The Official Definition of "Beer Leg"

Another version:

Beer Leg (bîr l?g): Implied as a requirement for the instrument person to purchase the first round of beer for the other crew members when he or she establishes the tripod in such a way that interferes with the measurement of a line.

In the early days of surveying, when the stores that sold and repaired surveying instruments were few and far between, if a tripod leg broke, one was often improvised with beer cans. A tripod so repaired was known as a beer legged tripod. BeerLeg.com preserves this name as a tribute to the ingenuity and dedication that brought such an invention about.

Interesting, I had not heard that one before.

When a member of a survey crew sets a tripod with one tripod leg negating the total station focusing and measuring to a near point, then tradition has it that the errant survey crew member later purchases a round of beer for their fellow crew members.

As a solo operator I do it all the time !! LOL

> Interesting, I had not heard that one before.

Yes, this is of course the original meaning of "beer leg" that was later corrupted when
substantial numbers of surveyors found themselves working for engineering organizations and were driven to drink. Contact with city planners and architects led many surveyors to conclude that someone else ought to be actually buying the drinks, thus the everyday operations of surveying were arranged so that various staff members would foot a portion of the bill. While the beer leg is remembered, the ale flag and the lager loop have not survived in the lexicon.

The hamburger hammer, was also popular in some offices, the custom that anyone who missed the stake with the hammer when driving it had to buy hamburgers for the other members of the field party.

A corruption of the original term, Beer Log, referring to the field notes prepared by Government-contracted surveyors in the Public Land Surveys System region of the U.S. of A. Sometimes also known as Schnapps Log and Firewater Log.

There are several definitions, but I am hoping to stick with the tripod-leg-on-line version (unless I get a huge uproar otherwise). I think this version of it is a good compromise among all the various versions, and may even be the most known.

My main goal is to make sure it reads in an official, yet brief, way. 🙂

I agree. Sounds good Wendell.

Wendell, write it as best you choose to. You have your Natesters around here who are/were totally unfamiliar with the term, and then you have your anal retentive McMillions and Radus who are going to to complicate it to the point of,...well, to THAT point. You know how us freaks are.

Take care, and thanks again for your work here.
Ed

"...in such a manner interfering.." instead of " in such a way that interferes..."

ooooooooh me likey. Thanks, Eric!

Or maybe even, "...in a manner interfering..."

The Beer Leg of the Traverse

In the early days of surveying, errors did not propagate randomly in traverses as they do today. All of the errors were instead located in just one leg of the traverse. A surveyor would use all sorts of ingenious measures to identify that one leg and then, once all of the error was found and the traverse closed perfectly, it would be time for a trip to the local tavern to brag about how good the closure was. That leg with all of the error in it was, of course, the Beer Leg!

I also understood "Beer Leg" to be the last leg of any traverse. i.e. the crew had to complete the beer leg before it was "beer thirty".

As an engineer I spent a few years in an office where the principles called "beer thirty" long before the name was invented on particular Fridays. Usually the field crews cam in early on a Friday and were dispatched for a few cold cases. Then the engineering, drafting and surveying staff gathered in the conference room. After a few any complaint or idea was considered. It took out a lot of friction before it ever built up to high levels.

Paul in PA

Wendell

I like the first one best, but it's not exactly a dictionary-like definition of the beerleg itself, it's more of an explanation. I don't have it worked out quite yet, but I'm working on it.

I respectfully submit that those people that think it was a bad leg of a traverse or a tripod leg made of beercans for that matter are full of crap. I've set enough beerlegs in my time to know that for a fact.;-)

The Beer Leg of the Traverse

Yep - definition I heard related back to the closing traverse leg.

The Beer Leg of the Traverse

Well you heard wrong! 🙁

the first time i heard beer leg, I had set the gun up in such a way that after turning the angle needed for the foresite, the only way to comfortably look thru the scope was with one leg of tripod between your own legs - oops. "Aw c'mon Butch! Don't give me a beer leg!" the crew chief says. remember it like it was yesterday -and the definition holds as it was in fact, on-line.

Paul,
That is exactly what I was thinking.

The Beer Leg of the Traverse

Wendell,

Remember that to have a beer leg, a chain must be involved (not just any type of measurement)