Mar 1, 2017 | ENGINEERING NOSTALGIA, ENGINEERING ODD BITS, Uncategorized
Old Engineer Memories – Number 3
Can you remember being a young Engineer many years ago and listening to the old Engineers talk about how things have changed over the years? Old Engineer Memories – Number 3 takes you on a journey back to Engineering in the 1960’s/70’s/80’s
And now it’s your turn to look back on your Memories.
If you are a younger Engineer wondering what things were like – all those years ago – Ask one of the older guys to explain.
You Know That You’re An Old Engineer …….
It will make today’s Safety Officers cringe in horror – but in the old days it was standard practice – many old Engineers will remember this crane lift
1. When you can remember the crane dog man putting his foot in the hook and getting hoisted up by the crane and it was a perfectly acceptable practice
2. When you can remember an Erasing Shield not being a Star Wars Protective Device to Erase Missiles fired by the enemy
3. When you can remember – when that concrete slab (or similar) would be physically broken up, loaded and carted away by a team of workers in about a 5 day time span. Today the whole job takes 1 man with an excavator and truck about half a day
4. When you can remember rivets being the standard method of joining metal
5. When you can then remember stick welding being the “new way” to join metal
6. When you can remember your car having a starting handle and you can remember needing to use it
7. When you can remember your new car had a side valve engine
8. When you can remember de coking your 2 stroke motor cycle
9. When you can remember that the Drawing Numbering system has changed many times over the years and you are the only one left at the company who knows each system – intimately
10. When you can remember seeing a cad system for the very first time and thinking – “this will never catch on”
Not Only Old Engineers:
When there is a need to take a deep breath and take a break
Feb 15, 2017 | ENGINEERING NOSTALGIA, ENGINEERING ODD BITS, Uncategorized
Old Engineer Memories – Number 2
Can you remember being a young Engineer many years ago and listening to the old Engineers talk about how things have changed over the years? Old Engineer Memories – Number 2 takes you on a journey back to Engineering in the 1960’s/70’s/80’s
And now it’s your turn to look back on your Memories.
If you are a younger Engineer wondering what things were like – all those years ago – Ask one of the older guys to explain.
You Know That You Are An Old Engineer ………
- When you can remember the first Engineering Office calculator being a valve set and needing a 10 minute warm up before it could be used
- When you can remember that the (above) calculator could – add, subtract, multiply and divide and if you were very clever you could find a square root by multiple approximations
- When you can remember charts with square and cube roots and all types of other useful data being readily available
- When you can remember working in an Engineering office where ”everyone” smoked and the air was so thick with smoke that you could not see from one side of the office to the other
- When you can remember that there where always pipe smokers in the office and you can still smell the aromas of the pipe and cigarette smoke
- When you can remember using tools and implements which were marked with the last 2 digits of the year of manufacture and the whole year started with 18 eg 96 was 1896
- When you can remember watching that rusty old piece of machinery being carted off to the scrap yard and remembering when it was new and just being installed
Old Engineer Memories – Back to the Drawing Board
- When you can remember using drawing boards with machines using the parallelogram counterweight systems that where never square
- When you can remember Project Managing jobs without JSA’s, Hazard Studies Work Method Statements or the like
- When you can remember being able to climb a ladder without a “Work At Heights Permit”
- When you can remember being a Young Engineer and the Old Engineers telling stories about the “Good Old Days”
Not Only Old Engineers:
When there is a need to take a deep breath and take a break
Feb 7, 2017 | ENGINEERING NOSTALGIA, Uncategorized
Old Engineer Memories – Number 1
Can you remember being a young Engineer many years ago and listening to the old Engineers talk about how things have changed over the years? Old Engineer Memories – Number 1 takes you on a journey back to Engineering in the 1960’s/70’s/80’s
And now it’s your turn to look back on your Memories.
If you are a younger Engineer wondering what things were like – all those years ago – Ask one of the older guys to explain.
You Know That You’re An Old Engineer……..
Blueprints, Tables and Slide Rules bring back Engineering Memories from The Good Old Days
- When you can remember working from the old original blue print drawings
- When you can remember the smell of ammonia on the “new” system of printing drawings
- When you can remember the dedicated print room which produced the drawings, (in strict order) the people who worked there and their names
- When you can remember that you still have your original slide rule
- When you still use your slide rule because you’re more confident with it (you are still not sure about these hand held calculators – what happens if the battery dies!)
- When you can remember using log tables for calculations
- When you can remember how to use log tables and lay out the calculations in neat rows and columns
- When you can remember your favorite books of tables with fraction to decimal conversions charts
- When you still use those same conversion charts
- When you have committed them to memory, but still use the chart as a check
Not Only Old Engineers:
When there is a need to take a deep breath and take a break
