..lath came in random lengths from the lumber yard. It was square on both ends because people used to nail it up against the studs in a wall and smear plaster over it. We had to sharpen one end of it with a machete.
"Flagging" was whatever red or white remnants that were cheap in the cloth section at Woolworths, ripped into strips after we sharpened lath.
"Pins"...two different outfits...two different schools of thought. One placed I worked used rebar, but bought it in 20' rods. We cut it with a hacksaw. The other place used 3/4" gas pipe. The reason it looked like a "pinched pipe" was because our hacksaw always needed a new blade; we could only get half way through the pipe usually. After you rubbed half way though you just started bending it back and forth until it broke.
I had to buy my first gammon reel with my own money. I got tired of that string getting caught on the brush and either strangling me or pulling my plumb bob out of its sheath.
Trust me..all the changes I've seen in this industry have been for the better.
July 27 1994, age 20.. Quit my job at McDonalds but luckily I knew the legendary William E. Soderberg (MI surveyor). He offered me a job - I knew nothing of surveying. First day, pounded line and grade stakes for sanitary sewer. That sledge was not my friend. PC was patient as I broke stake after stake, missed, hit my knee, etc.
A few days later we set control for an asphalt plant - lots of rebar in hard ground. I remember wishing I had gloves because my hands were torn up! Stuck with it, learned a lot from some really good surveyors and still here. Just in a different state now.
That gave me a real laugh (sorry), but I can relate to that. Priceless yet it's what happened back in those days.
My start in surveying- I was taken to an obscure bit of bush and out comes an old 4 screw CTS. I was informed it was just for my benefit to show me how things were done once. Thank goodness for that.
Then I went out on a real job and the shiny T1A came out with all these knobs and mirror and screws and I wondered how on earth I would ever master such a complicated looking piece of gear, yet alone set it up over a point.
Many days back then in 1966 were spent reducing levels. Books and books of them. I did it all by hand as I found it the quickets and simplest.
Left handed chainmen! That brings back memories too.
My first boss would go out on a job and we didn't start work until someone had hit a pole about 1 1/2 chains away with a rock.
I was never very popular as I played cricket and so throwing was part of the game and the pole was an easy target for me.
Good topic with obviously much in common.
1967 On my first day I was flagman. Hair to my shoulders, scraggly beard starting to grow, I looked a lot like Charlie Manson. When people saw me they hit the gas.
We cleaned and oiled the chain every day, even if we didn't use it.
Sophomore year of high school in 1984 was my first surveying experience. My dad had just left his job with a larger firm and partnered with an engineer. We were driving back from an indoor track meet where I had just run the mile, 2 mile and 4 x 400m relay and he had to stop at a site to check an elevation.
We get to the site and he sets up the transit and sends me up the hill into the woods with the Philly Rod. When I get to the spot, past the top of the hill, I open the rod fully. He says he can’t see me! Well, eventually I am holding the fully extended rod above my head “give it a 6’ boost and hold it steady”. I remember thinking – “What am I doing and my arms are really tired”.
> First day on the job and I was told to let down the chain. I forgot to realize my party chief was left handed. And we all know how this turned out.
I put up a chain left handed. One of my early party chiefs went on a real cussing rampage the first (and only) time he tried to lay out a chain I had put up. Funny thing is I never had any problem laying out a chain he put up.
Otherwise first day on the job (May/June 1967) ended up getting cussed out by dad. That was a regular occurrence for the next 4 years.
I believe my first real day was spent setting bounds.
> We cleaned and oiled the chain every day, even if we didn't use it.
That reminds me.
After a long hard (hot) day we would occasionally jump into the ocean.
We would drag the 200' highway chain though the Ft. Lauderdale beach sand to clean it off.
:sun:
(Lauderdale had the fluffy sand that worked the best)
cleaning the chain...
No beach sand in Oklahoma. But looping the leather thong around the tow-hitch and taking a cruise through dried knee-high prairie grass produces some spectacular results. Made that old babbit chain shine like chrome.
Okay so I am no the only idiot out there.
I am still in my 20s so this happened about 9 years ago, the first week of summer after freshman year of college. I was working for a civil firm in the MS delta.
PC says - Hey fat boy, get a hammer and a chisel, we need to look for a section corner in this gravel road.
Fat boy starts digging in the road and after about 5 minutes i dig up a biga$$ nail in the road. I pull the nail up out of the road bed and say to the pc, "what dumb SOB put this nail in the road?"
The pc freaks out and starts hollering all kinds of phrases, i take the nail and stick it back in the exact hole it came from.
For the next two weeks he watched every move fat boy made... Every time i see that party chief we laugh about that summer.
My first day as a green rodman. Bout an hour into cuttin line the Instrument man cuts his leg wide open and we spent the rest of the day at the hospital. I thought "this job is cake". That will be 20 years ago in July.
1991. First job on survey crew as a summer help rod-man we laid out the curved driveway by the building's main entrance under the canopy ...
> How about let's do a "when I first started surveying" thread.
>
> When I first started surveying, first day, first task, the boss asked me to run down to that station and give him a shot.
>
> Well I was so enthusiastic that I ran all the way down to the backsight station before I realized that I had no clue what a "shot" was, so I ran back and asked, then ran back to the backsight and gave my first shot with a no gammon reel plumb bob to a Alabama LS with a K&E transit whose name was Bob.....I lost my plumb bob in the woods later that week. Bob cussed me over it, then got me a new bob.
>
> Year 1986, Age 18
Also, on that first day there was also another brand new newbie on his first day, it was a black kid about my same age and was a pretty nice guy in my opinion.
Our four man crew's task was boundary surveying 100 rural acres and that meant lots and lots of line chopping, the kind where you have to take turns chopping.
Well, I was chopping away with a machete and the other newbie walked up behind me too close while I was chopping and on my back swing the tip of my machete poped him in the center of his forehead...lots of blood flowing and we were on the back of the property and 40 miles from a hospital.
Bob decides that he will take off his white tee shirt and cut it into a bandage strip, wrapped the guys head up and we continue surveying.
Later that day the wounded newbie needed a rest and when he sat down on a log a black snake ran from under the log and wounded or not this guy could run and run fast, he could yell too.
That was his first and last day, I lasted a little bit longer...about a quarter of a century, funny how I never forgot the other newbie, I hope his life turned out good.