Appreciation post: The old timer who showed me how to lay out a tube header in under 20 mins

Last Tuesday at the shop in Gary, Indiana I was struggling with a 6 inch tube header layout. Been doing this 5 years and still took me an hour. This old guy walked over, grabbed my soapstone, and showed me a trick with a flexible curve ruler and a center punch. Cut my layout time by more than half. He said its how they did it during the war. Anyone else got a trick from a senior hand that just stuck with you?

2 comments

2 Comments

jones.angela1mo ago

...and he showed me a trick with a pencil and a string for laying out bolt holes on a flange. I was doing it by eye and my holes were always a little off. This old guy from the shipyards in the 60s showed me how to tie a knot in the string at the right radius and use it like a compass. Saved me a LOT of rework. Funny how the simple stuff sticks with you, not the fancy tools.

hugo_hayes1mo ago

Yeah I read something similar in a shop textbook from the 1940s. Those old guys really knew how to make do with what they had. They didn't have all these fancy laser tools and digital readouts so they got creative with string and soapstone. It's wild how those simple tricks are still faster than a lot of the modern stuff. I bet that old timer learned from someone who learned during the war too.