Just another attempt to modernize which is not effective for the wallet or is even close to being practical! Wow, would like to see you have the Architect, engineer or customer initial chages on a computer screen, for that matter, do your as built drawings!!!

As for no paper invoices, boy all my customers have no problem!!! Remember gentlemen........ you always have to have a PAPER TRAIL !! Ask any CPA !!!!

I learned to make blue prints in my dad's A & E firm. We had two methods at that time (1) a glass cylinder with interior carbon arc light.The original was hand drafted india ink on vellum or irish linen (sometimes we used heavy weight pencil on vellum). The original drawing with blue print paper behind was p;aced around the cylinder and the arc struck. a timer lowered the arc light at a pre determined rate to expose the blue print.The process did not use amonia. We put the blue print in a bath of potassium chloride to fix the image and the print was hung out to dry. Wealso used a sun frame which was located on the roof of our building in place of the carbon arc when we had a clear day. The blue line process came much later and amonia was used to fix the prints. I ditched our "modern" amonia blue line print machine several years ago after we gave up and went to auto cad.

Yes times do change and generally for the better. I do have to say that I wish the computer guys would get out of trying to tell us how to draw. They haven'tgot a clue in that department and they are creating alot of idiotic CAD operaters in the process who know nothing about design or construction.

I still like paper a lot. a lot of times I have to make a sketch and then turn it into a CAD drawing.

Even with computers you have to scan the prints for mistakes because everybody makes them. Being able to draw on the prints with pencil so that I have certain critical measurements, wire sizes, whatever is very handy.

CAD does make some things a lot easier - you can make a software set of "rubber stamps" for frequently drawn items and so forth. Revising a drawing is easy because I do not have to do a whole drawing from scratch.

The one big problem that I have had with any CAD system is that the kind of computer screen that I can afford is just way to small to be able to see the entirety of a drawing. Digital projectors are even worse. Not available on the used hand-me-down market for those who can accept not the latest performance at a reasonable price. Some of them also use expensive and very short lived projection lamps - go look up the prices and lifetimes of projection lamps in the Grainger catalof and you will figure out just why the munchies at the movie theater cost so much.

Even worse were the early MacIntosh computers with the puny screen and the floppy shuffle. Drawing a simple printed circuit board was such a pain in the @r$e that I could have done the work faster with pencil and paper or a bunch of stickons that are made just for printed circuit board layout. It was bad enough that I was not allowed to attach a bunch of components to a perforated board and then transfer the layout to the computer screen. Hence, Computer Hindered Design.

Very good article. The link at the end of the article is not working. Thank you

I worked in the D.O.E. weapons complexes during the cold war and we had these large Blueprints cabinets that had these holders that held them in order and next to these cabinets were large tables that we needed ,to lay the large blueprints with many pages for a particular system we worked on .These prints were the map we used to keep thing going at the many building on this site.I appreciate your writing on this .things do change ,but I will always have the good memories of "blueprints"and the Great tool that made our Job a lot easier .Thanks

Yes I use to see blueprints and use to use them at work but they have become an archive, they either get moved or lost ! When it comes to troubleshooting all I have to rely on now is a meter and a sharpie to draw out the electrical circuit. Ahhhhh the ole days when prints were readily available.

Great Bluepring Story. Oh how I remember those days. Cannot say too much as we start to DATE ourselves. But proudly I will say, that I accepted my 30 year certificate today from my employer. In commenting they just had to add, that Harold has spent half of his life out here at this plant. OH DID I GIVE YOUR AGE AWAY? HAHA. Like the article mentioned without say, "Been there done that and saw it. Time does not stop. Have a safe day, all of you that read this,

Harold

I used to bring a laptop to the job with me which seemed a good way to view drawings, and have so much more data close at hand. But the challenge of securing it in the truck along the way and keeping it safe at the job became more of a hassle. I've since gone back to a large briefcase filled with...paper.

Although PE signing and sealing indeed works well on paper, electronic signing and sealing seems to be gaining in acceptance as well.

Frankly, I don't like it, but then I'm probably just an old fogey who hates change.

the change from blueprint to ink did not begain in the late 1970s, it was in the early 1960s.

Not that I am really old or anything but the article was incorrect in calling a “BLUE LINE PRINT” a “BLUPRINT”. BLUE PRINTS went out of existence in the late 50s early 60s. They were totally blue with white line work. They were replaced with “BLUE LINE” technology which was replaced with the “XEROX” technology or “BLACK LINE PRINT”. At that point the article begins to be correct.

MIKE KREMPELY, Architect ASD PROJECT MANAGER Phone; (916) 876-6348 Fax: (916) 854-9219 e-mail: krempelym@saccounty.net

The article refers to "blueprints." Yet, the attached photo shows "bluelines!"

Blueprints came first......white lines with solid blue background. Bluelines came next......blue lines with white background!

David Penasa, PE Facilities Engineer

When I was Chief Engineer of Kelmar systems on Long Island NY, back in the mid to late 80's, I made blue prints of my wiring diagrams everyday. I hated that ammonia fluid and the fumes it produced! Still have some of those prints in my archives!!!

We still have our blueline machine, although not used anymore. I think that screened lines look better on bluelines than blacklines. But, nothing beats a KIP 8000 for cranking out prints fast.

I see a LOT of paper on a daily basis being in the MEP part of construction; even to date. When the last hammer has hit, the last screw has been driven and the last painter is out of the building all the drawings and documentation is staggering to change, gather and review. This is when paper is not out of style. Gathering the O&M's, PR's CR's, RFI's, etc. into large scanned .pdf files is great and looks wonderful in an indexed CD case; however, when this type of documentation needs to be accessed, after the fact, the CD's take a lot of time to open and close each document. Most of the time...I am asked to have the CD printed out and put into a binder, because it is still faster to turn paper pages than to open and close folders of files. I must admit CAD is now the preferred method of generation for prints. 3D CAD is even better as it shows mechanical collisions to different trades' systems, not just top view RCP's. The times are a changin'!

Mike

Thank you for the reminder of what blue prints used to be. I remember my father showing me what these were and then I served my time in the industry using the "old technology" white paper prints. I have since retired , yet saw the advantage of drafting and "as builting" electronic prints. Thanks for all your great articles.

I find having an actual print - maybe even several copies - invaluable in the field.

After all, where else will you make your notes and track your progress? Then, at then end, your marked-up drawing becomes the 'as built' print.

Ahh, the joys of the Diazo machine. My first job out of the service, in 1975, was wiring machinery in a fab shop. There, the blueprints were only for the customers final drawings. For the shop we had a sepia tone on an onion skin type paper. It was produced the same as the blueprint, but was more resistant to handling in the shop environment, like all of these sunlight was their bane.

Let me get this straight... as badly as prints get tattered and tool boxes (and even tools) get dinged and smashed on a job-site... there are now morons who want us to drag a pricey electronic toy around with us instead of a print? Have these fools ever actually worked in the construction trades?

Your little write up on blue prints did not go back far enough in history. What you referred to as a blueprint in yuor article was actual a blueline. For a blueprint you have to go back farther in history to a reverse image where the entire drawing was blue and the lines were white. This is also a time where draftmen worked in ink and they had some artistic skill.

Tim

If you go back farther still, blueprints were done on cloth rather than paper. I still have some around here somewhere, though they were made before my day.

When I was an apprentice in the '70's we still used blueprints. WOE be it to the apprentice if he let the prints get wet if it started raining!!!

On any "big Job" I still require a printed copy of the plans, both to bid off and to refer to. Any changes or additions get noted on the plans and in my (paper) notebook. Any large change gets initialed or otherwise acknowledged in writing by the party authorizing the change.

Too often, in my experience, a "paperless" plan can get modified, and then the customer/contractor will come back and claim the discrepancy between planned and reality is my fault. With a piece of paper I can point out that, when you change it in the computer and don't tell me about it, it's not my fault if there is a screw up.

Mike,

I hate to be picky but I think you have skipped something when you started talking about the priniting process for building plans. i guess you have to be older to remember what came before the type of drawings you are discussing.

The process you describe is actually called the Diazo chemical process and it results in drawings that are called bule line prints or whiteprints. the process involed the use of paper coated with a diazonium salt which was both light sensetive chemical and reaced with ammonia fumes.

The term blue prints originated from the original reprodutive process that was developed in the 1850's or so that resulted in a print that was all blue with white lines or images. If I could I have an example of a actual blue print that I can email you. The blueprint process is essentially the cyanotype process developed by the British astronomer and photographer Sir John Herschel in 1842. The photosensitive compound, a solution of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, is coated onto paper. Areas of the compound exposed to strong light are converted to insoluble blue ferric ferrocyanide, or Prussian blue. The soluble chemicals are washed off with water leaving a light-stable print. This process resulted in a print that was all blue with white lines or images.

If you want a lot more detail on either process you can do a Wikopedia search for either "diazo prints" or "blue prints".

The Diazo process came into use in the late 1940's I think and it was the method of choice for many years until the offset printing and other xerography techniques took over. i don't know anyone who like developing diazo prints the ammonia odors were really hard to take.