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Took a tour of an old paper mill last month
Went through an abandoned paper mill up near Bangor on a job site walk and saw drafting tables still set up from the 70s with blueprints pinned to them. The hand-drawn linework on those old prints was insane, how do you even get that consistent without a computer?
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skyler_craig6d ago
Oh boy, "how do you even get that consistent without a computer?" - with a lot of swearing and wasted paper, I'm guessing. I used to work with a guy who started out doing hand drafting in the 70s and he said the pressure to get it perfect the first time was brutal. One mistake meant starting the whole sheet over or spending an hour with an eraser and a light box trying to fix it. The linework you're describing was basically the result of people who were terrified of losing their jobs if they messed up. Makes you appreciate how fast we can fix things with CTRL+Z now.
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karen_sanchez105d ago
and I get what he's saying about the pressure, but I think there's another side to it too. Those guys weren't just scared of messing up, they took real pride in their work. You don't get that kind of precision from fear alone. It comes from years of practice and a craft that was taught one on one by people who had been doing it for decades. There's something to be said for knowing your work is permanent before you even put the pencil down. It changes how you approach the whole thing.
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