An odd old ruler

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neverbilly

Burning Hunk
Dec 27, 2015
177
Arkansas, USA
[Hearth.com] An odd old ruler [Hearth.com] An odd old ruler
Anyone got a clue what this ruler was/is for? I bought this for 25 cents at an estate sale. I thought it was just a high quality small ruler because it has a leather sheath. But upon getting home, I note that it nothing like I have seen. The old man who died had an amazing collection of 'stuff,' from chainsaws to tons of ammo reloading equipment to woodworking tools to tool/die stuff. The most amazing collection of man stuff I have ever seen. Everyone said so. He was also a 'survivalist,' with 20 gas cans and 20 water cans, 960 ingots of lead, cases of gunpowder, about 50 locks, countless old tools, and thousands of nuts/bolts. Incredible.

There are two pics attached, front and back of ruler.

[Hearth.com] An odd old ruler
 
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neverbilly said:
View attachment 175008 View attachment 175009 Anyone got a clue what this ruler was/is for? I bought this for 25 cents at an estate sale. I thought it was just a high quality small ruler because it has a leather sheath. But upon getting home, I note that it nothing like I have seen. The old man who died had an amazing collection of 'stuff,' from chainsaws to tons of ammo reloading equipment to woodworking tools to tool/die stuff. The most amazing collection of man stuff I have ever seen. Everyone said so. He was also a 'survivalist,' with 20 gas cans and 20 water cans, 960 ingots of lead, cases of gunpowder, about 50 locks, countless old tools, and thousands of nuts/bolts. Incredible.

There are two pics attached, front and back of ruler.
Click to expand...
That's used for drafting & architecture. If you have blueprints that have a scale of, say, 1/2" = 1 foot, then the numbers on the part of the ruler marked 1/2 would equal 1 foot each.
*Edit - I think it's called an engineering ruler or engineering scale.
 
neverbilly said:
View attachment 175008 View attachment 175009 Anyone got a clue what this ruler was/is for? I bought this for 25 cents at an estate sale. I thought it was just a high quality small ruler because it has a leather sheath. But upon getting home, I note that it nothing like I have seen. The old man who died had an amazing collection of 'stuff,' from chainsaws to tons of ammo reloading equipment to woodworking tools to tool/die stuff. The most amazing collection of man stuff I have ever seen. Everyone said so. He was also a 'survivalist,' with 20 gas cans and 20 water cans, 960 ingots of lead, cases of gunpowder, about 50 locks, countless old tools, and thousands of nuts/bolts. Incredible.

There are two pics attached, front and back of ruler.

View attachment 175008
Click to expand...
It's an architects scale.
 
My first thought, due to the name on it, was a shrink scale for pattern making- closer observation looks more like as stated above.
 
My Dad was engineer, had those things laying around all over the place. Going to move this to the Inglenook.
 
I have a collection of similar scales. Scales like those were normally a giveaway at trade shows. I usually kept one in my briefcase. The bummer these days is a lot of drawing still have scales but with cad files they can be printed out in any size so the actual scale on the map may not line up with a standard scale.

I started my engineering career with a utility that still did ink on linen updates and ink on mylar for new maps. It took awhile to learn to plan my drawing so I didn't smudge the ink.
 
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peakbagger said:
I have a collection of similar scales. Scales like those were normally a giveaway at trade shows. I usually kept one in my briefcase. The bummer these days is a lot of drawing still have scales but with cad files they can be printed out in any size so the actual scale on the map may not line up with a standard scale.

I started my engineering career with a utility that still did ink on linen updates and ink on mylar for new maps. It took awhile to learn to plan my drawing so I didn't smudge the ink.
Click to expand...
Working at my utility, I occasionally have to pull the old transmission elevation drawings, I always marvel at the single line diagrams and scale drawings, everything was done by hand, many were drawn and built during the 1920's and 1930's, I can only imagine what an undertaking this could have been to plan (field work / survey) and draw these line diagrams, It was a large work force in it self.
 
In some respect those only worked for blueprint or other original size printed documents. As soon as something is enlarged or reduced those scales are no longer accurate.
That's why you see scales printed on drawings like below. They scale up and won no matter what the printout or copy size.
[Hearth.com] An odd old ruler
 
I have an architectural ruler on my desk too. Also makes a dandy backscratcher.
 
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No computers back in my days on the drawing boards- pencil and Ink various types of scales, Those drafting machines made things a bit quicker than the T squares and triangles though - when they ran true.
 
While architectural and mechanical scales are still in common use, this is getting to be a real rarity.

[Hearth.com] An odd old ruler
 
Used to be sign of geekdom to have a huge KE slide rule. Kurta peppermills (mechanical calculators) were also a status symbol in some crowds. I was in the first engineering class at University of Maine that switched completely to calculators. The professors liked calculator as they figured about 25% of the errors on tests were math errors.
 
begreen said:
While architectural and mechanical scales are still in common use, this is getting to be a real rarity.

View attachment 175294
Click to expand...
I'm feeling old enough as it is. Stop already. One of my first freshman courses was slide rules. Still have my first big Pickett log-log-something. Somewhere. I think. Well, I know it was yellow anyway...

Oh hell, maybe It's in some museum where it belongs.

I had several smaller ones too. You know, the kind you could put in your plastic pocket protector for those times you wanted that extra geeky look, whether you actually used those little things or not.
 
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My now 40 year old son was fascinated with my slide rule. He had never seen one and had to know all about how it worked. But there are other things too ... dial telephones, cassette tapes, etc. Great fun to break out the antiques.
 
I have dial telephone in my garage, when I used to work with the local boy scouts, many had no clue how to use one. More than few thought that you just touched the numbers on the dial.
 
Bring out a old tube tester for fun and questions.
 
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