Cool tool: Draftette

[jshoer]

My grandfather had this device - it's called a Draftette, and it consists of a drafting machine mounted inside a legal-size folio. I think it could make for a useful portable precision cartography tool! I just need to grab a legal-size bristol pad. I don't know if they ever made these in other sizes.

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For those not familiar with drafting machines, also called drafting arms: it's a tool use in engineering and architecture in pre-computer days. The arm linkage keeps the straightedges parallel as you move them over the surface of the paper. Unscrewing the knob a quarter turn lets you adjust the angle of the straightedges. So it's nearly trivial to put down parallel lines at various angles on the paper.

I put an extremely rough five-minute sketch map in there for you - nothing special, except that it measures 3x5", has 1/4" borders, and the windrose has rhumb lines at 15 degrees, all just because I could do that easily with the tool.

[Tiana]

That's a lovely tool.

[science&creativity]

that looks super cool/useful! I'm still in the dabbling stage of drawing maps for invented worlds but I might have to see about getting something like that. at least the drafting machine itself - drawing nice, parallel lines like that is NOT in my innate skill set by any means, haha. :-)

[Bindusara]

seems to be a very useful tool, thank you!

[Jaxilon]

That is pretty cool. I wish I had one.