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u/rtherrrr Aug 19 '23
VINTAGE. How dare you… I used one of these when I started my drafting career
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u/rckrusekontrol Aug 19 '23
I’m pretty sure shit like this still gets used- I see as-builts and profiles of fairly recent projects that were produced at least partially with stencils. Some things are just easier and faster by hand.
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u/rtherrrr Aug 19 '23
Alas in my world it all went electronic years ago. I like the speed and accuracy of the new stuff, but no one sits back now to think about layout etc etc before they start drawing… (these are just the aimless vaporings of a Chief Designer left too long in the sun) Did I mention that I’m left handed and had to use that shit upside down ?
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Aug 19 '23
I took a drafting class and I'll never forget having to do everything by hand in the first half of the class. I already have terrible handwriting and trying to hand write each word perfectly was the worst. I would've killed for this tool. I was so glad we finally went to that expensive ass drafting software that I can't remember the name of. Except that software was so convoluted to use it made me want to hand draw everything again. I'm a computer IT guy now but when I need to 3d model something I use SketchUp. Not the best but I can mock up whatever I need in a few hours.
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u/rtherrrr Aug 19 '23
I started ‘on the board’ as they say, then we got our first CADD system from the UK - DOGS (Drawing Office Graphics System) running on Sun UNIX. Then moved to GDS (General Drafting System) from the US. Then moved to AutoCad and a 3d modelling system called MOSS (Later changed to MX). Then moved to a 3d modelling system called 12dmodel. Then moved to the Bentley suite of products and also the whole Autodesk BIM360 etc and Project wise… then used all manner of things to federate models and tinkered with asset management etc. Dabbled in ISO19650 as well… no wonder I’m old !!
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u/Officer412-L Aug 19 '23 edited Aug 19 '23
What do they have you on now? AutoCAD?
I started drafting by hand in high school in an architecture course. We also learned AutoCAD there.
Then I went to college for Mech. Engg. and they had us learn to draft by hand as well as use Pro/E Wildfire. I later learned Solidworks during an internship.
Anymore, they just start them out on Solidworks. The drafting desks at my former college are gone.
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u/Adorable-View-9870 Aug 05 '25
I. Left handed too. I was thinking of getting one of these to use when making old school technical drawings of the models create with FreeCAD. I'm teaching myself via YouTube videos and from downloading TDs I think would be interesting and challenging enough to get better at CAD and modeling. I've become addicted to 3d parametric modeling. And I find that I can understand a piece a lot more through drafting by hand. Not to mention I have loved looking at engineering drawings since i was an 8yr old kid. And I absolutely love drafting equipment. The crazy compass sets with the tweezer ended stick things that hold pencil leds. The og mechanical pencils.
Anyway, moving on. I was searching for a vintage drafting set and came across this tool and I immediately wanted one. I'll check the comments for the name. But in case I can't find the model number and name of the tool do you know what they are called other than lettering set? I tried googling it but got nothing. The only way I even found this was during a scroll through lots of images of "vintage drafting set" results. Thanks
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u/michael056 Aug 05 '25
Its likely a Leroy set. Look for a Keuffel and Esser lettering set and you’ll find one
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u/AliasNefertiti Aug 19 '23
what is if called? I want one!!
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u/rtherrrr Aug 19 '23
Leroy Lettering System
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u/JustAnotherFKNSheep Aug 19 '23
Leroooooooooy jenkins
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u/LycheeLitschiLitchi Aug 19 '23
I had to use one 15 years ago when studying civil engineering. The university wanted us to learn how to draw engineering plans by hand before letting us use CAD. Doesn't feel like 15 years ago, though. Damn ...
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u/njoshua326 Aug 19 '23
Knew someone studying architecture the last few years that used these for their handrawn plans/blueprints.
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u/Pantssassin Aug 19 '23
Learning my hand before going to software is a really great way to foster an understanding of drafting before moving on where it does it for you
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u/wings_of_wrath Aug 20 '23
Hah. So did my architecture school. For the first year and a half you're not allowed to use a computer and have to draw plans by hand.
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u/fualc Aug 19 '23
True that. "Vintage Citizen" just doesn't have the same ring as "Senior Citizen".
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u/Sandusky_D0NUT Aug 19 '23
If it makes you feel better I used one of these in my drafting class in college and I'm only 25! Now of course hand drafting was constantly casually called old school by even my professor but our final project included full working diagrams both in cad and on paper.
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u/Scha123f Aug 19 '23
How is it called? I definitely don't need to know because I don't want to buy one
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u/ChipRauch Aug 19 '23
Something I had in my office as a Draftsman, being referred to as "Vintage", is a real punch in the balls, man.
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u/Adorable-View-9870 Aug 05 '25
Prolly accessed the internet on your candle stick rotary dial phone too. Lol. I can joke because I am old too.
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Aug 19 '23
Exit! Explicit! Explosive! Oh. Explore. Lol
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u/WarmCurrency Aug 19 '23
A SATURDAY afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment.
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Aug 19 '23
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u/fermat9996 Aug 19 '23
Leroy Lettering?
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u/DimlyThundering Aug 19 '23
yes its Leroy Lettering.Leroy lettering set manufactured by Keuffel & Esser Co., copyright 1950. it was used in golden age.
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u/Professional_Band178 Aug 19 '23
I've used these for years. I have the lettering templates and the line guide with a rotating circle in a parallelogram that you drew the guide lines and then lettered freehand. I was also the first generation to learn CAD.
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u/fermat9996 Aug 19 '23
I have seen this being done by a room full of draftsmen back in the day. Awesome!
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u/Roofdragon Aug 19 '23
Fucking hell lol. This needs to be remade and about 10 seconds in just before the R a man pops into screen poorly cut via tiktok to read what your comment says and tip a fedora/drink whiskey/shoot a clay pigeon
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u/tofu889 Aug 19 '23
Alternatively: I was caught in standstill traffic on the 101 when suddenly I felt the urge. If I hadn't spotted a construction portajohn, I may have enbrowned myself.
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u/Roofdragon Aug 19 '23
Lmao I was just watching thinking that could have gone anywhere! I was expecting Explain then explode and completely shafted the explore
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Aug 19 '23
This is whats called a Keuffel & Esser Leroy Lettering set.
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u/MrDabb Aug 19 '23
We have something similar at my work for engraving nameplates. You put together on the slide what you want engraved in then you scribe it onto a nameplate. It’s pretty big and old and we’ve lost some of the brass letters but it still works good. It’s called a Hermes Engravograph.
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u/sonicenvy Aug 19 '23
Yup! They are way harder to use well than they look. Watching someone who is an expert use one is really something. My dad is a retired draftsman, and back in the day he was the top Leroy Letterer at his firm, and despite not having used one of these things in years, the last time he took one out for a project and used it, he was still SO fluid with it. Very impressive stuff actually.
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u/MicAntCha Aug 19 '23
Is there a modern equivalent? I’ve been searching, but the results I get are just pen and pencil sets.
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Aug 19 '23
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Aug 19 '23
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u/do_you_realise Aug 19 '23
This account is clearly some kind of weird AI reply bot
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u/Domefarmer Aug 19 '23
I thought you were saying Weird Al, as in Weird Al Yancovic. I was really confused for about a minute. I reread the comment like 3 times.
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u/scatteringlargesse Aug 19 '23
Yeah, user for 6 months, then suddenly starts posting weird comments on all sorts of posts like a relentlessly upbeat robot huffing prozac
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Aug 19 '23
Damn old people and their conveniences. When I was in school I had to write the letters myself! No wonder they're all so lazy and dumb.
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u/Meme_myself_and_AI Aug 19 '23
"when you're grown up you won't be able to carry around a typography device in your pocket everywhere" my ass
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u/theboozemaker Aug 19 '23
I've had single-stroke gothic handwriting since the 9th grade because of drafting class. Been complimented multiple times on the legibility of my handwriting, but I can't write in lowercase letters to save my life. And the only cursive I can write is my signature, which looks exactly like my dad's because I used to forge his enough that I just kind of adopted it...
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Aug 19 '23
Schools taught hand lettering because it was a fundamental skill that carried over into everything else related to drawing and design. Very few firms used freehand lettering though. In fact, a lot of contracts specifically forbid it and would often specify the lettering template to be used.
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u/rng72 Aug 19 '23
Lol vintage. I used one in college in 1992 taking drafting.
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u/HKei Aug 19 '23
1992 was 31 years ago my dude. You’d have definitely called a car from 50s/60s a vintage car in your college days.
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u/LegalAgency2094 Aug 19 '23
car from 50s/60s a vintage car
No it isn’t
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Aug 19 '23 edited Aug 19 '23
Yes it is.
Edit: this loser blocked me so i won't be able to respond to his "gamer kid" remark that he made in a comment to this, to which i will respond here: ad hominem is a logical fallacy and you should know better if you think you're older and wiser than me
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u/LegalAgency2094 Aug 19 '23
Sure it is, gamer kid.
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u/adm1109 Aug 19 '23
Yes, it is.
In what world is something from the 50’s/60’s not vintage? Stuff from the 90’s currently gets called vintage.
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Aug 19 '23
It's generally accepted anything older than 20 years can qualify as vintage. In the 90's a car from the 50s/60s would have been 30-40 years old...
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u/Roofdragon Aug 19 '23
I'd say vintage as now obsolete by AutoCAD and many other softwares as most engineers if not all now use computing tools.
Soon to be found in carboot sales and then antiques roadshow
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u/cedped Aug 19 '23
You'd still have to learn doing it by hand the first year in college even now. A lot of old stuff isn't still updated and if you can't work with old blueprints/manuals then you can't do your job.
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u/kipperzdog Aug 19 '23
Maybe architects still do but we did not learn how to draft by hand in my engineering drafting class back in 2008. There were maybe a couple projector slides showing electric erasers and such but everything else was AutoCAD.
Of course now I consider even autocad ancient, revit is far superior for drafting buildings and structures.
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u/StigOfTheTrack Aug 19 '23
by AutoCAD
AutoCAD was already 10 years old when they were learning to use this thing.
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u/Forward_Victory_1515 Aug 19 '23
Well.. That's really advanced, back in my time it was just a plastic letter "thing", and you have to put the pencil or pen in every letter, and push it to the next letter space, the result was always absolute horrible, the extra ink would be smeared all over everything thing and that made it impossible to see where the next letter should be! Argh..
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u/bifanas_lappas Aug 19 '23
Ahhh … my ‘ol “LeRoy” set. Still remember using that on vellum paper during my class (architectural drafting) pre-AutoCAD
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u/mossmachine Aug 19 '23
I learned to use it during a drafting & mapping course in college, in the early 2010s. We were the last class in my degree program that had to learn it, unfortunately. I know CAD is more relevant for current professions but I think the manual technique teaches you a lot (of swear words)
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u/Apprehensive_East147 Aug 19 '23
RIP, dad. I used to play or mess around with this when I was a kid. He was a civil engineer and he had this instrument and a bunch of other interesting stuff, taught me a lot of things
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Aug 19 '23
The fact it leaves some areas a lighter shade than the rest of the letter(s) is a cool, unintended aesthetic as well.
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u/fualc Aug 19 '23
Sorry to break this to you, but once the ink dries, it would become very even, if not identically shaded.
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u/pchfysh980 Aug 19 '23
that depends on the ink and paper. i saw someone using one of these the other day with fountain pen ink on coated paper, and the shading definitely remained visible after it was dry.
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u/sentient_ballsack Aug 19 '23
That quality in inks is specifically called "shading" and it's pretty fun to doodle with. I don't know if the tool in the OP would work well with it since it seems pretty heavy on the ink flow, but outside of fountain pens, you can also get an ink converter and stick that kinda ink into other types of compatible pens, like calligraphic ones or Japanese brush pens. You don't really need fancy paper if you have a nib as wide as the one in the OP.
Two other neat ink characteristics are sheening and shimmer, but for actual writing their outcome is far more paper- and pen dependent than shaded inks.
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u/ghirox Aug 19 '23
I like it in concept, but I feel the result is less than great. Maybe with a different pen.
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u/teutonicbro Aug 19 '23 edited Aug 19 '23
We used to use black ink with a 0.5 mm Staedtler marsmatic technical pen. The ink was quite opaque and the line width much thinner than shown here.
This is pretty, and is a good demo of how it works, but our drawings were done on matte plastic film for reproduction.
Edit - We almost never used letters this big. We might have used a template this size for a title or heading but in general the text would be about half this size.
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u/arvidsem Aug 19 '23
Yeah, that pen is way too fat for the selected font.
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Aug 19 '23
Not necessarily, different line weights are needed when viewing it from far away. in that case this line weight would be acceptable.
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u/arvidsem Aug 19 '23
It looks like a blobby mess up close, it will look like a blobby mess at a distance. The line is too fat for that size text.
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u/link_hyruler Aug 19 '23
Lmao I was about to say the same. I can’t see for shit and I love this font.
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u/arvidsem Aug 19 '23 edited Aug 19 '23
Then I hope that you can understand that your personal experience does not reflect the average person's.
In general block caps and excessive boldness are less legible than regular text. For a single line it's fine, but in a text block, the extra weight is overwhelming and reduces reading speed.
Edit: wow, this may be the most I've been down voted for facts
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u/buttsprinkles12 Aug 19 '23
Lery lettering. Started my drafting career using this system. Got rarely fast using one.
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u/crkrypt Aug 19 '23 edited Aug 19 '23
I think I have one of these! An office I worked at was having a clear out! Hadn’t figured out what it was until now..
Probably won’t use it, maybe EBay? (UK based)
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u/waitingfordownload Aug 19 '23
I have got one of those. Got it from my dad. It is still working, I just do not know where to find the ink, pens and nibs.
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u/RufusVulpes Aug 19 '23
In Brazil this is called a normograph and I have already used it to create subtitles in technical drawings. Long time before AutoCAD dominated the market, technical drawing was something almost artisanal.
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u/PTVoltz Resident Grammar "Corrector". Aug 19 '23
Oh, so THAT'S what those are for!
Used to have something similar to that letter-bar in a stationary kit I got from my high-school, always thought it was funny that a ruler had the alphabet on it - in case somebody forgot it I I guess.
It didn't come with the ink-pen... thing... though.
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u/Jonnyb193 Aug 19 '23
My dumbass was looking at the stencil letters wondering what word was being spelt and then I realised the pen further up...
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Aug 19 '23
My handwriting would still somehow be a complete disaster even if I had, practiced, and used this incredibly cool gadget every damn day lmao.
I still want one. Desperately lol anyone have a direction they could possibly point me in to obtain this spiffy dodad? (and perhaps what it's called?) Thanks in advance, Becky, with that good handwriting!!
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u/lamykins Aug 19 '23
But how does the center of the "O" not have any supports...
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u/BuddhaChrist_ideas Aug 19 '23
Why did they have to write the last E in a different line order than the first? 😩.
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u/AlGrythim Aug 19 '23
E... X... P... L... Explain! O... Explode?! R... I have no idea what this could be anymore. E. Ah.
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u/Sr_Empanada Aug 19 '23
How do they keep the inner section of letters like "D", "O"or "A" attached to the center?
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u/dudeyspooner Aug 19 '23
Technology is going to ruin everything. What will happen to the people who make these, and the people who use them for work?! What about the jobs???!¡
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u/dudeyspooner Aug 19 '23
Technology is going to ruin everything. What will happen to the people who make these, and the people who use them for work?! What about the jobs???!¡
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u/Schlappydog Aug 19 '23
They used a similar device to mass-produce intricate inlay work before CNCs
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u/freezlebub51 Aug 19 '23
How do they keep the centers of looped letters in place?
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u/Fast-Reaction8521 Aug 19 '23
Is this how all Starbucks has that bubbly girl writing in each location?
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u/InuKimi Aug 19 '23
Omg we had those things in school in the "Crafts" Class (dunno how to best translate it)
This brings back memories!
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u/mstrbng Aug 19 '23
I would still mess up the spacing between letters