Showerthought: The week my old boss had me redraw a 1978 factory layout by hand

We had a rush job for a plant retrofit in Cincinnati and the original microfilm scans were just blobs. Spent four full days at a light table with vellum and a 0.5mm pencil, tracing over 50 sheets. My boss said it builds character, but my back was killing me. Honestly, it made me really appreciate modern CAD and PDF underlays. Has anyone else had to do a full manual takeoff from terrible scans recently?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_mary1mo ago

Oh man, that sounds like a special kind of torture! I bet your hand was cramping up worse than mine after a long shift. At least you got some character out of it, I just got a sore back and a new hatred for microfilm. Makes you wonder how they built anything back then without going completely crazy.

sean_cooper581mo ago

Four days hunched over a light table sounds like pure misery, man.

janah831mo ago

Remember my friend who worked at that small town water department? They found a stack of sewer maps from the 50s drawn on linen that were basically crumbling to dust. He had to piece them together on a big conference table and re-draw every single line with a technical pen for weeks. Said it felt like an archeology dig, but for pipes. He still complains about the smell of old paper and his boss calling it a "learning experience." Makes your microfilm blobs sound almost high tech.