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View Quote I have that exact same drafting desk if it's got an electric lift. |
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To give an example of how technology has changed things, I'm responsible for a smaller tech demo project's drawing package with ~110 drawings. By myself.
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Quoted: Hmmm, well, maybe it was different at Ford. I started there in '93 at the dawn of the CAD age and saw the old prints regularly for various reasons. Don't recall ever seeing 1:1 prints. I started in aerospace though a few years earlier alternating between a drafting board and our primitive CAD system. I think I was among the last generation of engineers to learn manual drafting. View Quote Body Engineering Design Center? A few of my former apprentices moved over there in '91. I bet we know quite a few of the same people. Yeah, even with ford, all the sheet metal, stamped, or molded parts were drawn 1:1. The only thing they scaled were tooling designs, because the tools were much bigger than the actual parts. Even then, they tried to stay 1:1 when possible. |
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Quoted: Not sure I buy that, unless you were actually there. Most companies not working on aircraft or spacecraft or ships simply didn't use prints that big. And there's always got to one danged nonconformist in the group.......guy just couldn't stand to wear a white shirt. View Quote Quoted: How do you know that? View Quote Quoted: Did you know gullible isn't in the dictionary? View Quote It just is. I bet if you dig around long enough you can verify it. Not really worried whether you believe me or not...couldn't really care to be honest. Go ahead and look it up. |
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Quoted: Probably... but it could be that the picture is reversed based on the nerd wallets onthr wrong side of the shirts. View Quote Look hard at the picture people. Wait for it. Click To View Spoiler |
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Must have removed the cigarettes, ash trays, coffee mugs for the photo which also left the room clear of smoke to see across.
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Quoted: Must have removed the cigarettes, ash trays, coffee mugs for the photo which also left the room clear of smoke to see across. View Quote My dad told me back in the old days he smoked in the office (engineering stuff but at the city level). He once realized he had 3 cigarettes simultaneously burning in ashtrays. |
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Quoted: Before my time in the industry, but I'd say that it's a bunch of draftsman, a few engineers, and if there were any architects involved, they're out of frame hanging out in the bathroom stalls that have holes in the dividers. I kid. Kinda. View Quote When I was a draftsman back in the '90s the engineers showed up to work their asses off, and the architects locked themselves in their offices with clients and did coke. True story. These look like draftsmen in the '60s or something. Pic is too grainy to make out what they're working on. |
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Quoted: Whew, that looks even more miserable than cubicle hell. View Quote No mandatory "diversity" seminars every week, all of the people you worked with were hired because of their competence, nobody got fired or demoted for being "too white and too male", your boss didn't have a beard and wear a dress... Yeh, it was hell on earth. |
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It is back in the day's when they actually taught History, Math, English, Science, Civics and Biology ext...
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Mix of draftsman, engineers, and poeple that make shop bill of materials from shop drawings, template list, material list etc.... When I first started out about 25% of people were still drawing on the board. Then like overnight it went to 100% in a very short time frame. My dad drew on the board until I got him on the computer and doubled his income quickly for his self employed business. So much faster. I still run into some of his board drawn drawings at a number of chemical plants and refineries when I'm looking for the last set it was built off of, now that it's rotted out and time to replace.
I can smell the amonia in that pic from them running blueline copies. I'm not sure I've ever seen an actual blueprint. Always been a blueline instead. |
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Quoted: I can smell the amonia in that pic from them running blueline copies. I'm not sure I've ever seen an actual blueprint. Always been a blueline instead. View Quote I took Mechanical Drawing classes in high school and there was nothing quite like getting a good hard whiff of ammonia from operating the blueprinting machine at the start of 2nd period. Wakes you up and cleans out your sinuses at the same time. I should look for a Vemco drafting machine on ebay. I've used T-squares and triangles, but was faster with a dm. |
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View Quote After my dad (engineer) retired the company started switching over to CAD. When they auctioned off the drafting tables, I was able to snag my dad’s old table…it’s in his/now my garage. |
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It's pretty obvious of you zoom in and look at the drawings. They are the design team for the Arfcom search engine algorithm.
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Interesting, I have been in many drafting rooms, none of them looked like that.
They were spread out a bit more but not much, I think I see chairs for these guys, we also had some book shelves. Sometimes it was just better to stand to reach the top of the drawing, the desk tops would also tilt up. I also don't see any parallel bars used to make straight horizontal lines, some of the desk just look like they have blue prints and not drawing paper. The blue prints I see on some of the tables might be part of the checking process or just being used for reference, I always had one or two tables to use as a reference layout area. The rolls of drawing paper tells me this could be some kind of ship building drafting room, they would often have a very long drawing to get all of a large ship on one document. Looks to be in the 60's or 70's, I started in the mid 70's, of course all this started to go away with CAD software in the early eighties. |
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Quoted: https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5ece/383e/b357/65c6/7300/017b/slideshow/General_Motors_Technical_Center_D-C2537.jpg?1590573098 Look hard at the picture people. Wait for it. Click To View Spoiler https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/467079/clues_jpg-2397415.JPG Apparently I was off by a decade. Looks to be late 60s/early 70s vs early 80s. View Quote Good eye.?? |
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Quoted: To give an example of how technology has changed things, I'm responsible for a smaller tech demo project's drawing package with ~110 drawings. By myself. View Quote Our "draftsman" pretty much line in 3D. |
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Quoted: That's the General Motors technical Center, in Warren, Michigan, circa 1980s. View Quote Yep. They are trying to figure out ways to install all the commonly replaced parts that can't be reached by a human once installed into a vehicle but that will need regular maintenance throughout the lifetime of the vehicle. |
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Quoted: Not sure I buy that, unless you were actually there. Most companies not working on aircraft or spacecraft or ships simply didn't use prints that big. And there's always got to one danged nonconformist in the group.......guy just couldn't stand to wear a white shirt. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: That's the General Motors technical Center, in Warren, Michigan, circa 1980s. Not sure I buy that, unless you were actually there. Most companies not working on aircraft or spacecraft or ships simply didn't use prints that big. And there's always got to one danged nonconformist in the group.......guy just couldn't stand to wear a white shirt. That is a typical drawing size. |
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My old man is probably some where in this photo. 40 years drafting/engineering. He still has all his protractors and boards. Does all his stuff now on CAD.
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Quoted: That's the General Motors technical Center, in Warren, Michigan, circa 1980s. View Quote Could be, but would say it was the 1960’s or 1970’s. My dad worked there briefly, my grandfather retired from there and my dads brother retired from GM tech center. Made over $100,000 as a graphic designer the last part of his career. My friends from high schools fathers worked for GM - they all had company cars or drove prototype vehicles that never went into production. Growing up in Detroit area the automotive industry was a way of life. My uncle Gary always said GM will go bankrupt- a draftsman/graphic designer knew it 20 years before it happened. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Technical_Center Guys - you missed the nice rack delivering coffee in the back. I expect better from GD. |
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Quoted: I also don't see any parallel bars used to make straight horizontal lines, some of the desk just look like they have blue prints and not drawing paper. The blue prints I see on some of the tables might be part of the checking process or just being used for reference, I always had one or two tables to use as a reference layout area. View Quote I was thinking the same thing. I worked for a contact place in the mid 90's that did a lot of work for Delco Remy. They had a mix of a couple of different CAD systems and boards. One of the boards went floor to ceiling and the full width of the room, probably 8-10' high and 25' wide. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: That's the General Motors technical Center, in Warren, Michigan, circa 1980s. Not sure I buy that, unless you were actually there. Most companies not working on aircraft or spacecraft or ships simply didn't use prints that big. And there's always got to one danged nonconformist in the group.......guy just couldn't stand to wear a white shirt. That is a typical drawing size. Yup, J size 36" tall by whatever wide (my templates in Catia go from 88" wide to over 200") was necessary. For drawing reviews I used to be fine printing them off the plotter at half size, 18", but sometimes if you were reviewing them with someone older you'd need to go full size. Real pita when our cubes, or conference room tables, weren't really sized to have full sized drawings anymore. I probably would have been the jackass in the blue shirt |
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My Grandfather was a Mechanical Engineer in 50's through the 80's. It looks like some of the pictures I have seen of him in the office probably in the 60's.
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Quoted: BTW, drafting is a dying art. It's kinda sad. One of my tasks is to review plans, some of the shit I see these days is so fucking gross. I can't tell you how many fucking drawings I've seen with everything done in one line width. Also we are only responsible for a small portion of projects, we require plans to be submitted with those portions in color. We don't care how you do it, change your pen settings, highlite the pdf files whatever. The item on the checklist is so fucking specific about what we want to see but every week we get a set of plans that some jackwagon made everything on the drawing random colors. Every boss I've had throughout my career would have fired me on the spot for doing shit like that. View Quote Thankfully they also sent the model. That job isn't getting a quote. |
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prob that GM thing as mentioned
but second guess would ahve been IBM--or division of....mandatory white shirt, black tie |
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Quoted: Life before computers and acad. I was in construction in mid 80's and we absolutely had drawings that size. When hand drawn they tried to put everything they could on a single page. Couldn't click a mouse and make dozens of duplicates as today. View Quote New tools are designed in 3D but you then have to take center cross section views to be able to really see what's going on in an assembly. |
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Quoted: https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5ece/383e/b357/65c6/7300/017b/slideshow/General_Motors_Technical_Center_D-C2537.jpg?1590573098 Look hard at the picture people. Wait for it. Click To View Spoiler https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/467079/clues_jpg-2397415.JPG Apparently I was off by a decade. Looks to be late 60s/early 70s vs early 80s. View Quote |
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All I know is that is Paul G’s chair in the front, and you better not dick around with it. Because it’s Paul’s.
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Quoted: White long sleeve button downs, sleeves rolled up and crew cuts...thats late 60s. That's the putting men on the moon uniform there. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5ece/383e/b357/65c6/7300/017b/slideshow/General_Motors_Technical_Center_D-C2537.jpg?1590573098 Look hard at the picture people. Wait for it. Click To View Spoiler https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/467079/clues_jpg-2397415.JPG Apparently I was off by a decade. Looks to be late 60s/early 70s vs early 80s. Glasses and slicked back hair were what threw it back to the 60s. |
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Similar to the aircraft engineering groups I worked, except the boards were typically two deep against a wall or three deep elsewhere and the rest of the engineering specialties were at desks in the same room. Desks were five deep with the junior guy in the middle. One phone per cluster of five for years, but that changed to a phone for each desk when I started.
Very few designers on the boards were not degreed engineers. Degreed draftsmen were better drafters, but they were rare in defense aviation. Engineers were preferred for contracting purposes, and maybe a tiny better clue. The drawings were made on mylar with pens and scribe coat masters with pencils and then a sharp scribe to scrape the coating. Scribe coat drawings sucked hard when new and got worse as they were used and revised. As the CAD era arrived MDA projects had a "tube city" along the edge of the room or in dedicated rooms or other space. The remainder of the room had drawing boards well into the late 90's, and there are still a few on legacy programs (F-15, F-18, F-22) due to the need to review original prints. Analysts started getting computer terminals the size of a PC on their desks in the mid 80's in the aircraft company (early 80's in the Astronautics company), and CAD capable work stations in the last half of the 90's. Small terminals transitioned to PC's about 1995, and I had a monitor or PC and a work station on my desk until 2001 when I received a PC and large monitor for all tasks. I had moved from an office where I ran any fem analysis through a workstation to a cluster, and when I saw the PC I couldn't believe it could work, so I ran a small analysis that required about 20 minutes across the work station; that job finished before I could check to see if it was running okay. When I retired, the 16 gig RAM 8 processor machine I used was not enough, I commonly ran analyses with 2 to 4 billion equations and zillions of degrees of freedom. I needed another computer for the mundane stuff, sometimes I had jobs on a cluster plus the PC. Three large monitors, and those were sufficient. |
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The real smart ones are the guys that are the geeks and wear short sleeve shirts to keep the shirts from getting inked up on the forearms. The dumb ones are the guys that don't even roll their sleeves up because they are more interested in looking good.
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Room full of William Fosters
Demonstrating their skills as Joan walks through the room bringing her boss his cup of coffee |
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I did that many moons ago.
The definition of horror was the original vellum drawing you just spent 50 hours on, is fed into a "Blueprint" copier for full scale reproduction. Halfway in the machine gets cocked and begins to crunch and tear the original. Eventually the department supervisor approached me about this new drafting tool called CAD. Within 2 years we had rooms like that full of drafting tables that were mothballed. |
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Quoted: Holy shit. You couldn't be a a bit more specific? Lol Thanks! View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes |
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