Draughting Pens

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

G'day.

Whilst browsing a local second hand shop I came across a box containing a comprehensive set of Rotring draughting pens (at least a dozen) complete with accessories (compasses, lettering templates, bottles of ink, spare tips etc).

I loved to use these when I was a technical instructor many years ago and although I have mastered basic CAD I still have a preference for a hand drawn plan – it's very satisfying to produce something by hand.

The whole box is priced at $45 Au (about £23), which is about the original cost of a few pens.

Tempted to purchase the set. It's a bit sad that the 'old skills' are becoming redundant. Progress?

Would you buy them or am I just being romantic?

* Danny M *

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

A sign of the times

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

As an ex draftsman, there was a time when I had a box full of drafting pens, compasses, a beautiful beam compass, general drafting ephemera collected over 20/25 years. I've still got the compasses, the beam compass, (made by a former model engineer in Southampton!!) and some odds and ends, but the pens were ditched some time ago. Although I now use TurboCAD, I'm with you Danny in that it does seem sad that all the old skills are being lost. To me a CAD drawing has no soul, whereas a well drawn "hand-draulic" drawing tells a story about the person who drew it.

cheers

Bill

[John ReeseParticipant @johnreese12848]

I haven't touched a pen since I got CAD in the '90s. I remember the hassle of the old ruling pens. When the Rotrings came along they were a godsend.

[John McNamaraParticipant @johnmcnamara74883]

I also have a set of Pens, and a couple of sets of beautiful set of cased instruments, also found secondhand shopping. nice to look at and handle. Trouble is CAD has changed the way I work. If the set you are looking at is in good condition buy it as a recognition of the way we used to work.

Rotring pens are great to use when they are working but they were always a fiddle particularly the fine ones, the fine wire cleaner built into them was very fragile and the tended to clog.

These days I prefer the throw away variety, they simply work.
Rotring pens offer much thicker precise lines… Not available as throw away. Felt tips are not precise. Line thickness is no problem with CAD

Regards
John

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I expect the ink has long since dried up in all the pens so may not be worth the effort getting them to work again. I doubt they were last put away clean

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

During my apprenticeship, in the 60s, we drew on tracing paper, thick stuff but tracing paper all the same, using wood backed pencils. One of the "Trainer" draughtsmen got us to use a MINIMUM of a 6H pencil, 8H if you could get it, sharpened to a sharp chisel point. One of his checking routines was to feel the back of the drawing to see if he could feel the dent where a line had been drawn, then he would inspect to lines with a loupe to see if they were the correct width, for outlines, hidden details, centre lines etc. It seemed like a PITA at the time but it stood me in good stead later on!! We had to maintain pencils for lines and another one for writing dimensions and notes etc. The move to pens and mylar draughting film was a major leap forward!!

In Australia a person who prepares drawings is usually spelt "Draftsman", "Draftsperson", it took me about 20 years to stop spelling it the UK way, "Draughtsman".

I feel a chorus of "Happy days are here again………………" coming on.

cheers

Bill

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Danny M2Z on 21/05/2016 01:40:23:

Would you buy them or am I just being romantic?

If I had the cash handy, yes and yes

That said In have a few Rotring pens dating from my teenage years, unused since the 80s.

neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by JasonB on 21/05/2016 07:26:57:

I expect the ink has long since dried up in all the pens so may not be worth the effort getting them to work again. I doubt they were last put away clean

I have heard that ultrasonic cleaners with the right detergent can work wonders on them.

N.

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

That's right Neil, at least one of the pen manufacturers, used to market a small desktop ultrasonic pen cleaner. They obviously also sold their own "special" cleaning fluid. We used water with a single drop of washing up liquid, you know the one that was safe for your hands. The pen cleaners were also used (by me) to clean clockwork DT timers for model aeroplanes. If anyone is going to go rattling off on a nostalgic trip, I would strongly urge them to

1/ Get Rotring pens

2/ Get the best ink they can afford, from memory Rotring ink is good. I think there are several different types of ink for different media. If you are going to draw on mylar (recommended) use the correct ink, it will say on the bottle. If you try and use the wrong ink, the Earth will spin of its axis into the Sun and we will all be fried.

3/ if you are not planning any more nostalgia to happen within a day or so, empty and clean the pens after use. When the ink in the pen is still liquid, it can be rinsed out under a running tap, but you will probably be surprised how far diluted ink can go.

4/ Get some drafting mylar, you can do layouts in (2H) pencil, ink over the pencil, then when the ink has dried erase the pencil marks with a plastic eraser. Few people can afford rolls of draughting mylar, but fortunately there are cut sheets available in A4, A3, A2 etc

5/ Practise your printing, NOTHING looks more amateur than rubbish printing on an inked drawing. As a minimum try and get it all the same height, use faint pencil guidelines

6/ Tracers use stencils for printing, draughtsmen print properly. Sorry, some of my favourite people were Tracers.

If nostalgia gets too much, use CAD!!

cheers

Bill

Edited By Bill Pudney on 21/05/2016 08:55:42

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I've got a couple of Rotring pens, and some drafting instruments, they're in the same drawer as my old slide rule…

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

When the newspaper industry was in its transition period from hot metal to litho printing and a fully computerised operation, compositors used Rotring pens for drawing column rules. Our lads used petrol for cleaning their pens at the end of the day. From the pens I have, I get the impression that the composition of Rotring ink has changed to a water-based compound. I recently cleared a clogged pen with nothing more than warm water.

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

There are (were ) different types of mylar ,or at least different plastic drawing paper. Some have a roughened surface, this can wear your pen nib very quickly. Works ok until someone else tries to use it. Just check , if poss. there are no sharp edges on nib.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

If you are going to play on drafting film then use the correct nibs, the abrasive surface will quickly wear the standard nibs, you need the "film nibs" with the gold plated tips. Same goes if using the etching ink don't put that through a standard pen.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

There were always two types of Rotring ink. One was water based and the other an "etching" ink which would slightly softwn plastic drawing films so when it dried the line was absolutely indelible. That ink also dissolved the standard pens so they made specials for it. It turned out that the etching ink, applied with the proper pen, made an excellent resist for hand-drawn printed circuit boards.

My brother-in-law discovered this, and when I was developing RF circuits at Marconi in Chelmsford in the late 70s, which had to be made in prototype form with the same layout as the final unit, I decided to use one for speed. (It took weeks to get even a prototype board made through the company.) So, got PO from my boss, pedalled down to the local drawing office supplier, tried to buy on account. "What company is that?" man says? Marconi I say – biggest employer in town at the time, part of UK's biggest company (at the time). "No way, they never pay their bills!". So I have to buy it out of my own pocket. Worked though!

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Sounds as if these are destined to sit in your memorabilia cupboard alongside the weaving shuttles, carbide lamps etc (in my case). But for actual occasional drawing, there are a few alternatives to Rotring and Staedtler, both refillable and disposable, like this and this.

I have a couple of Japanese disposable proper drawing pens that I use occasionally for small drawings and are very nice to use. For infrequent use, refillable pens are going to be a royal pain.

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

Posted by John Haine on 21/05/2016 09:08:34:

I've got a couple of Rotring pens, and some drafting instruments, they're in the same drawer as my old slide rule…

Funny that, I've got a similar container with the same old stuff in it!!

cheers

Bill

[Stuart BridgerParticipant @stuartbridger82290]

I did a stint in Electrical Drawing Office during my apprenticeship at Brooklands, circa 1983-84. I was mostly doing modifications to existing drawings. All on drawing film with ink using Rotring pens. Erasing existing lines, etc with an abrasive rubber and then doing the update. Most time consuming was doing the change notes with stencil. epecially if an error was made. Looking back on it it there was some incredible skill involved, but it was horribly inefficient. CAD was just coming in at that time.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by JasonB on 21/05/2016 10:09:48:

If you are going to play on drafting film then use the correct nibs, the abrasive surface will quickly wear the standard nibs, you need the "film nibs" with the gold plated tips. Same goes if using the etching ink don't put that through a standard pen.

I'm trying to remember the (visual) difference, didn't film nibs have yellow on them?

[norman valentineParticipant @normanvalentine78682]

Nobody has mentioned tracing linen. We used it in the Water Co. drawing office back in the 60's it was lovely stuff to use but almost impossible to correct errors. The offcuts of linen made wonderful wipes after you had washed the coating off it. I couldn't afford Rotring pens but a pen with a crossover point that was adjustable for line thickness, I think that they were called Graphos pens.

I've just Googled Graphos, that is the correct name but they weren't adjustable, 50 years on memory plays tricks!

Edited By norman valentine on 21/05/2016 11:55:56

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Rotring pens were also used by technical artists. In my album are two of a series of drawings done for me by my colleague Andrew Mackintosh. Andrew used just the pens and some sticky dotted tint.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 21/05/2016 11:18:42:

Posted by JasonB on 21/05/2016 10:09:48:

If you are going to play on drafting film then use the correct nibs, the abrasive surface will quickly wear the standard nibs, you need the "film nibs" with the gold plated tips. Same goes if using the etching ink don't put that through a standard pen.

I'm trying to remember the (visual) difference, didn't film nibs have yellow on them?

That will be the gold end!

In the  Isograph range the main body was grey rather than maroon and I think the earlier Variant had a grey end to the cap on the film version

Edited By JasonB on 21/05/2016 13:16:29

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

We get these pens and heads fairly often in engineers cabinets or tool lots, also some by UNO along with various stencil sets etc

Usually filthy dirty and mistreated but if we find a good set or some nice single ones we put them in our small ultrasonic cleaner with warm water and a drop of Fairy for about an hour and when rinsed off and carefully dried they are perfect.

When we have a few we put them on EBay and are often amazed bty the prices achieved. We do however make a big point of the fact that they are cleaned.

Regards,

Martin

[John FieldingParticipant @johnfielding34086]

I still have a full set of Rotring hand drawing pens and the new ink. Plus I have a good collection of Staedlter Sprint plotter pens which I use for the Roland A3 plotter when I want a draft plot when designing pcb laypouts. The plotter pens have a very hard tip so they don't get abraded away. The ink is a plastic (PVA?) solution which is waterproof and sets very quickly so it doesn't smear.

At the saltmine back in the days we had a whole collection of HP plotters from A4 up to A0 for the largest CAD drawings.

Nowadays the pcb file gets sent to the manufacturer by email and they make a Gerber plot straight off the data file. How times have changed with modern inventions! Does anybody remember Amberlith and Rubylith method of laying out pcb's with pad and tapes? I have a drawer full of pad and tapes which nobody uses these days.

[RichardNParticipant @richardn]

Posted by JasonB on 21/05/2016 13:14:45:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 21/05/2016 11:18:42:

Posted by JasonB on 21/05/2016 10:09:48:

If you are going to play on drafting film then use the correct nibs, the abrasive surface will quickly wear the standard nibs, you need the "film nibs" with the gold plated tips. Same goes if using the etching ink don't put that through a standard pen.

I'm trying to remember the (visual) difference, didn't film nibs have yellow on them?

That will be the gold end!

In the Isograph range the main body was grey rather than maroon and I think the earlier Variant had a grey end to the cap on the film version

Edited By JasonB on 21/05/2016 13:16:29

Unfortunately Rotring no longer make the 'gold' series for film- which from memory have a carbide tip for wear resistance rather than the conventional steel. I still have 2 gold pens, but the rest are conventional.

I am 30, work as an architect, and probably do 15% of my work by pencil & pen. There's a time and a place for everything (most things..?) and a romantic quality can be instilled in CAD work just as well as in a pen drawing- but it's quicker and easier by hand… Sketch and scribble for a first draft, work up detail in CAD, then final iteration for presentation with hand detail for the visual impact.

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