Nate, does pulling a 200-foot Lufkin Super Hiway
Chrome Clad steel tape count?
"Have you ever "thrown a chain""
Don't think you can "throw" a chain... a tape, yes. A chain, no.
Have thrown a tape many times, including a 300' "canyon" tape. What a chore! Not only was it 300' long, it was only half the width of a 100' tape, which made it very difficult to grasp. Very, very difficult task.
A real chain only once and that was a grass field, don't think you could drag it in the woods without getting snagged on everything.
A 2 chain tape with topographic trailer and a 100' engineers tape, many times in college. You had tho throw those tapes.
Yep I've even run traverses in College with a staff compass.
Every College program should require a course in the history of surveying including a lab where you have to go out into the woods and use the tools that laid out the original surveys that you are now trying to retrace.
That's a pretty good idea Dan, but we should push it a step further and teach us ol' farts new stuff, like low distortion projection, rinex editing, and GIS!
Dtp
We did not have reels for
our 100-foot Lufkin steel tapes, so we had to throw them. A lot of people here in Houston in the '60's and '70's had Babbit chains (a poor man's Lufkin) and the HAD to be thrown. A 200-foot or even a 300-foot chain was a big pain to throw.
> My first civilian crew used a highway chain. My first day the chief 'threw the chain' as a demo. He then tossed it out and drug it flat and said 'your turn'. I dutifully copied his technique and bam, perfect.
> He was moderately impressed until after lunch. That's when he pulled out the chain and SNAP! When he went to undo the tape he twisted as always. In so doing he discovered I was left handed. It took a while to get past that one...
The dreaded left handed chain thrower. Used to hate having to follow those.
Larry P
> I have. A reproduction one. 66' long, brass handle.
>
> I think it should be a REQUIREMENT for every PLS to drag one, for a mile.
>
> Cannot get a license, without dragging it for a mile.
>
>
> It leaves a RUT. It gets snagged up. It wears. It is HARD to pull. Maybe 20+30 LBS of pull, JUST to drag it. I did it at a Survey Convention. It was part of a fun thing. But, everybody should do it. This would HELP against multible monuments, within a foot of each other. How long is a link? If you are writing down the distance to the closest link, then, would the original surveyors REJECT a monument, that was a foot off?
>
>
> Naw, we are raising a whole generation that is out of touch with our roots, and the way it was done, the 1st time around. We need to re-visit it. It would do a world of good, for those who don't know.
>
>
> Then, comes the compass.....
>
> N
Why? That's dumb! I caught the tail end of "chaining" and have done more than I want to with a 100' highway. I'm damn sure not going back to a gunter chain just so I can relive some glory day or some other romantic notion.
I drug a gunter chain for a mile at a CEU seminar in Brady. The first and last time that will ever happen.
I agree and that's what continuing education is supposed to do. But unfortunately I keep seeing the same courses offered year after year at the conferences. This Board has done more to point me toward the resources to learn about those topics, and more, than any continuing education course I have taken.
I had a very smart college professor tell me "The ultimate purpose of a college education is to learn how to learn".
And for anyone interested:
- For Low Distortion Projections start with Oregon Coordinate Reference Handbook
- For RINEX editing start with TEQC Tutorial
- For GIS I use [REDACTED], But just Google GIS
> "Have you ever "thrown a chain""
>
> Don't think you can "throw" a chain... a tape, yes. A chain, no.
>
You can on an oil rig. I feel lucky I can still count to ten on my fingers. I wonder if they still make connections that way.
Never really drug a gunter chain. Did mess around with a K&E 33 footer, I have, but supported it like mentioned earlier. BTW, I have a nice K&E compass and tripod that matches it quite nicely and will be selling it as a set soon as DW and I are going to be taking a swing at fulltime RVing in the spring.:-)
Let me know if you have an interest.
The toughest tape chaining I ever did was with a 200' x 3/8" drag tape for the initial survey of the coax 22 project across the Black Rock and Smoke Creek deserts back in the 70s. We were out there in the rainy time of year and that gumbo mud would stick to our boots and the chain making forward progress very difficult.
That wasn't the end of my antics with the chain on his crew. I used to run as head chainman. I kept the thong wrapped around my wrist and blazed to the next point. He made the mistake of picking up the tail and wrapping the thong. Distracted in conversation, he took a few steps back station...
When the chain pulled taught my momentum kept me going. He launched and bit the dirt. No more running on head chain. Ever...
Started in 1968 with a 1' transit & a 100 ft. tape (which we called a chain). Over the years I've also used 200 ft., 300 ft. and even a 528 ft. (8-chain tape), and only had reels for the 200 footers. Throwing that 528 footer could take part of your face off!
Never used a true "chain" except for giggles, but as many have stated above, one would NOT try and drag a link chain anywhere (except maybe the Bonneville Salt Flats).
🙂
Loyal
Not a chain as in one with links, but when i started on a USACE crew in the early 80's we only had one EDM for several crews (an HP3805). So, I started out with a 200' "add" chain. Graduated every foot, with an additional foot graduated to hundredths. You learn quick how to do one up, and my arm lengths to this day are still exactly 5'. When I do up an extension cord nowadays, I come up with exactly 20 loops for a hundred footer.
No reels, just do it up in 40 5' loops and then twist it into a figure 8. Tied the leather strap around the middle of the 8. That is how I was taught. I ran a lot of traverse through WV woods with a T2 (usually, sometimes a 20" K&E transit) and a 200' steel tape, laying out gas well access roads that had to be relocated for a new reservoir.
I still yell "chain" whenever we measure with the steel tape.
When I went to Fresno State, the first survey class we learned how to chain (using a steel tape) but it wasn't on a reel. I learned how to throw it (did pretty good for a while). And we used optical scale instruments (I recall a T-2 and a T-16, we had others). There were some digital instruments and a couple EDMs, but those were for the higher level survey classes.
When I got my first survey job in 1994, we used a Wild T-100 total station. So it was digital and EDM, but we didn't have a data collector. So my knowledge of hand notes was super handy. Also, we pulled that steel tape (on a reel) for many, many jobs. Our most common method of topography was by station and offset (complete with a right angle prism in my pouch). And I REALLY got a workout with my plumb bob. We used those for EVERYTHING! I even would puncture the empty paint cans to release the last of the pressure in them so that they wouldn't be taken from trash cans by "taggers" and used to graffiti up the dumpster.
Now, my Party Chief wouldn't know how to use a plumb bob if I showed him twice. He's a smart guy, but those are tools of the distant past to these young guys. Mashing buttons and using the COGO routines on the controller. That's how they work today. They don't even have optical plumbs on the instrument anymore!
> I have. A reproduction one. 66' long, brass handle.
Didn't most of the early GLO surveyors use a 2 pole Gunter's chain (only 33')? Probably a lot easier to carry around.
The 2 pole chain was actually mandated in the Manual of Instructions.
I used a chain twice.
Only in part of training in 60's. It was only a small "training exercise",but we used
range poles calibrated in links for "offsets to the chain line.
The main part of the exercise was to learn how to make legible field notes,which could
be plotted and interpreted by others.
It was only years later,that I realised how much of a "smartacre" Mr. Gunter was.
I started following Dad in the field when I could keep up. A 200' steel tape (chain) and a 1' transit were the tools of the day. Never used a Gunters Chain but would like to try it once just for fun. I never learned to do up the tape since we had reels. It always amazed me to see Dad do one up. I think there's still an old 200' tape in my shed that is still done up. I'm scared to try and undo it.... These days when doing recon with a cloth tape I still yell "chain" but the guys just look at me with glazed over eyes. No clue...
Me. "What's the difference?"
T.C. Carroll "It's the difference between right and wrong!"
Nate, does pulling a 200-foot Lufkin Super Hiway
Wow, I have pulled a 200' chain for years. We eventually migrated to a 300' one.
While the slang of a surveyor allows us to call a tape a chain, it is still a tape, and a chain is still a chain. So, in the OP, it was directed at a CHAIN..... 🙂
I have not pulled chain (tape) in years!
N
Yes, I guess I would love to have a nice compass!!! In fact... that could be put to use, in continuing education... with a LINK chain.... The folks who survey today, and fuss about 0.04' and call for an imaginary point, 0.04' north of an existing one... they could stand a day in the field with me....
N