Monday, July 22, 2019

Architectural Drawing Tools

I have vivid and fond memories of drawing in math class using a compass, protractor, and ruler.  Do kids still do that?  These memories are mixed with others of drawing accurate pie charts by hand while working in my mid 20s. I know nobody does that anymore: all graphs are now computer created.

Look what I was given this weekend.  It's a set of architectural drawing tools for precise work. I know that there's a compass, I'm not sure what the other tools are called or really, exactly what they're for.


This was Lester's drawing tools during his time as an architecture students in the mid 70s as the University of Miami.  A small embossed company name is on the leather package.


The first search results on Stellar Drawing Instruments shows that there is an active Ebay market in such things. A little more searching reveals an article on AmericanHistory.si.edu about these types of instruments. This is referred to as a flat case or pocket case and then the maker (Steller), number of instruments, and model might be listed.  Would this be a Stellar DS4 12 Instrument Flat Case?

I'm going to go get my glasses and study this a little more but I'll post it right now so I can maybe solicit some guidance on what it is. I'm also now curious about pre plastic rules and protractors.