My late father was a hobbyist woodworker for much of his life and was well skilled. When my brothers and I went through his tools, they had no interest in his trammel. It's beautiful, made by Bridge City Tools. I took it, figuring it'd be handy laying out curves on a train layout someday. Even with Kato, a segment of a circle can vary a small bit in its radius, so I use the trammel to assure the ends of curves are separated by the proper amount. It's fun to mess with, but boy, those trammel points are lethally pointy! I keep those guards in place I do.
A dull tool is worse than useless; it will slip and catch, or require too much effort for good, smooth control. A tool that is beautiful in both function and appearance is a treasure to behold. I have a few of Bridge City's older tools that, like that trammel, were beautifully executed in brass/bronze and fine, warm wood. Too much of their stuff today is ingeniously functional and pretty, but all metal, and cold in both eye and hand.
I have a couple of three-sided rulers around here someplace. They were my older brother's. I think one is marked for architectural use and the other for regular fractional use. Boy, that trammel is cool and I wish I would have had one for layout building in the past instead of using a yard stick with holes drilled into it. On topic: Of course, Unitrack eliminates the need for all this stuff, right? Doug
I had a trammel that I used in the machine shop. Mostly marking sheet metal. I wasn't as pretty as what you have to it was given to a young trainee. It was all metal, rusty and dirty. But good enough for that work. Rich
That's not rust and dirt, that's patina! And testament to its service and fitness for task. I have an old, beat-up, wooden marking gauge that my grandpa used. He said he rescued it during the depression from a product display board that a hardware store was throwing out. He used it right up until he gave it to me when I was in high school. While I don't use it much anymore, and have nicer and more functional marking gauges that I do use, I wouldn't part with it, or the memories it summons, for anything.
Rich, Somehow, I don't think you would have accepted such patina on the rifle (or anything else) of a subordinate during inspection.
For those interested in the map measure, you might find a digital plan measure handy. I know the big box hardware stores carry them.
That does look interesting. I'll check with the local store and the other one down town. The big boys are on the other side of town. It takes three buses to get there. Or at least within a mile.
I'm trying to think what I could possibly use a digital plan measure for. The only thing that keeps popping into my head is.....
It is listed on Amazon along with two much more expensive models and a carry case. But - it's not for sale. Just displayed. Maybe next year.
I found my Grandfather's dividers this morning and their size should be perfect for what you suggest. If you pull the points out, the other ends expose a pencil lead and a metal quill pen designed to dip into ink. Near the top of the tool it reads "Eagle Pencil Co. New York, PAT DEC 94", so it probably dates from the turn of the century. A neat item and it's in immaculate shape.
Wonderful little tool. Too bad things like that are totally lost on todays kids and even some of their parents. Maybe it’s because I grew up with a family of machinists and carpenters that I appreciate things like that.
I'm a retired 3rd generation engineer (not a train driver), so instruments like that are familiar to me. I remember fishing in Galveston Bay as a kid (long before GPS) with my father navigating to various reefs by getting on one heading toward a landmark (often a flare tower at one of the refineries), and as I held that course for that tower, he would sight another tower until we were the right heading from it. The intersection of the two headings from those two towers put us right over the reef, verified by poling with a long cane pole (solid oyster reef surface, as opposed to the mud or sandy bottoms elsewhere.) Anyway, he showed me how he plotted the lines on a chart of the bay to figure out the headings to the towers. Later on, I took a USCG Power Squadron boating course that reinforced the navigation skills my dad had already taught me. To bring this back on point, he also used dividers to step off the distance he needed to travel on each leg of the ride, so he'd have an idea of how long we would be traveling on one line until we got to the next. He said it was always good to have a second way of knowing roughly where you are, especially if you are not sure which tower you are supposed to be sighting on (particularly on the first trip to a new (for us) reef. My son is a 4th generation engineer (3rd generation Arkansas Razorback Engineering Grad). It's in our blood: 2 electrical engineers, 1 chemical engineer, and one Software Engineer. Unfortunately, I did not relay such navigational skills to my son (or daughter). That's what we have GPS for now. And all of my son's "drafting" work in HS & college used 3D design applications on computers, not drafting instruments. Where rendering a surface true size and shape is a button push away, rather than a series of projections between axes (not the chopping kind!)
I've finally adjusted to life with GPS, but I always carry a road atlas with me in the car and so does my wife just in case. There's something unnerving to set a course with GPS and having no idea what route its decided is best. My wife was a Girl Scout Troop Leader for 12 years and she recalls the time she was deep in the mountains of western NC with three carloads of kids under a forest canopy and everyone's GPS went dark. She was the only one with a road atlas and knew how to use it. We're both map readers and there's also no substitute for them while railfanning.
I thought I understood this, but now I'm confused. I'm not an Engineer and am lucky to get 4 when adding 2 and 2. My grade will rise 2" over 112", so is a 1.8% grade. In the middle of the grade is a "horseshoe curve" (that'll largely be in a mountain). A set of 28 graduated piers set in place every 4" could accomplish the rise. If I walk off the grade from track centerline with my compass set at 4" to mark the pier locations, are you saying that the process will result in a desirable lessening of the grade on the curve by automatically spacing the piers further apart?
