It's the Works.....or is it?

Interesting post about Works drawings on another blog.

Works drawings are sometimes an initial design in some detail, sometimes a finished drawing which is what's actually made.  What we have to do as modelmakers is decide by comparing drawing with period pictures if the "Works" drawings are any good for us.

I once had A.V.Roe drawings for the lovely Anson aircraft, but although overall they were helpful, in detail they were hopeless!  Same deal with Bristol Cars and as for architects...I've corrected impossible shapes for them more often than not, including the great Richard Seiffert (who gave us the wrong colour references for the model of the NatWest tower.
According to the architect's drawings for Brentwood Library, the roof simply would not have fitted if I'd gone on to make the model from the drawings.
I've even done  a measured perspective drawing of a famous gearbox where the main two shafts wouldn't have allowed any meshing of the gears!  So both modelmakers and technical illustrators act as checking stages in the production of most items.
I got fed up with waiting for a Chief Engineer of a car design house to come up with drawings (CAD this time) of a rolling monitor in the VW CM2's dashboard, so I sketched out a scheme on a bit of scrap paper, knocked it up in clay, GRP and made the mechanism, installed and tested it and even had the flat screen fitted (Rocking horse poo in those days) before the huge roll of drawings wormed off the printer.  When they arrived, it was obvious it would never have worked anyway.  When he saw mine in the car, he stamped on his Marlborough Light, drew himself up to his full 5 feet and stormed out in his new Audi TT for 4 days!  Never spoke to me again.  In that 4 days I'd also invented a drive system for a Palm computer for which I am a nominated inventor on a VW patent scheme.  The Danish boss, who I didn't realise was even in the room, described the mechanism as F---ing brilliant and immediately drew up the patent application.

I have never had a moment of engineering instruction, but working as both a modelmaker and a technical illustrator, without the "help" of computers has given me a natural feeling for these engineering problems, I suppose.

But convincing engineers of this facility has always been an uphill struggle.  With the noble exception of Nobby Clark, who was a real engineer, a Chartered Engineer.  A quiet jovial master, who could design the most complex injection mould tools with a slide rule and a set of Log Tables.
He, with all his qualifications and obvious skill, was always ready to discuss with someone who was "just" his illustrator.