 but I'm afraid it will be just another in a long line of CAD programs I've tried. I'm convinced the ability to adapt to CAD is a genetic thing, or at least that's my excuse, and no amount of effort or bludgeoning has made it intuitive or easy for me. I watch John Saunders of NYC CNC work his magic and I am so amazed at how effortless it is for him. Then again, I can stick a needle in your neck and use a wire to guide a catheter through your heart and into your lung so I can monitor the pressures of your heart so I'm not totally stupid. I bet John can't do that!

 

[Toolmaker51]

<snip>
. . . All serious drawing is now in AutoCad.

Ponderous bulk of drawings are CAD, via software of numerable vendors. Having read drawings just under 60 years however, I'm not convinced 'serious' is a facet.
The disappointment lies where certain readability features became ignored, wholesale. At the very peak, proper attention to line weight; where precedence maintained distinct observable widths for each type of line.

 

[uncle harry]

A height gauge isn't a calibration item. It measures the distances between two points along a factory etched vernier scale that cannot change (at room temperature, at a given latitude, and only under an orange sun). I bought a Helios height gauge this year, and am happy with it's elegant simplicity.

Would that be an ISO orange sun?

 

[uncle harry]

Ponderous bulk of drawings are CAD, via software of numerable vendors. Having read drawings just under 60 years however, I'm not convinced 'serious' is a facet.
The disappointment lies where certain readability features became ignored, wholesale. At the very peak, proper attention to line weight; where precedence maintained distinct observable widths for each type of line.

I remember when good drafting was as much of an art as it was a science. I've only inked a few drawings in my working days but it was common practice many decades ago. And then there was cloth !!

 

[Toolmaker51]

I remember when good drafting was as much of an art as it was a science. I've only inked a few drawings in my working days but it was common practice many decades ago. And then there was cloth !!

Like too many elements of manufacturing, all kinds of logical measures were streamlined, made secondary, or just plain non-existent.
If I'm asked for 'good' parts off poor quality drawings, I ask how they'll know the difference.
"But this is CAD!"
CAD's not exactly the problem, it's a doofus who drags the mouse.
"Huh?"
These datum's don't agree, supposed to be just one. Here, why those features dual dimensioned? This should be a reference. Who draws right to left; primarily we work left to right . . .
"Nobody else complains"
Of course not, they don't know what they're doing either.
Their part gets made, after I redline the print. Usually I wring an engineering or consult fee on top of the parts.

Again, in response to "This is CAD!"
Eiffel Tower didn't. Douglas B-17's didn't or Consolidated Constellation. Hoover Dam, Mayan and Egyptian pyramids didn't. Not one shred of the immense Colt Firearm plant did, nor Apollo capsules, Saturn booster, M1 Garand, Lincoln Memorial, that Pacemaker lathe, this DeVlieg . . .