My new Wild T2

Congrats. As anyone that has used one will attest, that is an exceptional piece of engineering.

Posted by: @shawn-billings

One of the highlights was being the winning bidder on auction night for a Wild T2 theodolite. Oddly it was paired with a Topcon top-mount EDM (I'll have to verify the model number later). It also came with a Wild tripod in fair condition.?ÿ

The T2 came with the bullet case and the wooden shipping crate. It was tricky getting it home in the back seat of our car.?ÿ

Congratulations. I am jealous, The T2 is a true piece of precision engineering. And getting the pyramid box is a plus. How beat up is the bombshell? - they usually get a hammering. And do you mind telling us how much you paid?

Donƒ??t worry about it being tricky in the backseat of a car. That wooden box and bullet case can withstand jumping out of a plane. Literally! ?ÿI know. T3 wild same way. ?ÿThey built those things to last. And if your cross hairs break. No worries. Just rase some black widow spiders in a glass jar. Wait till they make a web. And bam you have new cross hairs. Or was it tarantulas one of those poison spiders. ?ÿWhen my fancy data collector went on the down fall last week and i had a expensive robot sitting there and knew I needed only a few locations and the robot was useless without a data collector. I wish I had the T2 you have. ?ÿI only needed a topo on a small BMP. I could have done stadia and been good enough. ?ÿBut I had to make a 2 hr drive back to dealer to get it fixed. Battery crapped out it just died. Great piece of equipment you have.?ÿ

Jim,

I don't think this theodolite saw much use. I think it was perhaps in the US Forest Service inventory. The bullet case is almost immaculate. The leather strap is broken. It has two lights for the vertical circle and the horizontal circle. It appears that the instrument is wired for the lights. I saw a place for a small plug receptacle in its side. It also included the adjusting tool and a plastic rain cover.

I won the T2, with the Topcon EDM, and Wild tripod, with a bid of $900. I think I got a good deal and I suspect it is worth much more, although I didn't buy it to flip it. I've wanted this instrument for a long time. There was a Wild T1 and a Wild T16 that sold before the T2. Both of those sold for around $1,500. I bid on those as well because I thought I had a better chance of winning them than the T2. To my surprise I got the T2 for quite a bit less. Everyone went home happy. I saw the gentleman who won the T16. He was motivated to get it because that's the same model he used when he started surveying in the 1980's. I'm glad it worked out for both of us.

I also bought a 300' steel tape for $40 in the silent auction. It appears to be in very good shape as well.

Wow. Brings back memories of long ago. Bought a new T2 from Florida Level & Transit in 1972. Also, bought a new Kern DKM2-AE from Ben Meadows in 1970. The Kern was my favorite, as I liked the tripod setup. However, the Kern was nearly impossible to set up over a DOT concrete R/W monument that typically stood about 24 inches above ground.

@i-ben-havin Do you recall what you paid for them, Havin? I do like the Kern tripod system. It seems very quick to setup, although I've never used one in real practice.

A few years back I was bidding on multiple T-3's with goal of ending up with one.?ÿ I ended up with three. ?????ÿ One of these days I'll post a couple of them to see if there's any interest.?ÿ Amazing instruments.

Here is a potentially useful free digital manual.?ÿ

https://www.xnatmap.org/adnm/ops/manuals/Wild%20T2.pdf

Envious like other posters.?ÿ

Posted by: @stephen-ward

A few years back I was bidding on multiple T-3's with goal of ending up with one.?ÿ I ended up with three. ?????ÿ One of these days I'll post a couple of them to see if there's any interest.?ÿ Amazing instruments.

@stephen-ward Yes please.

?ÿ

I was contacted by a medical doctor ten or twelve years ago that had just bought a T2 in its bullet case at an auction for around $500. He needed a tripod and some instruction on how to mark the property lines at his farm. I think I offered to mark the lines for him in trade for the T2. No talking him out of it though. I gave him an old tripod and 15 minutes on how to read an angle. He left a $100 bill on my desk and wouldn't take it back. I never heard how the line marking went...

@geeoddmike looks like the url is broken. Thank you for the effort.?ÿ

I have a (newer) T2, a T3, and a Kern DKM-2. As I get older, I sometimes wonder what my heirs are going to do with them. Glad to hear there is some demand at least as display items. All three are great to do some messing around with astros, etc.?ÿ

I started with a T2 in the USACE, then had to learn to use a K&E transit when the T2's were not available. My problem with the K&E was that I kept losing the magnifying glass because I would set it on top of the compass in between readings and then pick up the transit to move to the next point. My solution was to use the magnifying glass on my swiss army knife, harder to lose. Sometimes I tied the glass around my neck using some extra plumb bob string. I guess I am showing my age...

I could turn 8 sets of angles with the T2 in no time at all. I also did a lot of polaris observations with the T3 back in the mid 80's, almost always out by myself. 16 sets. 3 to 5 stations a night. Had a contract to do azimuth marks for 160 stations.

Definitely one of the best tools ever made.?ÿ

Posted by: @shawn-billings

After a little playing around, I learned how to "zero" the circle

For the benefit of the younger crowd: the T2 is a direction instrument, and wasn't designed to be accurately zeroed on a sight.?ÿ The circle wheel is there to allow the operator to change circle quadrants between sets rather than to accurately dial in an angle.?ÿ

That said, in the late '70s I worked for a firm that did a lot of construction staking, and one of the party chiefs used a T2, so we often did set zero (or a specific azimuth) onto a backsight.?ÿ Maybe not to the nearest half-second, but plenty good enough for construction layout.

Posted by: @shawn-billings

looks like the url is broken.

Try this one.

@i-ben-havin?ÿ ?ÿYou should of had NO problem setting over that monument. You can remove the HI rod and use the optical plummet of the instrument.

@jim-frame?ÿ ?ÿJim on page 21 is the battery box that?ÿ Shawn will need to do night work. Thanks for posting the correct url.

@john-nolton I noticed that SwissTek sells an LED lighting system for the T2.

@jim-frame Thank you for the comments, particularly regarding sets and zeroing the circle. I can imagine for stake-out that zeroing would be important and that likely you wouldn't be concerned with sub-second angles while staking in almost all cases.

For those of you with experience turning sets with a T2 or similar style instrument, what is the process? I'm familiar with turning sets with theodolites with a lower motion lock, but I have never turned a set with a directional theodolite (and really haven't turned many sets with any theodolites).?ÿ

?ÿ

@jim-frame

Posted by: @jim-frame

wasn't designed to be accurately zeroed on a sight

I thought I remembered booking angles for the back sight with values around 0 degrees 00 minutes 20 seconds or 179 degrees 59 minutes 30 seconds and then having to do the math for the observed angles.

It seems I also remember being able to royally mess things up by unlocking the motion for the scale instead of the instrument at the wrong time.?ÿ Or that may have been a different instrument.