Cleaning out my old desk and found a blueprint from 1998.

It was for a simple residential job, and the title block said 'drawn by hand, checked by hand'. I looked it up and a drafting textbook from that year said a full set of house plans took about 80 hours manually. Now the same thing takes maybe 15 in CAD. I still have my old lead holder in the drawer. Does anyone else keep any of their old manual tools around, or is it all digital now?

3 comments

3 Comments

caleb_thomas853mo ago

Ever think about how the physical work of drafting might have changed the actual designs? Like, if you know erasing a whole wall line is a huge pain, maybe you think harder before you draw it. Now with CAD you can just undo anything in a second. I wonder if that made old plans more careful or just more of a headache.

lindaowens3mo ago

Oh wow, that's a real piece of history! I keep my old parallel bar and a few lead holders too, just for the nostalgia. It's amazing how much the tools have changed.

brian_rivera592mo ago

Ever think about the mistakes? A smudge or a tiny line in the wrong spot on vellum could mean redoing the whole sheet. I bet there are houses built with weird little bumps or corners that are just some guy's coffee spill he traced around because starting over was too much work. The old tools didn't just slow you down, they made permanent ghosts in the final building.