Having a plumb bob for research is next level preparation.?ÿ
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The amount they get used nowadays a gammon reel will break or wear out before use, I have given up on using them although I still carry a plumb bob.
I carried my plumb bob on my hip?ÿuntil the County Sheriff started searching people to enter the courthouse. Most of them thought it was a knife.?ÿ Then for a while I merely left it in the truck.?ÿ The last straw was when they wouldn't allow me in the courthouse carrying the "holster" on my hip....(an educated deputy might have called it a scabbard, but they're 'weapon' oriented)...anyway, it stays in the truck nowadays.
I had to carry a drafting triangle back to the truck recently at a nearby courthouse. They wouldn't let it through security.?ÿ I could do way more harm with the pencil they let through.
"David3038: I had to carry a drafting triangle back to the truck recently at a nearby courthouse. They wouldn't let it through security.?ÿ I could do way more harm with the pencil they let through."
I was escorted out the front door at the courthouse for "being disruptive".?ÿ I had removed my belt & plumb bob and left it in the truck.?ÿ In the process my shirt tail wasn't tucked back in.?ÿ The deputy asked me, "are you wearing a belt?"?ÿ?ÿ My reply was 'no'.?ÿ?ÿ She then asked me to lift up my shirt so she could verify I wasn't wearing a belt.?ÿ I asked her if she thought I was lying about the belt.?ÿ She explained?ÿshe just wanted to verify?ÿI was correct.?ÿ I then proceeded to tell her she might want to quit asking people questions if she wasn't going to believe their answers....
I was swiftly ushered to the exit?ÿby a couple of her surly co-workers.?ÿ I still stand by my opinion... ;)?ÿ?ÿ
My Father-in-Law tried to get into Canada wearing a hunting cap in an SUV.?ÿ They asked him if he had a gun, no sir (he is very rule oriented would never violate the rules), they wouldn't believe him.?ÿ They took every last thing out of that vehicle sure they would find a gun in there.?ÿ Mother-in-Law was very unhappy, they don't lie you know.?ÿ Never found any guns.
My Father-in-Law tried to get into Canada wearing a hunting cap in an SUV.?ÿ They asked him if he had a gun, no sir (he is very rule oriented would never violate the rules), they wouldn't believe him.?ÿ They took every last thing out of that vehicle sure they would find a gun in there.?ÿ Mother-in-Law was very unhappy, they don't lie you know.?ÿ Never found any guns.
Had a similar experience (though they were more justified), when the Canadians found a few .22 cartridges rolling around in the first container they popped open at the Montana border.?ÿ "Where's the gun?" Three hours later, following interrogation and thorough unpacking of my vehicle and my buddy's, they were satisfied that I was telling the truth.
@charles-l-dowdell I found out the hard way a few years back that you can't roll-start most stick shifts now with a dead battery.?ÿ Electronic ignition, electronic fuel pumps and computers have made it so that if you don't have enough power to crank the engine you likely don't have enough to power the fuel pump and ignition.?ÿ
Jumper cables have become standard equipment on my vehicles and when I'm headed to remote places I load up a boost box.?ÿ
I just push started a 2018 Subaru today. It still works on some...
here is a something to ponder
Colorado USED to have a 4 year survey degree program for 30 years. I was on the PLSC commiittee as well as an enrolled student for the last 10 years. The professor taught old school fundamentals, but would have several day long workshops on the new technology. A canyon sized divide developed between the "fundamentals" faction and the"teach them only new button technology" faction. I personally wanted to learn the fundamentals. I had been mentored, and mentoring is gone, I still belive that the methods of non electric surveying that built this country should be passed on and REQUIRED learning for anyone hired to retrace old surveys. But, our debates became so heated that some of the committed started speaking out against such boring classes using outdated tools no bless and whistles, so the University discontinued the program.?ÿ
I dont think many were arguing that learning how to use a steel tape and transit was not usefull, but what really seemed like a waste of time to me was the hand lettering of plats.?ÿ
I Definately got more useful information from my required "autocad" course, and I despised one of the math minor programming requirements, but I actually know experienced surveyors who do not know any other way of drafting than with a puter-plotter
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As a current?ÿ(but older)?ÿstudent?ÿin a surveying program, here is my two cents:
- I don't know what a surveyor's Vernier is.?ÿI did look it up, but I have not used one.
- We had a whole lab on steel tape measurements and used it in other labs, and had to learn all the corrections. It was actually fun. I liked it. 🙂
- We had to use plumb bobs in the lab.
- Our professor has described sunshots, but we will not have to do one.
- I can drive a stick shift. 🙂
But as another point, last year I asked on this forum about obstruction diagrams (for GPS surveying) that we were required to create. Many of you responded that given the # of satellites and constellations available, you hardly create those. So should a student still have to spend time creating them? I think introduction to these concepts is good, but it is not necessary to take time to focus on them.
We still have to take manual hand drafting as a pre-req to AutoCAD. Again, it is valuable to understand hidden lines, 3D views, etc. But why should I struggle with a pencil and eraser when I will be using a computer? I just didn't see the point of it.
Lastly, the survey program at our community college used to be a 2-year program. Now it is a 1-year program. So they have to cut something.
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Proper drafting technique:
B/D is on whole line, Ang pt to Ang pt of line.
Any pieces of that line, that need distances, get individual distances, AND?ÿ
All those distances add up to the sum total of the B/D distance.
It bugs me how many surveyors don't practice this basic method.
Some are so bad, you have to read the desc to figure out what was meant on the plat.
O well. I'm old.
N
Obstruction diagrams. Yes... They are ok, but the concept alone is adequate. There's enough birds up there, to make them semi obsolete.
Suffice it to say find the times of the day when pdop is good and times it's bad. Often that's plenty.
Sunshot. Yeah. Do a few.?ÿ
Use some canned software. Don't worry about doing it with pencil.
Scale the lat lon and look at the variations of bearings. Also, learn about central meridian for your states projection, and theta. This is very useful.
N
We've got a whole batch of surveyors that have never:
Read a vernier.
Used a tape, (200' steel or the like) to measure long range.
Depended on plumb bobs.
Performed a sunshot.
(Ya ever let the sun shine backward through a transit, and onto a clipboard, with crosshairs?)
Some can't drive a stick shift.
Without these historic connections, retracement becomes more and more of a chore.
I spend many hours doing retracement.
I'd really like to at least see some sort of movie made, on "how it's done" in the "before batteries" era. We are all dying off.?ÿ
Is there anybody interested in putting together a film on this sort of thing?
As time flies by, we are moving far far and more from battery-less surveying, and we have fewer and fewer that could make this film.
I'd just like to preserve it.
Nate
I started surveying at 15 and then pretty much full time after high school with some college mixed in. I graduated in the early (19)90's and used most if not all of the equipment you listed. I've even used Dip Needles. I'm still not convinced they worked as advertised!
We started out with vernier transits with the wooden legs and plumb bobs in Surveying 1 in '95. We learned how to use a plumb bob and tensioners with a steel tape. We even had to tape out 200 feet and count our paces to and fro to get an average of what our steps were. Hand levels, steel arrows, etc. The company I worked for in 1995 had the old topcon theodolite with the bottom and top tangent screws with two eye pieces where you had to dial in your angles. Those were nice because you could survey / set out in small areas without power with a steel tape.
Fast forward to 2014 when I went back to complete my 4 year degree in Surveying. We were being given 2014 issued Leica robotics, GPS and laser plummets. No hint at the old days except for the use of steel, tensioners and plum bobs at the baseline. The school was outfitted with equipment that the modern firm didn't have access to. The company I was with until 2018 was still using Topcon GTS300's and Nikon Nivos in the field and LDD3 in the office on Win XP Pro machines.
Thankfully, the outfit I work at now keeps up with the technology in the field and office.
Read a Vernier. It??s been at least 25 years since I have read a Vernier and do not miss it at all, so I am not sure what point your trying to make. I have never done a lot of things that are now obsolete.
Never used a 200' steel tape.?ÿ I have never used a 200?? steel tape but plenty of 100?? tapes. I used to use stadia a lot but not so much anymore.?ÿ
Depended upon a plumb bob? Not sure if I have ever ??depended? upon a plumb bob but I used to never leave home without it and used it every day, not so much anymore.?ÿ
Performed a sun-shot. It has been at least 25 years since I performed a sun-shot and forget the process, but I am sure I could do it again if I brushed up on my notes.?ÿ
(Ya ever let the sun shine backward through a transit, and onto a clipboard, with crosshairs?) Yes??.so long as it was a regular transit or theodolite with no electronic parts to fry but not for 25 years.
Some can't drive a stick shift. If I never drive another stick shift it will be too soon, I have never driven a flathead v-8 either. I have great fondness for manual transmissions as I first learned to drive on a tractor and then 3 speed on the column but have zero interest in owning one again.
Is there anybody interested in putting together a film on this sort of thing? Not me.
I'd just like to preserve it. Sounds like you have a job ahead of you, good luck. I will go trout fishing instead.
In the old days they fibbed on the Plat a lot.
Old-timers didn't seem to like to contradict the Deed so what happened in the field was often not accurately reflected on the Plat.
I think before 1960 Legal Descriptions were predominantly written by the Title Company or Lawyers, not Land Surveyors.?ÿ I've seen evidence of this in some projects.?ÿ In one case there was sort of a block in a rural town (streets on the north and west only) that was cut up by metes and bounds descriptions.?ÿ The local Surveyor from the lumber company town an hour up the highway laid it all out setting pipes but filed nothing anywhere.?ÿ The County Surveyor got his records at some point so I was able to get his sketch plat of the block complete with little black dots at the corners.?ÿ At most of those black dots an old rusty untagged pipe can be found.?ÿ He didn't exactly follow the TC cooked up legals.?ÿ The block was kind of odd, the west side was about a couple of degrees off of cardinal and the east side was pretty close to cardinal.?ÿ The TC took up the discrepancy in a lot about 50x200 but it was 50 on the north and roughly 45 on the south, in Google Earth the fences are rectangular, not skinnier on the south end.?ÿ On the surveyor's sketch map he has the lot rectangular.?ÿ So he took the legals as a suggestion and laid the lots out more like he thought was better.?ÿ This was about 1950.?ÿ They've been occupied like that ever since and there is a pattern of pipes out there that fit.
Then there was a survey I did back in my 20s.?ÿ I thought Surveyors and Engineers were all scrupulously honest, accurate and forthright like my Father.?ÿ I get sent out as a young Party Chief to this 10 acre parcel to be split into two 5 acre parcels.?ÿ ?ÿIt's in a rural rectangular lot maybe a mile or two north-south and 600 feet wide east west with a road running on the west side of the block.?ÿ There's one big original map, then a bunch of Parcel Maps making the lots smaller.?ÿ They all agree on the north-south bearing and the east-west bearing.?ÿ Everything should be perfect out there right? wrong.?ÿ I find the SW and SE corners, go to the SE, set up, backsight the SW, turn the calculated angle to the right (north) and am looking to the right of a line of utility poles and fences running arrow straight for a mile to the north.?ÿ I was shocked.?ÿ Go find the NE corner and it is right in line with the fences and the utility poles and everything else.?ÿ That is when I learned old-timers often treated different lines as unique entities, all their monuments will line up arrow straight on either line but don't count on the bearings working worth spit if you try to relate them by turned angle.?ÿ They seemed afraid to just report reality, can't contradict the Deed, a Lawyer might be waiting in the bushes you know.
Some can't drive a stick shift.
The stuff you lament being lost was itself once cutting edge technology that supplanted the earlier methods. Where is your gunters chain and staff compass?
Have you ever driven a Model T? Neither have I. But they don't have brakes as we know them. The brakes, such as they are, are operated by the pedal on the far right- where the accelerator is now. You reverse using the middle pedal, and you switch gears using the far left pedal. The throttle is on the dashboard. You have to manually advance the spark by a lever on the steering column. Breakneck top end is about 40mph and if you wreck at anywhere near half that you are dead, a sure bet.
Few of us could jump in a Model T and drive away.?ÿ Things change and that's a good thing.?ÿ
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Some can't drive a stick shift.
The stuff you lament being lost was itself once cutting edge technology that supplanted the earlier methods. Where is your gunters chain and staff compass?
Have you ever driven a Model T? Neither have I. But they don't have brakes as we know them. The brakes, such as they are, are operated by the pedal on the far right- where the accelerator is now. You reverse using the middle pedal, and you switch gears using the far left pedal. The throttle is on the dashboard. You have to manually advance the spark by a lever on the steering column. Breakneck top end is about 40mph and if you wreck at anywhere near half that you are dead, a sure bet.
Few of us could jump in a Model T and drive away.?ÿ Things change and that's a good thing.?ÿ
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The Model T Ford was way better than the leads from a team of four horses in hand, now that was complicated.
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The Model T Ford was way better than the leads from a team of four horses in hand, now that was complicated.
They have a competition at the State Fair every year, here in Puyallup. It's amazing to watch someone back a wagon up, with a team of 6 Clydesdales...
I have a video, somewhere; I'll try to post it later, if I can find the time.
Some can't drive a stick shift.
The stuff you lament being lost was itself once cutting edge technology that supplanted the earlier methods. Where is your gunters chain and staff compass?
Have you ever driven a Model T? Neither have I. But they don't have brakes as we know them. The brakes, such as they are, are operated by the pedal on the far right- where the accelerator is now. You reverse using the middle pedal, and you switch gears using the far left pedal. The throttle is on the dashboard. You have to manually advance the spark by a lever on the steering column. Breakneck top end is about 40mph and if you wreck at anywhere near half that you are dead, a sure bet.
Few of us could jump in a Model T and drive away.?ÿ Things change and that's a good thing.?ÿ
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The Model T Ford was way better than the leads from a team of four horses in hand, now that was complicated.
I grew up on a ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills, so old tractors and work horses were ordinary.?ÿ We had an old Farmall tractor (circa 1928) with a magneto instead of a coil and distributor.?ÿ The story goes that I was an observant young boy who paid attention to what my father did.?ÿ To start the Farmall, one turned on the fuel petcock, checked to see it was out of gear, set the spark advance on the magneto, adjusted the throttle and turned a hand crank to start it.?ÿ The hand crank was somehow permanently attached so you had to push in to engage it.?ÿ One had to be careful after giving it a turn to be out of the way in case it backfired (the hand crank would come back at you if you weren't paying attention).?ÿ My father decided to join his neighbor at the American Legion club for a "few" drinks after a week in the hay field.?ÿ He jumped off the Farmall and closed the fuel petcock.?ÿ Since it had a magneto there was no "off" button so the engine stopped when the fuel in the line was gone.
I was four at the time and don't remember doing this, but my parents certainly did.?ÿ I went out to play "on" the tractor and apparently decided I could start it.?ÿ So, I turned on the fuel petcock, set the timing and throttle and commenced to crank the engine.?ÿ That Farmall was a real bugger to crank so I have no earthly idea how I was able to get it to turn over.?ÿ My mother was of course greatly alarmed at what her son had done and not knowing a thing about this tractor had no idea on how to shut it off.?ÿ It sat there idling until my father eventually made it back from the Legion club.?ÿ From my father's retelling my mother's voice was far louder than the tractor and he had no way to turn off the screeching.
My grandfather was a very pragmatic man, so we used a 4-horse team to stack hay in the summer and feed it out in the winter.?ÿ He had extra hay and grass for the work horses, but gasoline cost real money.?ÿ Starting a tractor was far easier than harnessing and hitching up a team of horses, esp. at 6:00 a.m. on a wintry day in January.?ÿ There were benefits to using horses to feed out hay.?ÿ If there was a calf laying down in front of the horses they would stop.?ÿ Tractors weren't so smart.?ÿ If there was a trick to harnessing a draft horse team it was in connecting the reins.?ÿ Growing up with them I never saw anything difficult about getting horses to go where you wanted them to go.?ÿ My dad and uncle didn't share the same pragmatism my grandfather had for the draft horses and they were quickly sold when he retired in 1967 when I was 14.?ÿ No romantic notions about the "good old days."?ÿ Working with draft horses means you are usually in a cart or wagon behind them which means you experienced the persistent aroma of processed hay and grass.
In the 1980s I went to several Denver Stock Shows and enjoyed seeing the draft horse teams.?ÿ I wasn't all that fond of watching the fancy teams pulling wagons around an arena for ribbons, but I did enjoy seeing the horse pull contests.?ÿ The better teams were easy to spot.?ÿ They all pulled together by simultaneously leaning forward until their bellies were close to the ground before the feet moved!?ÿ
When I worked in the hay field, we had tractors to mow and rake the hay, a repurposed WWII Dodge Power Wagon that was converted into a hay sweep and a handmade wooden stacker.?ÿ Before my time everything was done with work horses.?ÿ Here is a photo of my paternal grandmother sometime in the early 1940s when her three sons were all in the Pacific.?ÿ The title of the photo is, "the last Survivor".?ÿ She was a tough old bird!
Good thread here..Reads as if it could be in the American Surveyor... ?????ÿ
