Life Before CAD and My Home Engineering Office Yet Today...

[Hawkeye]

I have two slide rules beside my chair in the living room, including a K&E with a case like your bottom one. I spent years working with a drafting machine like that one, only on a hydraulic table. (Worked great as a shield for elastic fights on Fridays.)

Like others, I really like the CAD age. I'd love to have Pro Engineer on my home computer, but that's never going to happen.

 

[matthewsx]

Here's a picture of my Home Engineering Office. Other than the computer sitting on my desk. It has been unchanged for the past 50 years. And have used this Hamilton Drafting table. Though I upgraded the Universal BenchMaster arm type drafting machine to the present K &E Auto-Flow track style around 1990. That still receives lots of action today for drawing part prints, buildings, or laying out machinery. The drafting machine in on the left with an aluminum and clear blades. On the far top RH side is my trusty 1955 Machinist's Handbook,, Bible we'd call it. Left are circle and elliptical templates. Circle and beam Compasses for large circles. Triangles 30-60-90 degree along with a French Curve. Square root, Trig tables, and die maker's Radius Charts. Of course a slide rule and scales. Mechanical pencils in three different lead hardness. Horse hair drawing brush, spare leads, and sharpener.. Electric eraser & shield.. All that's needed to engineer a plastic injection mold, diecast dies, stamping dies, architectural buildings, or for that matter anything mechanical. Fact be told we put a man on the moon using nothing more than what's in this office. No computers just slide rules made all the calculations...

For a short time I ventured off using a computer with both CAD and CAM. But since abandon both in favor of returning to pencil and paper. I made all the architectural plans for my additions and garage shops on paper and submitted them to the county.

Typical engineering office...

I’m a little younger than you but I still have many of these items from my dad. He worked at United Technologies running the Saturn V test lab. His slide rule is one of my most precious possessions.


Thread 'Dad in his shop'
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/dad-in-his-shop.107727/

John

 

[fixit]

God I remember actual blueprints, now I feel old.

ME TOO!!!!

 

[Flyinfool]

I started out my engineering career chasing a pencil around paper. The term computer was pretty much still only used in science fiction. No one I knew had ever actually seen one. At my current job I still keep my old 6 inch slide rule on my desk. When people ask what kind of a weird ruler is that, I tell them it is my very first pocket calculator. Now that I have been using CAD since AutoCAD version 2 came out in the mid 80s I would never go back to a board, even though I still have all of my old drafting tools. Oh the memories.

 

[projectnut]

Like many here I started with a drawing board and T square. In the business world the T square was replaced by a drafting machine, and the board was replaced by a drafting table and return. Our floor of the office building was designed to accommodate 40 engineers with 48" x 72" Mayline drafting tables and return desks. The cubicles were huge compared to most other departments.

As time went on the company switched to CAD. The first system was Auto-trol. It was a mainframe system utilizing dumb terminals. When the company switched from the mainframe to PC's we changed to AutoCad. The drafting tables, machines and other support equipment were slowly moved to storerooms and eventually donated to technical colleges. After a few years the colleges also started switching to software-based drawing programs so the equipment that was formerly donated was either sold to employees or trashed.

When it came time to give up my equipment I asked if I could purchase it. The answer was yes, and that for $50.00 I could have the table, machine, light, and return desk. Since it was the last manual drafting equipment in the department, I could also have all the remaining supplies. The supplies included hundreds of boxes of different leads, automatic pencils, erasers, triangles, different scales for the machines, and tons of other stuff long forgotten. I took everything home and set it in the corner of the basement. The drafting table became a catch all for anything and everything. You'd be surprised how much weight one of those tables can actually handle.

When I retired, I still retained the rights to the AutoCad system on my computer. I could take the software (in CDs at the time) and install it on my home computer. That worked fine for a couple years, but eventually the lease ran out and I had to either renew it for $1,000.00 a year or find something new. For the small amount of drafting, I was doing I didn't feel it was worth the money to renew the lease. Instead, I cleaned all the junk off the drafting table and started using it. I'm sure there are less expensive drafting programs out there today. However, I actually enjoy sitting down at the table and drawing a part manually.

As for engineers not being in touch with the end results of their designs, the company I worked for was just the opposite. When an engineer was hired, they were assigned to one or more machine design projects. Those projects would be their responsibility for the entire time they were with the company. If an original design didn't work out well, they had to make the needed improvements to satisfy the productivity, ergonomics, safety, maintenance requirements, or any other short comings of the original design.

In the future should the company decide the machine output needed to be increased the original engineering team would be responsible for making it happen. There was no such a thing as passing a poor design on to the production staff and running off to a new project. I was involved with a number of projects and followed them through until I was asked to transfer to a different department.

Even after 10 years in the new department I was asked to revisit one of the original projects. This time the machines had been in service for many years, and it was time to rebuild them from the ground up. We setup a 2-year project to rebuild machines in a shop in a small town in Iowa and convinced 2 of our best technicians to switch from a maintenance capacity to machine rebuilders. As part of the project, with each machine, we brought in 2 technicians from the production facility for training. We also wrote a training manual covering all phases of the rebuild process to be used as a reference for future maintenance and upgrades.

When the project wrapped up, we had rebuilt 62 machines from the ground up and trained over 100 technicians on how to maintain, repair, and rebuild the machines as necessary. Over 25 years later I'm sure the machines have been replaced by newer and faster technology and most of the technicians are probably retired. Non the less I'm sure it was a worthwhile investment for the company.

Here's a picture of my old drafting board setup. It still gets used today. It's a bit hard to see, but the picture on the desk is of my father-in-law inspecting a section of machinery he designed in the 1950's. He worked there from 1954 to 1985. In the 30+ years he was there the machines he designed remained his responsibility.

 

[OldCarGuy]

I’m a little younger than you but I still have many of these items from my dad. He worked at United Technologies running the Saturn V test lab. His slide rule is one of my most precious possessions.


Thread 'Dad in his shop'
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/dad-in-his-shop.107727/

John

I can see that you were blessed with the same kind of Amazing Father as I had. Our Heroes, Our Role Models, Our Fathers lead by example. Thank Our Lucky Stars our Father's were always there for us...

 

[Chip Hacket]

Like many here I started with a drawing board and T square. In the business world the T square was replaced by a drafting machine, and the board was replaced by a drafting table and return. Our floor of the office building was designed to accommodate 40 engineers with 48" x 72" Mayline drafting tables and return desks. The cubicles were huge compared to most other departments.

As time went on the company switched to CAD. The first system was Auto-trol. It was a mainframe system utilizing dumb terminals. When the company switched from the mainframe to PC's we changed to AutoCad. The drafting tables, machines and other support equipment were slowly moved to storerooms and eventually donated to technical colleges. After a few years the colleges also started switching to software-based drawing programs so the equipment that was formerly donated was either sold to employees or trashed.

When it came time to give up my equipment I asked if I could purchase it. The answer was yes, and that for $50.00 I could have the table, machine, light, and return desk. Since it was the last manual drafting equipment in the department, I could also have all the remaining supplies. The supplies included hundreds of boxes of different leads, automatic pencils, erasers, triangles, different scales for the machines, and tons of other stuff long forgotten. I took everything home and set it in the corner of the basement. The drafting table became a catch all for anything and everything. You'd be surprised how much weight one of those tables can actually handle.

When I retired, I still retained the rights to the AutoCad system on my computer. I could take the software (in CDs at the time) and install it on my home computer. That worked fine for a couple years, but eventually the lease ran out and I had to either renew it for $1,000.00 a year or find something new. For the small amount of drafting, I was doing I didn't feel it was worth the money to renew the lease. Instead, I cleaned all the junk off the drafting table and started using it. I'm sure there are less expensive drafting programs out there today. However, I actually enjoy sitting down at the table and drawing a part manually.

As for engineers not being in touch with the end results of their designs, the company I worked for was just the opposite. When an engineer was hired, they were assigned to one or more machine design projects. Those projects would be their responsibility for the entire time they were with the company. If an original design didn't work out well, they had to make the needed improvements to satisfy the productivity, ergonomics, safety, maintenance requirements, or any other short comings of the original design.

In the future should the company decide the machine output needed to be increased the original engineering team would be responsible for making it happen. There was no such a thing as passing a poor design on to the production staff and running off to a new project. I was involved with a number of projects and followed them through until I was asked to transfer to a different department.

Even after 10 years in the new department I was asked to revisit one of the original projects. This time the machines had been in service for many years, and it was time to rebuild them from the ground up. We setup a 2-year project to rebuild machines in a shop in a small town in Iowa and convinced 2 of our best technicians to switch from a maintenance capacity to machine rebuilders. As part of the project, with each machine, we brought in 2 technicians from the production facility for training. We also wrote a training manual covering all phases of the rebuild process to be used as a reference for future maintenance and upgrades.

When the project wrapped up, we had rebuilt 62 machines from the ground up and trained over 100 technicians on how to maintain, repair, and rebuild the machines as necessary. Over 25 years later I'm sure the machines have been replaced by newer and faster technology and most of the technicians are probably retired. Non the less I'm sure it was a worthwhile investment for the company.

Here's a picture of my old drafting board setup. It still gets used today. It's a bit hard to see, but the picture on the desk is of my father-in-law inspecting a section of machinery he designed in the 1950's. He worked there from 1954 to 1985. In the 30+ years he was there the machines he designed remained his responsibility.

Thank you. As a life long machine builder myself I enjoyed reading your post. Some of my past projects are burned into my head forever I guess. I remember some part numbers, circuits, and dimensions I should have forgotten long ago.

 

[projectnut]

I probably shouldn't admit this, but many design problems and even a number of installation problems I encountered were resolved in bed at night. Often times after a hard frustrating day at work I'd take the problems home in my head. After a few hours of restful sleep, I'd wake up with what seemed like an obvious solution. Why I couldn't come up with that solution during the day was always a mystery.

It happened so often that I kept a pen and paper on the nightstand to make notes. I was afraid that if I didn't write it down it would be lost by the morning. The first few times it was a shock to my wife when she woke up and saw me writing down notes on a pad. After a while the only response was to be sure to turn off the light when I was done.

As for guidance from our fathers I think that many of them were cut from the same cloth. They were hands on people that could solve the most complex problems in their heads and pass the information on as though it were just "common sense". They instilled the sense of wanting to investigate and solve problems. They had the patience to guide you in the right direction yet give you enough freedom to try a number of ways to accomplish a task without belittling or demeaning your efforts. They also could make you feel as though you accomplished something when you did finally resolve the problem.

I remember an old column from the Tappet Brothers Click & Clack (Tom & Ray Magliozzi). They were both MIT Engineering graduates but rather than go into mechanical engineering as careers they chose to open a car repair business in Boston. For many years they had a humorous radio show and newspaper column about car repairs. Anyway, as best I can remember they faulted the invention of automobile fuel injection with the demise of the family unit. They lamented that fuel injection was so superior to the carburetor that it never failed. Thus, minimizing the father son time waiting for the tow truck to arrive, and the amount of father son time in the garage attempting to repair the carburetor. By their calculations it was a loss of 100 hours or more of fathers teaching their sons patience, diagnostics, and repairs.

I have no idea if their calculations were correct, but I do remember rebuilding carburetors, transmissions, starters, generators, differentials, relining brakes, and various other repair jobs under the tutelage of my father.

 

[woodchucker]

my school had woodworking, metal working, printing and drafting.
I wish we had electronics/electrical.. friends had it, and learned about resistance, capacitance, shunts, etc.
I learned to expose blueprints, how to print... Useless today. I was so - so in drafting.
Wish I were better, I can see it in my head, but putting it to paper is much tougher. Lots of erasing.
But I could make a useable draft.

 

[tominboise]

I tried to get the Process Engineering groups at Hershey to implement a program where new (while still probationary) “engineers” (typically not PE’s) would work on the factory floor for six weeks so they would have an appreciation for how things were done and how to work with people. It didn’t get anywhere.

The last 15 years of my career I managed design teams at an A&E firm and did what I could to have as many members of a project team, at all levels, get to construction job sites to better understand the importance of constructability In designs.

When I hired on as an engineer at Boeing in 1990, we had to do exactly that - go spend 6 weeks learning how to rivet a wing section, router aluminum parts, install wire bundles, etc, before we moved into our permanent jobs. I don't know if they still do that but it was valuable. I came to engineering later in life then most I hired in with, and had spent quite a few years working as a millwright and technician in various heavy industries, so I had a lot of experience working with my hands. Most of the new college grads, not so much.