Appreciation post: that old drafting manual my mentor left me

Picked up a 1987 drafting manual from my mentor when he retired last spring. I thought those hand-lettering guides and pen techniques were outdated junk, but I tried the chamfered nib trick on a set of schematics last week. The line weights came out perfect, better than my digital stylus has ever managed. Has anyone else found old-school advice that actually beats modern tools?

2 comments

2 Comments

wilson.jesse20d ago

Hold up on the chamfered nib trick. That's actually from the 1940s and was meant for ruling pens, not modern technical pens. The idea works fine but you're using 40 year old guidance on a technique that's way older. Most of those old drafting tricks still hold up if you know the actual history behind them.

lily8920d ago

That line about "if you know the actual history behind them" really got me thinking. It's like when someone tells you to push a door when it clearly says pull, you just gotta stop and wonder where that came from. I see this all the time with cooking tips my grandma gave me that turned out to be from depression era rationing, not actual better technique. There's something cool about rediscovering why we do things the way we do, even if the original reason is totally gone now.