Unpopular opinion: I found a 1950s drafting manual at a yard sale in Cleveland that said we used to draw everything at 1:1 scale on huge boards.

Can you imagine trying to store a full-size car blueprint? Makes me wonder what other old-school methods we've totally forgotten. Anyone know where I can find more of these old manuals?

3 comments

3 Comments

grantp282d ago

Actually sounds pretty smart for checking fits and clearances. Maybe we lost something going fully digital.

laura_allen2d ago

Yeah my grandpa was a machinist and he had this whole drawer of weird little gauges and feeler things. Said he could tell a thousandth of an inch just by the drag. We rely so much on the screen now but the screen can lie if the model is off. There's a real feel you get with physical stuff that you just don't get from numbers on a screen.

mila_brown102d ago

Maybe we lost something" is the kind of thing people say to sound deep. My screen doesn't lie if I know how to use it. Digital gives me a full picture of the whole part instantly, not just one spot I can poke with a gauge. That "real feel" is just being used to an old method, and it comes with human error every single time. Give me a solid digital model and a good CMM any day over a drawer of mystery tools.