Scale Rulers

[iMustBeCrazy]

G'Day all,

 

I have drawn up some scale rulers in CAD. English feet and inches in 1:16, 1:24 and 1:48. EDIT: added 1:32

 

When printing you may have to adjust your printers scaling until 12 feet on the 1:16 ruler is 9 inches.

 

After printing I cover both sides with Scotch 'Magic' tape before cutting them out.

 

I hope somebody finds them useful.

Scale Rulers.pdf

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by iMustBeCrazy

[Wacom]

Many thanks, very useful.

[Bob Blarney]

if any other sizes are needed, check out:

www.blocklayer.com

 

There are also many other items of interest there.

[James H]

If you want some top quality scale measurement tools, check these out:

 

http://www.radubstore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=77_111&zenid=8d43037bafaea0b8b78286ade4153cc9 

[Bob Cleek]

42 minutes ago, Bob Blarney said:

if any other sizes are needed, check out:

www.blocklayer.com

 

There are also many other items of interest there.

Very handy site!

[Bob Cleek]

For those with a collector's taste, acquiring a classic Keuffel & Esser boxed set of "scales," as they are properly called, might be a joy.  The complete boxed sets in good condition are somewhat rare and bring a premium, but single rules are frequently offered and sell at quite reasonable prices on eBay. The old-fashioned boxwood versions bring more than the "modern" and now-obsolete plastic ones designed for use with "drafting machines." Metal versions are also made. 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 inch to the foot scales are pretty common.

 

 

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Edited February 23, 2020 by Bob Cleek

[Hank]

Bob,

Wow! You just showed me something I had no idea existed!!! Singly, yes! As I have several original K&E, A.W. Faber, Dietzgen, Alvin, and various other scales from the 1970s when I used these daily at Western Electric on board drafting. I have a Samsonite brief case full of my drafting equipment just as I left there to take a 10 year stint at DuPont in 1976 - by 1986 things were transitioning to CAD but I retained all this stuff - and it's a good thing I did - I still find them useful whenever I need something properly drawn up. And Leroy Pens - remember them????

 

Hank

[mtaylor]

Leroy Pens... there's a product I haven't heard in years.  I had a full set back in Tech Writing days for doing illustrations when a draftsman wasn't available.  I have no idea where they went.

[Hank]

I've got several brand new Leroy Pens in their original wooden "barrel" cannisters. Ready to go!!!!

[Bob Cleek]

Back before manual drafting instruments became as collectible as they are now, I was able to "stock up" on LEROY (they always spelled it with capitals, but nobody knows why) pens, scribers, templates, and other accessories. I was also able to secure a good selection of the "unusual" templates. The ISO font templates are plentiful, but the old pre-ISO fonts were hard to come by and are now practically impossible to find on eBay anymore. I also stocked up on Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph technical pens, which can be mounted in the LEROY scribers. If you can get the right accessory scribers, you can alter the size of the fonts and the slant angle of the fonts, which greatly expands the range of the templates you have. LEROY sets are a bit tedious to use, but easy enough once you get the hang of it. I don't have a lot of occasion to use mine, particularly since I have a trained freehand lettering "fist," (as they used to call it in the trade.) The last time I had to do any manual drafting for reproduction with a lot of lettering (text specifications in the margins,) I actually printed it out from my wordprocessing fonts in the formats I wanted and did a "cut and paste" job onto the drawings. That worked fine.

 

There's still a fair number of ISO-font LEROY sets listed on eBay these days: https://www.ebay.com/b/Leroy-Lettering/14017/bn_7023237212?_pgn=3

Edited March 24, 2020 by Bob Cleek

[druxey]

And those Staedler technical pens of various line widths  (hollow tubes with wire) that always clogged when you least needed them to! And don't get me started on Letraset and Linotype machines....

[Bob Cleek]

6 hours ago, druxey said:

And those Staedler technical pens of various line widths  (hollow tubes with wire) that always clogged when you least needed them to! And don't get me started on Letraset and Linotype machines....

Yeah, you have to keep them scrupulously clean, Nothing gives a drawing the "snap" of real India ink, though. 

 

 

I agree, Letraset stunk. Nobody could equal K&E's LEROY system. It's such a shame that the art of drafting went by the boards. I realize the advantages of CAD, goodness knows, but I'm sorry that the younger generation doesn't realize that there was a time when drafting was a real art !  When one goes over the near-photographic mechanically drawn illustrations of drafting instruments in the old K&E and Dietzgen catalogs and realize they were all done with drafting instruments, it makes me sad to realize we've lost that today with CAD printouts. The old time engineers and mechanics could look at a drawing and vizualize it in 3D. Now, that is easily done for the "dummies" right on the screen. It's not the same, though. I've looked at thousands of drawings and there's no comparison between a good mechanical drawing and a CAD print out, no matter how you cut it. The human-drawn plan has life. The CAD drawing doesn't.

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by Bob Cleek

[Hank]

9 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

I've looked at thousands of drawings and there's no comparison between a good mechanical drawing and a CAD print out, no matter how you cut it. The human-drawn plan has life. The CAD drawing doesn't.

Bob - I totally agree - HOWEVER, as a CAD professional (45+ years) I will admit that CAD offers precise and exact drafting qualities, but does in fact lack the Life in a drawing. It's also one of the reasons the old technical graphics drawings that accompanied many technical manuals were so nice to look at - perfectly rendered shading, proportion, and depth - all by hand.

[Bob Cleek]

5 hours ago, Hank said:

Bob - I totally agree - HOWEVER, as a CAD professional (45+ years) I will admit that CAD offers precise and exact drafting qualities, but does in fact lack the Life in a drawing. It's also one of the reasons the old technical graphics drawings that accompanied many technical manuals were so nice to look at - perfectly rendered shading, proportion, and depth - all by hand.

Yes, indeed. I don't think we'll be seeing any CAD prints hanging in maritime museums a hundred years from now.

 

They don't make them like they used to. All hand-drawn with drafting instruments: