mensa says they will host an IQ test

[Althea]

That's what I used to do for several years. Prior to CAD taking over everything.

Then I did that.

Preferred the old manual way.

Mechanical pencils, triangles, templates & scale, etc.

I only do it for the jobs I have to sell. I should have bought CAD years ago, but I don't do that many drawings anymore. Re. templates/triangles, etc....I remember always cursing the smudged pencil lines.


But....we have a situation now where builders/tradesmen cannot get a quality set of blueprints. 'Back in the day', architects would have aspiring architects as draftspeople. The architect would make a mistake, but it would be caught by the draftsman/woman.

Today, the architect hands the plans off to a geek who puts it into a computer. The mistake makes it to the field, and then the fun starts.

 

[Nomad]

I only do it for the jobs I have to sell. I should have bought CAD years ago, but I don't do that many drawings anymore. Re. templates/triangles, etc....I remember always cursing the smudged pencil lines.


But....we have a situation now where builders/tradesmen cannot get a quality set of blueprints. 'Back in the day', architects would have aspiring architects as draftspeople. The architect would make a mistake, but it would be caught by the draftsman/woman.

Today, the architect hands the plans off to a geek who puts it into a computer. The mistake makes it to the field, and then the fun starts.

The company I worked for did a lot of custom work for Disney World.

I did the shop drawings for this canopy structure at EPCOT back in the mid 90's

The steel poles and trusses that support the fabric canopy were actually painted pink when we built it. They obviously repainted it light blue at some point.

 

[Althea]

The company I worked for did a lot of custom work for Disney World.

I did the shop drawings for this canopy structure at EPCOT back in the mid 90's

The steel poles and trusses that support the fabric canopy were actually painted pink when we built it. They obviously repainted it light blue at some point.

That's a lot of elevations! That steel structure must have been fun to draw.

 

[Micawber]

The company I worked for did a lot of custom work for Disney World.

I did the shop drawings for this canopy structure at EPCOT back in the mid 90's

The steel poles and trusses that support the fabric canopy were actually painted pink when we built it. They obviously repainted it light blue at some point.

Impressive. Wanna do some wall renderings?

 

[Micawber]

I only do it for the jobs I have to sell. I should have bought CAD years ago, but I don't do that many drawings anymore. Re. templates/triangles, etc....I remember always cursing the smudged pencil lines.


But....we have a situation now where builders/tradesmen cannot get a quality set of blueprints. 'Back in the day', architects would have aspiring architects as draftspeople. The architect would make a mistake, but it would be caught by the draftsman/woman.

Today, the architect hands the plans off to a geek who puts it into a computer. The mistake makes it to the field, and then the fun starts.

REminds me of the scene from spinal tap with the stonehenge scenery specification.

 

[Nomad]

That's a lot of elevations! That steel structure must have been fun to draw.

Yeah, "fun" in quotation marks for sarcastic purposes.

The company owner nearly lost his ass on that project. It was originally designed by the Disney "Imagineers" as a tensile structure, meaning that in the original design, everywhere you see those steel triangular trusses in between the poles, there were tensioned steel cables and the tops of the poles had tensioned steel cables running back to this large 36" diameter steel disk that we fabricated, then cut into the roof of the building and welded in place.

Fine.

Only problem was that these "Imagineers" didn't take into account that if you're going to apply tension to steel poles in one direction, you have to apply equal tension in the other direction. Which would've meant have tensioned steel cables fastened to the concrete plaza in front of the building where all the people were walking.

The structural engineer who did all of our engineering work wouldn't sign off on the cables in one direction and another one we had used before up in NJ wouldn't either. Disney wasn't about to put tensioned cables in a guest walkway.

So I spent weeks redrawing it with each new idea they came up with, all to no avail. Finally, one of our sales guys who had an engineering degree that he never used for anything other than industrial product sales jobs, came up with the idea of the triangular trusses.

It met the criteria Disney's design dept wanted which was small diameter "light weight" look and they even enhanced the "futuristic" look more than the original cable design.

They were hap-hap-happy boys!!!!

Our problem was, by the time we all agreed on that, we were running out of time and the contract had a late penalty clause that held them not responsible even if it was their doing.

We completed the job on the very last day before the late penalty kicked in.

Plus, we did two other structures in the same general area at the same time.

One of them was this "gazebo" thing, but without the big sign which was added later...

That was one busy ass summer. LOTS of overtime for everyone!!!

 

[Nomad]

Impressive. Wanna do some wall renderings?

I'm not really a rendering guy, though I have done them.

I couldn't travel though, so, moot issue.

 

[Buckly J. Ewer]

Please let this happen.

They did a whole montage last night of all of the times Trump talked about how super-smart he is. It is really one of the saddest things.

His needy ego always gets disappointed.

 

[Althea]

Yeah, "fun" in quotation marks for sarcastic purposes.

The company owner nearly lost his ass on that project. It was originally designed by the Disney "Imagineers" as a tensile structure, meaning that in the original design, everywhere you see those steel triangular trusses in between the poles, there were tensioned steel cables and the tops of the poles had tensioned steel cables running back to this large 36" diameter steel disk that we fabricated, then cut into the roof of the building and welded in place.

Fine.

Only problem was that these "Imagineers" didn't take into account that if you're going to apply tension to steel poles in one direction, you have to apply equal tension in the other direction. Which would've meant have tensioned steel cables fastened to the concrete plaza in front of the building where all the people were walking.

The structural engineer who did all of our engineering work wouldn't sign off on the cables in one direction and another one we had used before up in NJ wouldn't either. Disney wasn't about to put tensioned cables in a guest walkway.

So I spent weeks redrawing it with each new idea they came up with, all to no avail. Finally, one of our sales guys who had an engineering degree that he never used for anything other than industrial product sales jobs, came up with the idea of the triangular trusses.

It met the criteria Disney's design dept wanted which was small diameter "light weight" look and they even enhanced the "futuristic" look more than the original cable design.

They were hap-hap-happy boys!!!!

Our problem was, by the time we all agreed on that, we were running out of time and the contract had a late penalty clause that held them not responsible even if it was their doing.

We completed the job on the very last day before the late penalty kicked in.

Plus, we did two other structures in the same general area at the same time.

One of them was this "gazebo" thing, but without the big sign which was added later...

That was one busy ass summer. LOTS of overtime for everyone!!!

Gotta love performance clauses. Typically, they come with bonus clauses if you finish early, but the bureaucracy typically never lets that happen. I wonder if they could have pulled off the cables, if they buried those poles 20-30 feet in the ground?

 

[liberalsAREracists]

Bring on the IQ test - Mensa says it's willing to host President Trump and secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a battle of the brains.

Tillerson would just end up backing out at the last minute.

 

[Nomad]

Gotta love performance clauses. Typically, they come with bonus clauses if you finish early, but the bureaucracy typically never lets that happen. I wonder if they could have pulled off the cables, if they buried those poles 20-30 feet in the ground?

No, that wouldn't have worked. The reason why is, if you look at them, they have a "telescope" appearance as though each smaller diameter tube is extending out of the larger diameter tube beneath it. Each tube was steel pipe with a cap welded on the top then the next tube on top of it was butt welded to the cap. That is a comparatively weak "moment" connection as opposed to a solid pole. Had the poles been one solid, single diameter piece of heavy gauge pipe, the original cable design might have worked.

I don't know, though. One engineer came back with calc's that said for the design to work, the outer ring of poles would have to be the size of those giant steel poles you see holding up billboards along the highway.

The Disney boys had a giant hissy fit over the mere suggestion of that.

 

[Sailor]

The company I worked for did a lot of custom work for Disney World.

I did the shop drawings for this canopy structure at EPCOT back in the mid 90's

The steel poles and trusses that support the fabric canopy were actually painted pink when we built it. They obviously repainted it light blue at some point.

Nice job!

 

[Sailor]

I only do it for the jobs I have to sell. I should have bought CAD years ago, but I don't do that many drawings anymore. Re. templates/triangles, etc....I remember always cursing the smudged pencil lines.


But....we have a situation now where builders/tradesmen cannot get a quality set of blueprints. 'Back in the day', architects would have aspiring architects as draftspeople. The architect would make a mistake, but it would be caught by the draftsman/woman.

Today, the architect hands the plans off to a geek who puts it into a computer. The mistake makes it to the field, and then the fun starts.

This guy knows how it is!

 

[Althea]

No, that wouldn't have worked. The reason why is, if you look at them, they have a "telescope" appearance as though each smaller diameter tube is extending out of the larger diameter tube beneath it. Each tube was steel pipe with a cap welded on the top then the next tube on top of it was butt welded to the cap. That is a comparatively weak "moment" connection as opposed to a solid pole. Had the poles been one solid, single diameter piece of heavy gauge pipe, the original cable design might have worked.

I don't know, though. One engineer came back with calc's that said for the design to work, the outer ring of poles would have to be the size of those giant steel poles you see holding up billboards along the highway.

The Disney boys had a giant hissy fit over the mere suggestion of that.

I've worked with way too many designers. Most only care about 'doing what's never been done before'. I'm a 'form follows function' guy.

If it's never been done before, there's probably a reason.

 

[Stretch]

I do shop drawings for work, but my sister got my dad's knack for drawing. Same for her son. My father studied under Robert Brackman when he got out of the service in WW2.

Excellent and talented man to study under!

 

[Althea]

This guy knows how it is!

Seen it way too many times. I'm always on the phone with architects getting clarification for things that aren't possible.

 

[Nomad]

I've worked with way too many designers. Most only care about 'doing what's never been done before'. I'm a 'form follows function' guy.

If it's never been done before, there's probably a reason.

Disney is notorious for that kind of crap. I did so many jobs for them that just turned into design nightmares.

They are only concerned with what something is going to look like, not whether or not it can work.

Your job once you take the contract is to make it work while making it look exactly the way they designed it.

 

[Althea]

Disney is notorious for that kind of crap. I did so many jobs for them that just turned into design nightmares.

They are only concerned with what something is going to look like, not whether or not it can work.

Your job once you take the contract is to make it work while making it look exactly the way they designed it.

Yea...without getting anyone killed

 

[Nomad]

Yea...without getting anyone killed

That tends to be a major concern....