Culling and filing old records, I found these old drawings for various roll markings. Her are a few. Wonder where the dies are now??
Lefever Arms Frame Die.

Lefever Long Range barrel die

And the cutters for NID breech balls.

Being a former machinist and toolmaker, I appreciate the old drawings, Walt. These old drawings are like art to me.

Chuck, I agree. May frame them. Some are on architects linen, India ink and the whole bit--the only proper way to do it. Now its all CAD/CAM and probably technology newer than that.

Absolutely. Framed and displayed would be a tribute to these old engineers/tooldesigners long since gone.

Love HEH(Harry Howland) and NS(Nestor Smith, Chief Engineer/designer) initials. Ghosts whose contributions live on!!!

Reminds me of a young machinist in our R&D shop in the nuc biz way back. He was barely old enough to shave. Big, quiet, polite kid. He had felt tip pen marked up a batch of parts with "NFG". The leadman came unglued when he saw how nearly the whole batch of parts had "NFG" on them. He said; "...how the (explitive) could you mess up that many parts before you stopped???" The kid had a puzzled look. Then he said; "Those marked ones are not finish ground. I still laugh about that over 30 yrs later.

I sure can appreciate those old drawings as I've made more than a few of them myself!! Real draftsmen (not drafters) draw in ink. No personality to todays drawings all made with highpower software.... But.......I do love that 3d modeling!!

Amen.
I'm afraid the art and the craft headed in different directions about 30 years ago.
Lettering and line quality were everything back then. I still spin my pencils when I make a line on something.

AMEN!! I have too deal with many prints and drawings everyday, and nothing beats a well executed hand drawn ISO. Seems people can explain things to people much better than machines can. A good draftsman is worth his/her weight in gold. With all the technology involved it seems we are destroying the foundation of what made this country so great-CRAFTSMANSHIP and ingenuity. Now it seems all some hack needs is a degree in computer science. Apprenticeships are all but dead, whatever happened to passing your craft on to the next generation. Thanks a million Walt for reminding us how great we should still be...

Walt - Any idea who DAR is in the third drawing? I agree,
these are treasures. I used to to drafting with WECO and certaintly apprieciate (?) them.

With many thanks,

Chris H. Nowell

Just a little derailment, but I respectfully disagree of any notion that CAD is a bad thing. I believe more issue with CAD are really issues with inexperienced designers/CAD draftmen.

CAD today, often is an integrated program of electronic drafting and design analysis, and manufacturing capability such as CATIA, NASTRAN, Unigraphics, etc. It is truly an amazing advancement when done properly.

Back to your regularly scheduled program.