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You should update your slide rule to the sun powered type. I've got one of each.
I have a pocket watch that uses sunlight
Works great hard to adjust for daylight savings time.

Dave
 

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Here photos of my slide rules and a few drafting tool.
My watch that has not need a battery since 1960's

Dave

You should update your slide rule to the sun powered type. I've got one of each.

I did a update to a new HP Laptop w/bluetooth mouse.
Now I have Autocad and Excel installed.

Works great
Still use my phone for posting
 

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Aye, many of us have lots of accumulated junk... e.g 5 slide rules, umpteen compasses (not magnetic, but used for drawing circles), 4 drawing boards and t-squares, trammels, parallels, squares, scales, etc. (mine, Father's and 2 Grandfather's stuff) of which I use less than half. - Just how many squares can you use when drawing? Also I have a brass scale, for tracing drawings to a different size.. made in 1920s by my Grandfather, because he needed it. You CAD users will laugh because you just print on different sized paper.....! The only thing powered by electrickery is the 1970s calculator - Solar recharging, on its second battery in 50 years... All the computing power of the computer used by Apollo astronauts who went to the moon and back...!
Likewise I have inherited tools going back to the 1920s! And still use some! Modern files just don't seem as sharp and durable as some old ones I have, but modern drills are better....! Surely they are all "steel"?
Good tools often outlive the user, for hobby by use, but what are they worth when old and out-dated? Nothing, except a bit of nostalgia.
Ho hum,
K2
 
I was referring to the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch.
When I was a teenager, we didn't have computers, but I would suit in my bedroom building model aeroplanes.
We were nerds before nerds were invented!
Hi Peter, I don't remember a "4 Yorkshiremen sketch"?
Was it anything to do with "see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil, but tell everyone their failings and what they should be doing properly"? But I was raised as a "mealy - mouthed Southerner with nobbut 'tween th'ears!" Or so a Yorkshireman took great delight explaining to me...
Ecky-thump!
K2
 
You guys are all pansies (even Steamchick! She's a LADY pansie!)
Not only did WE walk to school in the snow, WE did it when the humane society was bringing wolves inside so they wouldn't die in the blizzard! AND, it was STEEPER each way than it was for you guys, when WE walked to school. The gravity was MORE then, instead of how weak it is today! And we had to fight off the wolves who HADN'T been taken in by the humane society because it was cold. We had to fight them off with snow shovels.
We used to DREAM of having an outside loo! Our school days were 14 hours long, but sometimes we actually had a crust of bread to gnaw on for lunch!
POCKET PROTECTORS!!!! We used to DREAM of having a pocket protector! We carried all our pens, slide-rules, and our favorite micrometer in whichever hand we WEREN'T fighting the wolves with!
But I agree, those were good days, and we learned a lot! We were a lot tougher than the kids today. Today's kids don't even know which end of a shivering wolf to grab to toss it over your shoulder. And they want to plug everything in. All my electronic calculators when I was in school in the 70's were COAL POWERED. None of this silly BATTERY nonsense, either!
Times have certainly changed!
 
I still have my Slide Rule and yes it still works. I had a friend who carried a 6 inch slide rule in the field even in the late 70's No batteries required. In the field where a quick answer of 3 digits was superior to waiting for a calculator to come up with a 5 decimal place answer. and the snow was only 2 feet deep and it was only 2 miles strange how it was up hill in both directions though.
When it is the wet snow variety it feels colder than the dry snow here at half the depth. I do not need Omicron to tell me to stay home. I like being inside where it is warm and yes the dogs get up on the sofa, to keep me warm.
 
I am still here.
The only item shelf I purchased used was the Leroy set and I used too. Ever thing on bottom shelf I used til 1995. The watch ⌚ is a hand me down from 1920's. Still keeps good time.

Dave

Aye, many of us have lots of accumulated junk... e.g 5 slide rules, umpteen compasses (not magnetic, but used for drawing circles), 4 drawing boards and t-squares, trammels, parallels, squares, scales, etc. (mine, Father's and 2 Grandfather's stuff) of which I use less than half. - Just how many squares can you use when drawing? Also I have a brass scale, for tracing drawings to a different size.. made in 1920s by my Grandfather, because he needed it. You CAD users will laugh because you just print on different sized paper.....! The only thing powered by electrickery is the 1970s calculator - Solar recharging, on its second battery in 50 years... All the computing power of the computer used by Apollo astronauts who went to the moon and back...!
Likewise I have inherited tools going back to the 1920s! And still use some! Modern files just don't seem as sharp and durable as some old ones I have, but modern drills are better....! Surely they are all "steel"?
Good tools often outlive the user, for hobby by use, but what are they worth when old and out-dated? Nothing, except a bit of nostalgia.
Ho hum,
K2
 
My father had 6"
The bottom slide rule is for drafting boards and was one sided.

I did see a photograph of a very large slide rule to 5 digits made for the Navy.

Dave

I still have my Slide Rule and yes it still works. I had a friend who carried a 6 inch slide rule in the field even in the late 70's No batteries required. In the field where a quick answer of 3 digits was superior to waiting for a calculator to come up with a 5 decimal place answer. and the snow was only 2 feet deep and it was only 2 miles strange how it was up hill in both directions though.
When it is the wet snow variety it feels colder than the dry snow here at half the depth. I do not need Omicron to tell me to stay home. I like being inside where it is warm and yes the dogs get up on the sofa, to keep me warm.
 
Some of low cost CAD programs are not user happy.
Try DouldCad I think the right name but is user friendly. It is close to Autocad .

Dave

Some of you have mastered CAD, I am still trying to get past the opening screen. CAD requires a slight re-wiring of the brain I am afraid.
 
I was referring to the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch.
When I was a teenager, we didn't have computers, but I would suit in my bedroom building model aeroplanes.
We were nerds before nerds were invented!

Speaking of Yorkshiremen, this young fellow is no slacker, and tackles quite a variety of projects.
Imagine if he had a machine shop at his disposal.



Regards,
Larry
 
I still have my Slide Rule and yes it still works. I had a friend who carried a 6 inch slide rule in the field even in the late 70's No batteries required. In the field where a quick answer of 3 digits was superior to waiting for a calculator to come up with a 5 decimal place answer. and the snow was only 2 feet deep and it was only 2 miles strange how it was up hill in both directions though.
When it is the wet snow variety it feels colder than the dry snow here at half the depth. I do not need Omicron to tell me to stay home. I like being inside where it is warm and yes the dogs get up on the sofa, to keep me warm.
I worked for Learjet for 32 years, and we had an engineer there who I referenced as an "Apollo Engineer". He used to come over to the hangar to look at a problem, and then draw up a solution on a piece of paper, right there on the wing of the airplane, and our structures guys would then start work on the repair, based on what he told them to do. Then he would go back to his office and draw up the "Official" company drawing and put it in the drawing file. I thought of him as an "Apollo Engineer" because he was like the engineers that worked on the Apollo space program. They did all their calculations with slide-rules and engineering data that they kept in their head. There were no computers for them to use. He always ran the typical computer stress and fatigue analyses when he got back to his office, but I don't recall him EVER having to change a repair plan once he handed over the paper to the floor guys. He is now deceased, but everyone agreed that when he retired, we lost a REAL engineer. (He probably had NO problem with gravity, uphill walks, or wolves when he was growing up. He knew how to handle all those things!)
 
There was handy crank and some with motors use for calculators

Dave

I worked for Learjet for 32 years, and we had an engineer there who I referenced as an "Apollo Engineer". He used to come over to the hangar to look at a problem, and then draw up a solution on a piece of paper, right there on the wing of the airplane, and our structures guys would then start work on the repair, based on what he told them to do. Then he would go back to his office and draw up the "Official" company drawing and put it in the drawing file. I thought of him as an "Apollo Engineer" because he was like the engineers that worked on the Apollo space program. They did all their calculations with slide-rules and engineering data that they kept in their head. There were no computers for them to use. He always ran the typical computer stress and fatigue analyses when he got back to his office, but I don't recall him EVER having to change a repair plan once he handed over the paper to the floor guys. He is now deceased, but everyone agreed that when he retired, we lost a REAL engineer. (He probably had NO problem with gravity, uphill walks, or wolves when he was growing up. He knew how to handle all those things!)
 
Aye, many of us have lots of accumulated junk... e.g 5 slide rules, umpteen compasses (not magnetic, but used for drawing circles), 4 drawing boards and t-squares, trammels, parallels, squares, scales, etc. (mine, Father's and 2 Grandfather's stuff) of which I use less than half. - Just how many squares can you use when drawing? Also I have a brass scale, for tracing drawings to a different size.. made in 1920s by my Grandfather, because he needed it. You CAD users will laugh because you just print on different sized paper.....! The only thing powered by electrickery is the 1970s calculator - Solar recharging, on its second battery in 50 years... All the computing power of the computer used by Apollo astronauts who went to the moon and back...!
Likewise I have inherited tools going back to the 1920s! And still use some! Modern files just don't seem as sharp and durable as some old ones I have, but modern drills are better....! Surely they are all "steel"?
Good tools often outlive the user, for hobby by use, but what are they worth when old and out-dated? Nothing, except a bit of nostalgia.
Ho hum,
K2
One of the nicest tools I wish I had, but let slip away from me, was a Clarkson boiler barrel layout tool. It was a brass sheet, and you manipulated it by using a set of screws to adjust it so you could draw the actual boiler plate radius, right to the correct dimension. So in 15 seconds you could draw a section of boiler, and then mount a valve, fitting, etc on it, and it would be dead on. Tony Clarkson, the last member of the Clarkson family, was a member of our local model engineering group, and let me borrow it to play with it. Being the good soul that I am, I promptly returned it when I was done with it, but certainly lusted after it. He later died, and the family came to the club and asked if there was anything any individual members wanted out of his huge collection of stuff, and I asked about the Clarkson Boiler Drawing Tool, but they never could find it, and I assume some visitor nicked it. I was very sad, to say the least. He was quite a brilliant guy, and before he died, was working on some vertical windmills that would generate power at wind speeds as low as 5 mph. These were for use in Africa and other underdeveloped areas that had no other sources of electricity
I have no clue how he managed to achieve this. There was another member of our club, also an Englishman, who was doing all his machining on the prototype, and he developed stomach cancer and died soon after Tony did. I spoke to him after Tony died, about completing these wind turbines, but he said Tony worked out of his head, and just told him what to make next, and there were no real drawings, just some sketches, and this machinist said he saw no way to ever complete them without knowing what was in Tony's brain.
 
Four Yorkshiremen sketch, The Python mob did that one, probably on U-tube. Better one was Yorkshire airlines again on the tube. We had two airlines at different times both based at Yeadon aerodrome, (Leeds Bradford airport). First was BKS flying Dakotas and it was rumoured that when they flew south, all the air corridors were cleared for them, also on reaching the London airports, they were given priority landing clearance. Not sure if that was lack of fuel or so they didn't fall out of the sky.
Second one was Capital Airlines. Had the pleasure (???????????) of being on the last flight from Jersey (CI) to LBA . I luv the smell of burning Castrol 'R'

Regards Ian (Yorkshire born and bred and proud of it)
 

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