Vemco Elbow drafting machine trouble

[mikem]

Usually I am looking for help when I use this BBS so I thought that I should offer to contribute something for a change.

Having bought and sold lots of the Vemco drafting machines on eBay, I have had them apart from one end to the other and have seen most of the typical problems. I would be glad to advise anybody out there with adjustments and repairs on their elbow drafting machines.

These machines are really an engineering work of art and pretty much indestructible and you can buy them for pennies on the dollar. There is no reason for using a T square and triangle when these are available.

Thanks--Mike.

[Paul Alciatore]

I cut my drafting teeth on T-squares and triangles and have used drafting machines but in this day and age, there is no reason to use anything other than CAD unless you just don't have access to a computer. And that's why the drafting machines are avbailable so cheap.

[spope14]

I cut my teeth on T-Squares, still pencil draft quite a bit for the detail I can get. Used and have a Vemco V-Head at home now. I also draft in MasterCAM and CadKey. Use the CAD more often now because I can carry a laptop easier than the board, and because I can send drawings across e-mail lines, and can easily generate programs and make changes on CAD.

However, pencil drafting has a detailing that is still lacking in CAD - and I have been doing CAD since 1983.

I will also say this to my fullest belief. The best CAD Draftsmen and Programmers started out using a pencil. You still need the basic construction techniques in CAD that are taught in pencil, you have a better appreciation for the dimensioning and views, and can spot an error in CAD better on a finished drawing. You can also determine the finer points that make a drawing easier to read (such as elipses on angled surfaces - I see this so much I go nuts)

CAD also has line weight problems that are addressed better by the pencil draftsman. Most CAD people who know nothing about line weights send out these miserable drawings with the same line width / thickness as the dimension and leader lines, and know nothing at all about the difference - for they drew it, it looks good to them. The object in a drwawing should have thicker lines than the dim lines and such so it stands out. This is easily addressed in CAD by the attributes - making these lines thicker just before printing. However, the CAD only draftsman taught by the CAD only person does not have this understanding. Kind of like the manual trained CNC machinist knowing the proper sound and look of a good cutting chip and the proper feel of the machine where the fully trained but newbie CNC person who never sees the chip run off the cutter not really appreciating why the insert is grinding down to nothing and the chips are all wound and gummed in the cutter every part.

CAD is good, CNC is good, but we too often forget our roots and basics, so the technology is not good at all when used improperly.

[bdarin]

I can do a drawing a whole lot faster with a pencil than I can with a computer.

[Thrud]

Scott

Well said. I know an award winning Architect and his drawings are outstanding in detail. He told me the biggest advantage the computer has over paper and inking is revisions. Clients would drive him nuts with change orders, and of course all new prints have to be generated. Instead of an army of draftsmen all he needs now is a small commando unit. And you are right, great draftsmen make superior CAD Technicians. (provided they can figure out Autocad!)

Bdarin
Me too. I can program a drawing faster in C++ than Autocad - I hate that program. I guess I are too stupid for it.

[Stepside]

Okay-Here is the teachers point of view--at least in my part of the woods. I am a board drafter turned CAD instructor. First, nothing is as pretty as a hand/board drawn drawing. But the ease of making changes and the ability to send the drawing/information to CAM packages as well as other software tends to nulify the beauty.
Second--AutoCad, without some training is a bit of a beast and while some of the best known software it is not the only software.
I find AutoCad to be just a starting point for a "high end" CAD program. It is intended to be customized by the user.
Third--If you are drawing in MasterCam, you are working too hard, especially on any 3-D surface work. I use a program called Rhinoceros for all my 3-D work. I even take MasterCam 3-D drawings into Rhino and "clean up" surfaces using and .IGES format. If curious look up Rhino3D.com and browse their site.
To really look at chip/bit interaction I get a strobe light, turn off the lights and make a cut. If you get it set just right you can see the generation of the chip as well as their path as they leave the bit.
Questions?
For you blokes in Canada I am bilingual and speak both American and Canadian.

[SGW]

I find CAD useful for finding dimensions that would be tedious to compute otherwise. Make the drawing, then it's trivial to get the dimesion of any part of it, from any point to any point.

[docsteve66]

I am trying to learn to appreciate AutoCad 2000. (mother used to tell me to eat what she put on talbe and even if i hated it, I would learn to appreciate it).

SWG alomst had a reason for cad. Problem is too many engineers learned on cad and have little concern about true length of lines. From my observation, give me a good pencil type drafts man (Person?) and teach him to do cad and you have best of all worlds. With cad I can draw a sphere inside a cube with no holes--- but how you gointo to make it? My rule of thumb used to be one engineer could keep five drafts men busy on a projest of any size. And if the ehgineer makes a drawing more complicated than a sketch, he will mess up some detail. Draftsmen are under appreciated!. And best draftsmen had at least sometime on the shop floor, learning from a craftsman. Too many "designers" make every part a critical dimension, then make their idea work by tighting spec's. Course thats kind of easy if you have NC machines. But be in a shop, drinking cup of coffee, talking about why we have some problem, and think about telling every one you need to get your cad gadget before you can figure the how to give the info. The real drawing is not the one signed by thechief engineer, its the one with the red , yellow, blue lines made by the mechanics, installers, operators. And if a first time job of any complexity is made with not a single mark on the drawings (and the design works)- one of two things has happened- the workers are lying and not documenting changes or the designers spent way too much time "refining" the drawing.

When we stop teaching the basics, we are flirting with disaster. G son (third grade) says the reason (so teacher says) for memorizing multipication tables is to pass tests where you cant use a calculator. I guess thats why he is learning to carry a bigger pack to school than I carried to live out of a week at a time.

Used to have a branch head who had poem about a the engineer, studiously designing a part, designed the part so a lathe wouldnt work , than refined it so it couldn't be milled, finaly he smiled, success at last!! the part could not even be cast!!!!
If any one has a copy of the poem, I'd enjoy a copy.

[This message has been edited by docsteve66 (edited 06-22-2002).]

[Thrud]

Stepside:
I will have you know we are not blokes, we are proud to be Hosers! Pass the beer, eh...

All I have to say about cad programs is when you have to read 1,200+ pages to draw a line - it's crap. It should be natural for a draftsman to use - not a nightmare.

That being said I still think RPN is better than Algebraic Notation - so there.

And real Chocolate milk is still better than sex but not as good as a Hardinge HLV-DR with Chocolate Milk.

[Stepside]

Thrud
Being I am 50 percent Canuk I guess that makes me a half-hoser. My only question is how come our 51st state is so big and has such odd/almost worthless money?

The difference between real chocolate milk and sex is "you don't have to talk to the container afterwards".

As to the AutoCad--I agree as to the 1200 pages. It is much like taking a 12 gauge after a house fly. It gets the job done but maybe a rolled up paper would have sufficed. I have used AutoCad from version 1.8 to the current version. It has become a great deal more usable, especially with some of the customizing packages available. BUT it still isn't as pretty as hand drawn. It or any CAD systems real power lies in the data base that it creates for a project.

Out of chocolate milk--guess I will have to chase the old lady for awhile.