Surveying with a compass

1.) Buy you a compass. Suunto, or Rittenhouse construction. I don't care.
2.) Buy you a tape.
3.) Have farmer show you what he wants to sell. Drive stakes. Write down all brgs and distances between them. Go home, draw plat, and write description.

It's simple.

N

What about in the mountains?

Look for a copy of Henry Sipe's book - "Compass Land Surveying". You'll learn a lot.

Or come to one of my workshops where I include a field exercise where you actually us compass & chain to get some practical experience. Next one planned is at the KY meeting in February.

I have read Sipe's book -- I guess I should read it again! Thanks!

Here is a thread that I posted last year some time. My dad knew Henry Sipe, and I met him a couple of times and we learned the basics of compass surveying at Glenville State.

I'm sure they had lots of tricks and things specific to compass surveying, but I don't know what they are.

https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=121859

Carl

> What about in the mountains?

Go up mountain, go down mountain!

They used a transit. They have the ability to measure magnetic bearings.

> > What about in the mountains?
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> Go up mountain, go down mountain!

"go down mountain"... yeah... "Gravity, thou art a heart-less b1tch!".
I'm guessing he's in the western NC mountains. I've been all over them from the N. GA and SC borders up almost to LarryP's (Ashe county) neck of the woods... and all points in between.
As the I-man on those crews I would have been super happy to have only carried a compass - which I did anyway. I've been on some seriously wild and dangerous verticals. I never dropped the gun but we did take a few slides and falls together. "Falls" also includes the water type. We found one in mid-winter in Yancey county where I lived that was froze solid. It was awesome. No, I didn't try to climb it. 🙂
I met an old man several days later who had seen us going up that direction and asked if we had found it. From his house, you could see the sun shimmy light off of it. That was about at least a mile away and about 1000' higher up.

In some ways I miss those mountains and others not at all. Those who have done the mountain work surely know what I'm talking about. They are beautiful and fun to hike around but there is a world of hurt lying beneath.
E.

> What about in the mountains?

We have done many a survey with a Suunto Compass, cloth tape and an inclinometer (for steeper slopes)where accuracy was not important..

FOr reasonably flat slopes, you can hold the tape level and plumb down to the lower point (with a plum bob)to get the horizontal distance.

FOr steep slopes, simply use the tape for slope distance and also record the vertical angle (in your field book) for each leg.

You can use Carlson or similar programs to enter the data into coordinates and generate closure reports.

I think everyone who has an interest in this profession should learn to use a compass before any other equipment.

> What about in the mountains?

Inclinometer or break chain to measure shorter horizontal legs along a course.

With GPS, you measure locations defined by coordinates. To map the lines between those points, you inverse the directions and distances between the points and then report them in bearings and feet (or meters).

Working from coordinates to courses, you are doing the inverse of just measuring the courses directly, as was done with compass and chain.

> I think everyone who has an interest in this profession should learn to use a compass before any other equipment.

Agree:-P :good: :plumbbob:

For years I had a note

on all m plats:

"All bearings are calculated from angles turned and a single magnetic observation".

Some instruments had a compass or a magnet for which you could sight north and turn to a baseline.

Andy

:good: :good: :good:

In The Beginning All They Had Was A Compass

With metal sigths, no glass, no magnification. Markings to nearest 1/2 degree, interpolate to 1/4 degree. Declination could be dialed in. Take notes on your foresight bearing or azimuth observations and notes on your backsight bearings and azimuths. Distances could be paced, poled or chained. An angle was the difference in your meaned adjusted bearings or azimuths.

Next came a compass with a glass tilting scope with cross hairs, possibly with stadia. Still just making observations of bearings or azimuths. Distance by stadia or chaining.

Then came the transit which maintained the good compass. The scope could be flopped, i.e, transited through a full zenith circle. That along with second clampable horizontal circle which allowed one to zero the backsight, and a pair of opposite horizontal reading verniers meant angles could be measured, and readings accumulated for increased precision. Distances by stadia, subtense bar, chaining ot calibrated steel tape.

Early theodolites had a single but more precise horizontal circle and a non flopping scope required more math after the observations.

Begin with the first paragraph and practice being consistent.

Paul in PA

The first thing you have to do, particularly here in the NC Mountains, is to understand that boundary surveying is not an exercise in math. This truly is about following in the footsteps.

Where I work I wouldn't dream of "breaking chain" or using a clinometer to correct for slope. The footsteps I am following mostly used slope distance so when trying to follow them I do as well. Note this is when trying to retrace. Obviously I do not quote slope distance on my end results.

When you find an obviously old fence corner, pay attention. If there is an old chestnut stump at the old fence corner, pay attention Twice or Three times.

Local attraction can be an issue at times. Pay attention to that.

People are human. We screw up sometimes. All of us. Yes, even the attorneys sometimes screw things up. Don't be surprised to find the description you are trying to trace doesn't seem to follow the land and the usage thereof. When there is a conflict, most of the time the usage of the land is right and the raw description is wrong.

Always calculate the closure of the description you are trying to survey. Often this will tell you if there are issues that need further exploring. Don't be shocked when they don't work very well. (Quick side note. We were asked to survey a rough mountain boundary. The initial description from which we were working had obvious flaws so we traced back to the previous description, and back one from there, and back one from there. In total we had 5 different deeds for what was supposed to be the same tract. At each step of the way, 1 or 2 mistakes has been introduced into the description.)

Always place your scale sketch of the area you are surveying on a properly scaled photograph. That will usually help guide your thinking.

Talk to the neighbors and see what they have to say about the property. Once had a client tell me about a piece of land his mom and dad had bought from the neighbors back in 1958. Went back and sure enough there was the deed. That tract had never made it to the tax map and when another surveyor came along and surveyed the neighbors tract, it got included. Ooops. Can you say 5 acre overlap? The land belonged to my client but it was shown as belonging to the neighbor on their new survey.

Speaking of which, don't just pull your client's deed. Pull the deeds for the neighbor(s) as well. All of them.

Always, always, always check multiple sources and be certain you know what you are talking about before you open your mouth or put pen to paper. Once had a fellow "professional" tell his client that I had screwed up the survey I had done. He had found the beginning oak tree called for in my clients deed and I had caused an overlap. That could have gotten really interesting. This beginning oak tree from my clients description, was clearly near the south end of the 125 acre tract. Surprisingly the tree he had found was at the northeast corner. Had he bothered to call me or to plot my clients deed he would have seen that this marked oak he found had nothing whatever to do with my clients property.

Best of luck.

Larry P

Compass error does not propagate like turned angles. Compass surveying is a lot more accurate than many realize. The Wild T0 is a 20-second compass. I used them for years, and I was always surprised how good they were for woods surveying.

> I have read Sipe's book -- I guess I should read it again!

I agree that Henry Sipe's "Compass Land Surveying" is probably the best overall practical treatise on surveying with a compass that I've seen. It's really a shame that you can't buy a staff compass with at least a 3-1/2 needle and sight vanes for a reasonable price any more except on eBay or at a surplus auction. Those are excellent tools to have and useful for many surveying tasks, even in the age of GPS.

Once you've run a few traverses with even a forestry-grade staff compass, you should have a new appreciation for some of the fine points of compass surveying.

> Compass error does not propagate like turned angles. Compass surveying is a lot more accurate than many realize. The Wild T0 is a 20-second compass. I used them for years, and I was always surprised how good they were for woods surveying.

Exactly right Dr. Willis. This is why I find that retracing work from the 1930's and 40's is easier than retracing work from the 1960's and 70's.

Screw up a bearing in a compass survey and it stays right there for you to find. Screw up an angle during a transit survey and it will carry through from that point forward and mess up everything that follows.

Larry P