My Metalshop/drafting projects - "Make Your Own Tools"

Looking at those drawing made me think of my school days at Pretoria Technical High school more than fifty years ago. I loved the technical drawing classes and couldn't wait for that period. I think we had three periods of technical drawings a week.
Willy
 
Thanks for the memories. I also marvel how big companies like GE operated before Xerox machines. Carbon copies.. may six copies that are readable. Guess it's true that desperation leads to discovery. Thank goodness.... :)
BB


Carbon copies only six readable , when you needed a hundred or so copies that's when you used the big Gestetner duplicator that used waxed skins and inks . I would have hated to be a technical draughtsman with pens & pencils in a big company's drawing office . All sat on high stools at a massive counter balanced sloped drawing easel like little sand boys row after row, slowly destroying their eyesight , spines & lungs because everyone smoked at their desks in those evil days .

I used to do the technical drawing for valve radios and other such equipment as part of my electro mechanical apprenticeship & hobby back in 1966. I have no doubt that my drawings were used for all radios for there is no doubt that most of the drawings ended up a wireless even though I'd checked them several times .
.
 
Last edited:
Carbon copies only six readable , when you needed a hundred or so copies that's when you used the big Gestetner duplicator that used waxed skins and inks . I would have hated to be a technical draughtsman with pens & pencils in a big company's drawing office . All sat on high stools at a massive counter balanced sloped drawing easel like little sand boys row after row, slowly destroying their eyesight , spines & lungs because everyone smoked at their desks in those evil days .

I used to do the technical drawing for valve radios and other such equipment as part of my electro mechanical apprenticeship & hobby back in 1966. I have no doubt that my drawings were used for all radios for there is no doubt that most of the drawings ended up a wireless even though I'd checked them several times .
.


I have a cousin who had to give up drafting due to his eyesight. I think eye strain was causing bad headaches.
 
Wish now I had saved all my drawings from high school. I'd frame them and hang them in my shop.
 
I understand that there is a product available called Cherry Red that is similar to the old Kasenit product. Midway USA carries it, and most likely Brownell's does now too. Not sure about Enco or McMaster Carr, but you could do a search for it. If you find out anything, it might be worthwhile to start a separate thread on it, probably in the Shop Made Tooling forum.
Cherry Red is still available from Enco. It is a little hard to find; their online search engine is looking for surface hardening. It is on page 853 of their catalog. McMaster Carr also carries a surface hardening compound; search for case hardening. Sodium cyanide was commonly used in the past for case hardening. Presumably abandoned for health and safety reasons.
My first professional job was as an analytical chemist for a major battery manufacturer. One day the machine shop foreman brought in a covered stainless steel box with about 10 lbs. of sodium cyanide which they had used for case hardening parts. He was a bit concerned about safety issues. I did a bit of research on it and concluded that household bleach would convert the cyanide to harmless (relatively) CO2 and N2 gas. The reaction was rather violent so the bleach was added a drop at a time in a fume hood until the reaction completed. It took about three gallons of bleach to do the job. I still have that stainless steel box.
 
I had four years of drafting in high school. I remember the lettering lessons learning how to make perfect upper case and diminutive lower case lettering, 15 degree slant, as I recall. Also the old fashion pens with various sized nibs for different line widths. And scraping the India ink mistakes off with a razor blade. How about laying out a screw thread helix by transferring points on a circle to a side view and connecting the dots with a French curve?
 
Thanks for sharing the shop projects, I wish I had better memories of my high school days. I went to a public high school in New York City in the late 70's, a time which was the city's finances were really bad. I remember the first day of my machine shop class seeing the lathes, milling machine and other machinery saying to myself that this is going to be great. The teacher told us straight out that there was no money in the budget for any supplies and he is retiring at the end of the year, all we needed to do to pass was show up. Everyone did homework or whatever they wanted while the teacher drank coffee and read the newspaper. I was so disappointed that I lost all interest in school and barely graduated. Ironically I also work for the City of New York and after 30+ years, I see the frustration that my shop teacher must of went through with all of the politics and bureaucracy. Sorry for the rant.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top