Early 20th Century Drafting
Early 20th Century Drafting
(OP)
I'm referring to this:


I remember seeing these kinds of photos in my Abbott Physics book in high school not too long ago, and they looked *almost* perfectly drawn, to someone who grew up with computers, yet not really *real*. To me, they can't have been rendered by computer, because the specific book I'm reading (Handbook of Cane Sugar Engineering, Hugot, E.) was published in 1964, and CAD then was basically just this.
My questions are:
1. What did people do to get realistic views before rendering became what it is today? Was the engineer also an artist?
2. In the snipping below, why does it look like some regions were sketched while others are from a photograph (specifically where the two men are)?

Thanks for all your kind answers.


I remember seeing these kinds of photos in my Abbott Physics book in high school not too long ago, and they looked *almost* perfectly drawn, to someone who grew up with computers, yet not really *real*. To me, they can't have been rendered by computer, because the specific book I'm reading (Handbook of Cane Sugar Engineering, Hugot, E.) was published in 1964, and CAD then was basically just this.
My questions are:
1. What did people do to get realistic views before rendering became what it is today? Was the engineer also an artist?
2. In the snipping below, why does it look like some regions were sketched while others are from a photograph (specifically where the two men are)?

Thanks for all your kind answers.





RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
"You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals" -- Booker T. Washington
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
The machine was primitive enough that a little adjustment should have allowed it to make oblique-ish views by using different magnifications in each direction.
I had a ball with it. Of course, it was rented for one specific project other than mine, so I also got in trouble for wasting resources trying to save time.
It made such nice images that I thought it would be swell to help out our publications department by providing them copies of drawings and layouts.
They were having none of it. When it came time to start making user manuals, which eventually contained illustrations similar to those above (but _much_ simpler), I asked the pubs boss which drawings they would like to have nice copies of.
None, was the answer. They sent over a guy with a sketchpad, a pencil, and a ruler.
He dressed like an accountant, and claimed to be an artist.
The pubs came out all right, but I was not allowed to see any of the process.
Much later, at yet another outfit, I was peripherally involved in making some drawings that were basically drawings spliced around an image of a photograph. It was done outside. My participation involved selecting which part of which image to use, providing a drawing with a blank center, and writing a requisition.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
My guess is the 3rd image was started from a photographic slide, projected onto the draghtsman's paper. Once the basic lines of perspective and component edges were captured, the draughtsman would no longer need the projection to maintain the realistic appearance as he finished the rendering.
STF
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
Mike, it sounds like you worked at a really wonderful place, eh?
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
Before Photoshop there were actual Photo shops, i.e. dark rooms where people worked with negatives and photo paper and chemicals to manipulate images.
Before ray tracing there was tracing paper.
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
I also remember my mom bleaching old linen blue prints and making napkins and other stuff out of the fabric.
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
Evidently, there was a time when it was impractical or impossible to print actual photographs, so you'll see a lot of printed artwork back in the day that was obviously made from a photograph, but wasn't a photograph.
One thing I've wondered: In places, like Houston, Texas, prior to air conditioning, how did draftsmen ever manage to get anything done without dripping sweat on the paper?
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
I am (well, at least was) a very good draftsman, but an artist I am not.
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P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
Photography at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries required some level of brute force touch up. It would not be unusual to find brushwork on negatives from that era
TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
For some years in the middle of all this, he ran the graphics office at a big training establishment where their function was to turn out visual aids for the lectures - the equivalent of today's Powerpoint. Many of the slides in these packs were handpainted watercolour illustrations which were then photographed onto 35mm Ektachrome for projection. Some of those slides used to occupy him for a week (including the weekend on our kitchen table).
Computer graphics came along late in his career. Fortunately for him, he was enthusiastic early adopter, sparing him the angst suffered by many of his colleagues.
How times change.
A.
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
They probably weren't drawing on paper. Linen (ink) (never saw it) and aluminium (scalpel), mylar (pencil), CAD was the order of progression in our office. I've never done a proper drawing on anything other than mylar, almost invariably pencil not technical pens.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
I have been known to voice my own opinion.
Hence, I have worked at a lot of interesting places.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
An old timer told me when they did the linens they would wear a visor and arm sleeves to keep everything clean.
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
Back where I worked in Michigan in the late 60's and the 70's, our company had taken several large linen drawings and had them framed and put on display in the main lobby and the board room. They were as good as any commercial pieces of art that they could have purchased.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
The prints that they sent over were so clean and crisp, the notes were all perfect. (unlike most architects that think that odd hard to read notes are a sign of creativity)
Turns out that they had an IBM Selectric typewriter that had a 36" wide platen.
Never saw anything like it.
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P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
Galveston was actually bigger than Houston up until I think the early 1900s. Galveston got hit by a storm and air conditioning started becoming popular. If you asked me what Houstonians did without air conditioning, I would say absolutely nothing during August and July. Houston really didn't start taking off until air conditioning came along.
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
That also applies to every city in Fl, TX, OK, LA, and so on.
All of those cities would still just be backwaters without cheap large scale AC.
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P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
I worked on a drafting board in an office that had a light table. I could splice drawings together neatly enough that I got absolutely clean whiteprints out of it. All I needed as an Xacto knife, a steel rule, and Scotch tape.
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JHG
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
I remember working one summer on a drafting board in a trailer. It was air conditioned. The thing I remember was that it rocked any time someone when it or out the door. You notice stuff like this when you are hunched over a drafting board trying to print neatly.
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JHG
RE: Early 20th Century Drafting
A little off topic but some people say the country was run much better before AC was installed in the Capitol Building.