Virtual Pincushions

Yeah, that's dumb and bad. Normally I might try not to embarrass a PLS but when it comes to paper pin cushions that sentiment goes out the window.

Then there was the case of four of my monuments found consistently about1.5' N, 1,5' NW, 1.5' SW AND 1.5' S of my stated locations. The fellow was breaking in a new field worker,. I suggested he have the mathemagical genius go back out to see where my numbers would put those numbers. Called me back with embarrassment I could detect via the phone lines. My monuments matched up the the center of recently installed corner posts. I did my job for the seller. The buyer went out and pulled and reset everyone just far enough from the PTO-powered post hole digger center to barely clear the new hole.

Use your brains, people.

While in this case I agree with your complaint, I have an argument to kick the hornets nest regarding a Virtual Pincushion that I would love to piggyback onto this. My argument:

1) A virtual pincushion is better than a physical one. It does not make our profession look so obviously foolish.

2) A virtual pincushion is necessary in places where monuments are found and they do not agree with the rights on the ground.

Ex: You have a dedicated road 50' wide and have monuments set by surveyors on either side of the road that you are measuring at 49.5' apart. Multiple other monuments up and down the block confirm the road to be 50' wide. How wide is this road? How do you not create a virtual pincushion?

Ex: You have a non-called-for (and non-record) monument that overlaps a senior property conveyance by 0.5'. Do you set a pincushion corner? Accept a junior, non-called for monument? Pull the monument and set your own? Or create a virtual pincushion?

We as a profession love to look down on the pincushion but at times they are not actually a pincushion and are instead misunderstood situations (I have a property that I surveyed with a 0.2' long segment which I could have monumented but didn't). At other times the virtual pincushion is your only choice if you are unwilling to hold junior, non-called-for, or non-record monuments.

Your first example does not contain enough information. How was the road created? Your segment nat well very 49.5' feet wide. Three rod roads are very common in some places...

Again, not enough information. If the rod was relied on by the owners it may have become the corner. I hear the argument about 'not of record' all the time. We had 100 plus years of no records in much of this state. If there is clear reliance why impose math in the face of probable earned rights?

The examples are provided for discussion, each site is different and there will never be enough details provided. I will just keep adding onto the example to make the virtual pincushion the "best" choice.

How about this one instead: A right-of-way line that is a straight tangent coincident with 100 lot corners. You locate 80 monuments between two originals and they are all understandably a tenth this way or that from the line. Would you redraw the line between the original monuments? Best fit all the monuments? Or create a zig zag from a straight line. The first two choices create virtual pincushions but are more fundamentally sound choices than holding measurements on all of the monuments.

Or we can modify the other examples:

1) The road was dedicated on a plat as 50' wide. Multiple surveyors have found evidence on either side of the road that varies +/-0.5' from 50'. Do you hold the public right of way width (the king gets his due) and create pincushions or do you hold each monument and zig zag that right-of-way?

2) The property corner is found with a very new PLS number on it and there is no record of that monument having been set in a recording state. The senior parcel you are finding the monument overlapping is a National Park. What do you do?

In similar cases I have created virtual pincushions rather than set a physical pincushion. I don't feel I have any other option when these situations crop up because I rarely can call a monument relied upon enough to be of common report, and I am not a lawyer who can argue for adverse possession or prescriptive rights. Don't get me wrong I do not want this to be the case and I am doing far more analysis than just holding the math, I just don't see it as within my power as a PLS to say that junior/senior rights or rights of the public are less important than a non-original monument.

Hopefully the shown measurements are to the stone bound and the .03', .06' with the little arrows are to the virtual pin cushion, of course those notations can be ignored by all.

At least it doesn't say N63d26'06"E, 0.07' to corner,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I've seen those, talk about surveying cringe.

Agreed it is not the best communication of what the surveyor intended and you have reached the conclusion that he is communicating a virtual pin cushion. Another interpretation is that he is only showing the difference between locations described in the legal description and the actual corners. Why do you make the assumption he is calling the found monument to not be the corner? Why not assume he is calling it the corner and is calling the deed description incorrect? Granted he is not clear in what he is trying to say, but why assume the worst?

1) A virtual pincushion is better than a physical one. It does not make our profession look so obviously foolish.

It does to anyone who looks a the plat until the end of time.

2) A virtual pincushion is necessary in places where monuments are found and they do not agree with the rights on the ground.

Surveyors are not authorized to pull monuments. By the same token they are not authorized to set new ones in the field or virtually where existing monuments are being used as boundaries, right or wrong. When we can get this concept through our thick skulls we can be more useful to the public. Where there is conflict there needs to be resolution, not another real or virtual location. I admit it takes more time and effort.

I wonder why surveyors think the position described in the description is not the existing monument? The answer my friend is blowin in the wind.

1) A virtual pincushion is better than a physical one. It does not make our profession look so obviously foolish.

Maybe it looks slightly less bad to the public, but that's probably because they don't understand what they're looking at.

2) A virtual pincushion is necessary in places where monuments are found and they do not agree with the rights on the ground.
Ex: You have a dedicated road 50′ wide and have monuments set by surveyors on either side of the road that you are measuring at 49.5′ apart. Multiple other monuments up and down the block confirm the road to be 50′ wide. How wide is this road? How do you not create a virtual pincushion?

This doesn't seem that complicated. If you have found monuments that support the record and apparently there is no other evidence to consider then why agonize over this? Reject the monuments, set your own if the situation calls for it, and explain your reasoning. These paper pin cushions seem to be the call-sign of a surveyor unwilling to make a decision when ironically that's exactly what people are hiring us to do.

Ex: You have a non-called-for (and non-record) monument that overlaps a senior property conveyance by 0.5′. Do you set a pincushion corner? Accept a junior, non-called for monument? Pull the monument and set your own? Or create a virtual pincushion?

The first and last solutions wouldn't even be an option for me.

What I hope to discuss is when this practice is practical and the right answer. If I have a subdivision with original monuments at the block corners, and private surveyor monuments scattered between, record or no record those monuments are not perfect, and I have yet to see a survey text tell me to hold them as original if the original monuments are still in place. Maybe this is a de minimis situation but every monument has error, but surveyors are arguing that we hold every single monument between the two originals? So the block should zig zag and not be a standard width? What if you only have no original monument and 10 others that are all +/- 0.1' referencing the line between the now obliterated originals? I would think a best-fit line between all 10 would be the best way to hold all of the monuments equally and re-establish the original line... but that creates a lot of virtual pin cushions that are small, but still there. Take that same 0.1' and call it 1.0'... what then?

Out here in CA when you pull monuments people get very upset. The second choice is my preference too (and I think a solution to many pincushions)... but I have had a very obviously moved monument (5+ feet off of a line between two monuments at the edge of a road that was widened) that I removed and reset and the county surveyor suggested leaving it and setting my own to make the old corner a witness corner.

Just today I was in the field and a line that was supposed to have 4 monuments on it (per recorded map) had 2 that fit and 2 that were 1' off... what do I do?

I ask not to be argumentative but because these questions have plagued me for years and there is no clear answer that I have found in any texts except maybe The Pincushion Effect which isn't an industry standard. All I want to do is the best job I can, but every time I run into a funky situation (every day) no one is willing to give an answer. All of this is to say I appreciate responses to this and hope it doesn't come off too contentious.

So the block should zig zag and not be a standard width?

Is the intent for the block to have a zig zag line? Probably not. Do you think the public will be harmed by a series of pins that miss the line between the block corners by 0.05'? How about 0.10'? If not then maybe you simply show the line passing through those monument symbols on your map and let everyone assume they're perfectly on line. The value of maintaining harmony in the neighborhood seems like a thing that doesn't get talked about much, unfortunately.

Take that same 0.1′ and call it 1.0’… what then?

Well, obviously at some point a discrepancy becomes too big to ignore. This is where you continue to use your experience and professional judgement to determine if the monument has been disturbed, or a blunder occurred when setting it, or if you're missing a record which explains the difference, etc.

...but I have had a very obviously moved monument (5+ feet off of a line
between two monuments at the edge of a road that was widened) that I
removed and reset and the county surveyor suggested leaving it and
setting my own to make the old corner a witness corner.

A monument got moved over 5 feet and somehow remained on the boundary where it could function as a witness corner? That seems a little hard to believe unless another surveyor was involved, but if it's truly on line and far enough away to not cause pincushion problems then I don't think it would hurt to reference it.

Just today I was in the field and a line that was supposed to have 4
monuments on it (per recorded map) had 2 that fit and 2 that were 1′
off… what do I do?

More experience and professional judgement. 😎

If I have a subdivision with original monuments at the block corners,
and private surveyor monuments scattered between, record or no record
those monuments are not perfect, and I have yet to see a survey text
tell me to hold them as original if the original monuments are still in
place

Just because the block corner original monuments are still in place does not make the private surveyor monuments scattered in between unoriginal monuments. Those private surveyor monuments can be original monuments for the lots of the block they are set for.

Straight lines only exist in theory and are between 2 monuments. When you have intervening monuments they will always put an angle point in the line. The monuments get honored, not the line. The block is straight on paper but it zig zags between every individual lot corner that is monumented. If the monument has never been relied on, putting it where it should be may be the judicious thing to do. After it has been relied on, it is the corner online or not. Professional judgement is used to determine how much zig zag is appropriate. There does not exist an objective evaluation of the monument's position relative to record position.

Agree with lurker. Every monument has to pass or fail based on it's own history and use. Geometry has very little to do with it. My opinion is that where we got of track thanks to Walt and others is the practice that the only solution when there is conflict is to set a new monument. Use be damned, particularly if road ROW or a section line is involved. Then some of us decided that was not a good solution and now we pretend to set a new monument. The real solution is to leave one monument in the field and on the record when there is but one corner. Yes it takes extra time and effort by communicating and working with all the owners and there may be times when we are not successful in completing a survey. I don't expect the real solution to be widely practiced in my lifetime. We've been talking about it for how many decades and still the pin cushions are just as prevalent as ever.

The default is to hold the monument (physical, not virtual).

There needs to be a very good reason to reject one.

Small little discrepancies aren't it.

Mighty Moe said it best and with a laudable succinctness. Here's my longwinded opinion:

This speaks more to the art of surveying than any one set of standards. My guiding principle is to do everything within ethical limits to leave my clients and their neighbors in a better position than before they met me. Currently, I don’t find the argument for keeping the line geometrically pristine (straight) to be convincing when property owners abutting said line have constructed improvements based on the positions of honestly set, and long existing, monuments. I just can't bring myself to ignore a monument, so I make a crooked line. Some surveyors use the half foot rule: if it’s within a half-foot of the line it’ll be shown on the plat as being on the line.

The counter argument to the crooked line approach is the seemingly odd notion that the burden is on the large parcel owner to get a survey every nineteen years or so to ward off encroachments that could ripen to adverse possession. That doesn’t feel right, since it hints that a dishonest adjoiner might be rewarded if they move their lot corners five feet into their neighbor’s parcel. Most adverse possession claimants I’ve dealt with were not individuals I would invite to dinner. However, I will hold the tangible monuments over perceptions of fairness and geometrical conformity because, even though I don’t really like it, I can’t put together a rational argument against the centuries old principle that any owner of property has an inherent responsibility to defend it, the mentally ill and minors excluded.

This issue is my answer to the PLS who convinces himself that precise measurements, typically meaning more than double the minimum 1:10000 standard, are superfluous in relation to the average boundary survey. I prefer keeping my gear and measurements tight, running everything through least squares, and having the monuments with my name on them set precisely on the long straight line so the next guy can avoid these discussions.

I actually had a discussion with a surveyor who said that since the standard rule from the board was a 1:5000 minimum accuracy standard for rural surveys then he would reject anything over that tolerance. He also would claim that the "King gets his" rule is a hard immutable rule.

Fortunately, I was mentored differently.

I just want to say how much I appreciate everyone's comments on here. I think they won't just help me, but will help someone else who someday reads this.

I can learn to embrace the occasional zig zag when within tolerance, and have more and more been embracing the crooked right of way.

The frequent answers you get when you ask these questions are along the lines of "It's not about the math", and that has never been my question. My question is priority of title and different monuments, and I think the answers provided here were very helpful. Thanks again internet people!