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Something HAS to give
Something has to give. We either have to change the monument, (Pincushion), Change the Record Brg/distance, or we can USE the old distance, having one coord for the field marker, and another for the OFFICE or calculated one. I call this “Hide the difference”.
Real Monuments move, via ground shift. They get hit by tractors, dozers etc.
IF we set a new monument, 0.25′ from the existing one, then we have to DECIDE which one is wrong. The one 100′ south, or 300′ East, of the one we are discussing.
It seems that Jeffery Lucas has written a book, “Pincushion Effect” or something like that. Anybody got a copy, and read it?
And, then there is the pincushion, such as 30 feet or 60 feet. Using differing methods.
Say we survey a section, and the 1/4 corner set by BLM at the mid point, is 5 feet from the actual mid point. Now what?
Say we find REAL GLO EVIDENCE 66′ south of it? Fundamentally, the business of surveying is broken down into 2 things.
1.) Ability to generate REAL numbers, to REAL positions, on earth.
2.) What to do with those numbers. Accept/Reject monuments. Document it. Describe it. Such things.
Many of us have invested many hours into Number one above, But now, we have neat new tools. Least Squares, computers, GPS etc. So, after mostly solving number one, we are still at number 2.
What area we going to do with the data. There is the main area we have to work in.
One of my MAIN things is PUBLISH, and DOCUMENT why you did what you did. Don’t leave ambiguity for others. If you cannot come up with a GOOD reason, do more work, until you DO have a good foundation. Surveying. It will always have material that conflicts. Small, or Large, but conflict.
It’s just a fact of a SURVEYORS life.
Nate
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64 Replies
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You mean Jeff Lucas hasn’t had enough of trash talking other surveyors yet?
Historic Boundaries and Conservation Efforts -
Well, I for one think we should always watch for disturbed, bent, and moved monuments.
I??ve had my pins moved before. This makes the client responsible for his own pincushion of corners.
Nate -
@nate-the-surveyor This brings up an interesting discussion we had at the office this past week. Cad operator A. Is awesome been drafting for years. Many crews he has seen come and go. One issue is. Iron rod found. IRF or Iron Rod Set IRS. Doesn??t matter if it was a pipe bent pinched top size etc. rebar size nope. Above ground below ground. In other words the field crews that follow instructions and say 5/8? rebar or 1/2?. Cap or no cap. Disturbed etc that never makes it to the plat. Cad operator B is trained by CAD operator A. CAD operator B trains C etc. etc. same with crew chiefs and i man. It just keeps going. Where does the issue ever get fixed. I read plats and some have described the monument. So when i get to a monument and find something different. Say a 1/2? rebar but plat etc calls for pinched top pipe or axel. I usually keep digging and looking. Thats how I was trained and taught. It doesn??t matter how well this new uncalled for monument fits a computed point. I know I hear it all the time. Just do a quick look and move on we have to make money. That song is in my head Money Money money. My opinion and observations say it has happened slowly overtime maybe. It seems the small shops I follow are better at describing and leaving the bread crumbs to be followed. The larger and more engineering type firms are less likely to describe. Not all just in my little time back in land surveying is what I have noticed.
As I study and prepare for licensure. This phrase that is spoken by many LS and many of them practice it many don??t. Is the responsible charge thing. Seems that it is interpreted way differently depending on who is stamping. Or who is in charge. I believe one cause of pin cushions is this very thing. Not truly being in responsible charge. The first boundary i went on being back in land surveying. I had just went to do deed and plat search at courthouse. The day before. Next day I spent a couple hours walking site and looking for corners. No mag locator just me a shovel and carefully calibrated pacing. ????. I took the old plat and had written notes on it and flagged up several corners I found. Description of size type and such. Dropped all off at office and was sent to a different job. Couple weeks later i see the plat laying on drafting table. I looked at it and asked if it was going out. Ls said yes one last look over and i am sending it out. I said something is missing. So he grabbed field folder and handed me a pen and highlighters. I marked it up and said ck these notes. I found this and this and it is a axel here not rebar etc. so no need to set a pin. Ls saw my notes and said first i had heard this. I showed him my markups on the plat from courthouse no one looked at them. They just cogo the deed and disregarded everything else. Is this common practice was I trained wrong years ago. I see more of this than how i was trained years ago. I hear it??s different here in this state. We don??t do that. I surveyed in several states and they did. Most anyways. I see it on plats here usually by those old timers and smaller shops. Big companies its not as much.
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I occasionally would run into work of a surveyor who would set pins 3? from existing pins. Always gave me a laugh.
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@nate-the-surveyor This brings up an interesting discussion we had at the office this past week. Cad operator A. Is awesome been drafting for years. Many crews he has seen come and go. One issue is. Iron rod found. IRF or Iron Rod Set IRS. Doesn??t matter if it was a pipe bent pinched top size etc. rebar size nope. Above ground below ground. In other words the field crews that follow instructions and say 5/8? rebar or 1/2?. Cap or no cap. Disturbed etc that never makes it to the plat. Cad operator B is trained by CAD operator A. CAD operator B trains C etc. etc. same with crew chiefs and i man. It just keeps going. Where does the issue ever get fixed. I read plats and some have described the monument. So when i get to a monument and find something different. Say a 1/2? rebar but plat etc calls for pinched top pipe or axel. I usually keep digging and looking. Thats how I was trained and taught. It doesn??t matter how well this new uncalled for monument fits a computed point. I know I hear it all the time. Just do a quick look and move on we have to make money. That song is in my head Money Money money. My opinion and observations say it has happened slowly overtime maybe. It seems the small shops I follow are better at describing and leaving the bread crumbs to be followed. The larger and more engineering type firms are less likely to describe. Not all just in my little time back in land surveying is what I have noticed.
As I study and prepare for licensure. This phrase that is spoken by many LS and many of them practice it many don??t. Is the responsible charge thing. Seems that it is interpreted way differently depending on who is stamping. Or who is in charge. I believe one cause of pin cushions is this very thing. Not truly being in responsible charge. The first boundary i went on being back in land surveying. I had just went to do deed and plat search at courthouse. The day before. Next day I spent a couple hours walking site and looking for corners. No mag locator just me a shovel and carefully calibrated pacing. ????. I took the old plat and had written notes on it and flagged up several corners I found. Description of size type and such. Dropped all off at office and was sent to a different job. Couple weeks later i see the plat laying on drafting table. I looked at it and asked if it was going out. Ls said yes one last look over and i am sending it out. I said something is missing. So he grabbed field folder and handed me a pen and highlighters. I marked it up and said ck these notes. I found this and this and it is a axel here not rebar etc. so no need to set a pin. Ls saw my notes and said first i had heard this. I showed him my markups on the plat from courthouse no one looked at them. They just cogo the deed and disregarded everything else. Is this common practice was I trained wrong years ago. I see more of this than how i was trained years ago. I hear it??s different here in this state. We don??t do that. I surveyed in several states and they did. Most anyways. I see it on plats here usually by those old timers and smaller shops. Big companies its not as much.
The issue gets fixed when the signing surveyor demands it be fixed.
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You mean Jeff Lucas hasn’t had enough of trash talking other surveyors yet?
Well, there are lots of surveyors out there that have fully earned that trash talking.
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If BLM sets an SP 1/4S and you find the original ask them to revise their survey. You need really convincing evidence, like a marked stone, scribed face on a BT. Also they will be reluctant if their SP mon has been relied upon by the public for many decades.
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We either have to change the monument, (Pincushion), Change the Record Brg/distance, or we can USE the old distance, having one coord for the field marker, and another for the OFFICE or calculated one.
I’m having a hard time following this notion. Those are not the only choices where I survey. Noting a measured as distance does not change the record. The record is the record. Measured is measured. It’s impossible to measure the same every time.
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I have Jeff Lucas’s book and I read it, but it is very much another text book and I did not get much new info out of it.
In my part of Upstate New York the record dimensions rule, so we show the monuments refenced to the record.
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record dimensions rule
How can the record dimensions be held on adjoining parcels? The measurements are rarely perfect and won’t fit each other.
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Do you hold record dimensions over natural and artificial monuments? How about extrinsic evidence or occupation?
Also, which record? It’s not unusual for a property I’m surveying to have 3, 4 or more records of survey over the years, all with different values for bearings and distances.
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil Postman -
True, but Lucas, himself deserves some scrutiny and trash talking too, over some of the opinions he’s offered
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I have Jeff Lucas’s book and I read it, but it is very much another text book and I did not get much new info out of it.
In my part of Upstate New York the record dimensions rule, so we show the monuments refenced to the record.
You’re going to tell me more about this, because it sounds like the survey would have a call to a point, and then cute little language like “North 0.53′, East 0.87′ from a found steel rod”.
I am violently opposed to doing that, and in fact, if I voiced my full opinion in this forum, I’d get a lifetime ban.
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True, but Lucas, himself deserves some scrutiny and trash talking too, over some of the opinions he’s offered
That may be, but he’s far more right than wrong.
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How can the record dimensions be held on adjoining parcels? The measurements are rarely perfect and won’t fit each other.
All 4 directions from a given corner say something.
1.) N 01?ø01’01” E 100′
2.) S 01?ø01’01” W 100′
3.) S 89?ø01’01” E 100′
4.) N 89?ø01’01” W 100′
From a given property pin. The dimensions are all there.The monuments are all there.
And, they all generate a coord that is within 0.02′ of the SAME position.
And, West 0.59′ of this generated coord, is a MONUMENT. It is a 5/8″ rebar, that is probably over 3 feet long.
Now, on our plat, (Land to the SE) do we hold RECORD dimensions number 2 and 3, or do we update the “Record” by 0.59′?
Bill, that is what I meant.
Thank you for your response.
Nate
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@ars-mine-surveyor Hmm??must be a regional thing because most states in my region generally hold monuments above all else largely due to most parcels being tied to old deeds where bearings and distances seldom agree with the adjoining deed but may call out the same monument. Also, more often than not, the bearing and distance might be 20?? off from the monument given the equipment from the era the parcel was surveyed in.
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Now, on our plat, (Land to the SE) do we hold RECORD dimensions number 2 and 3, or do we update the “Record” by 0.59′?
We…show what we measured, as well as the record calls.
Showing measured vs. record isn’t changing the record, but adding to it.
Even if we decided not to hold a monument, or our survey is at variance with a previous survey, it doesn’t automatically override all previous work. It simply adds another survey to the record.
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil Postman -
Different customary practices exist all over the place. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
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Bill, that is what I meant.
No, what I meant, and didn’t say clearly, was that if you try to give everybody the record dimensions you will either run out of ground or have some left over. And some adjoining parcel records may not agree on the line between them. That’s why monuments rule.
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I’m going to ask a question and then put another log on the fire and refill my coffee cup.
In a survey recording state, is a recorded retracement survey measurement a record distance or a measured distance? Our law requires us to note the record distance and measured distance when they are different. There could sometimes be an original measurement as shown in the deed or the original survey followed by 2 or three retracement measured as distances of the same line, all recorded. I consider the original distance record and not any subsequent recorded survey measurements, but I’ve been wrong before. If I am wrong, I would have to recite every previous “record” distance as recorded as i.e 100.00(Bk A, pg x), 100.04(Bk B, Pg y), 99.96 (Bk C, pg z) etc. etc., measured as 100. 02. Point is, are we getting confused about what changing the record means to a title person as opposed to a surveyor?
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