Thoughts of a Land Surveyor.

[Egon]

Yeah, whats the circumference of "a" buggy wheel?? Was there a standard buggy wheel back in he ole days? Someplace I saw a conversion table for some of the old time measure methods. No indications if some of the units of measure were an accepted standard. Man's pace is all over the ruler and changes uphill and down hill, pretty broad definition. Wish I had copied it.

Ron

[video]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor%27s_wheel[/video]

 

[Egon]

Yeah, whats the circumference of "a" buggy wheel?? Was there a standard buggy wheel back in he ole days? Someplace I saw a conversion table for some of the old time measure methods. No indications if some of the units of measure were an accepted standard. Man's pace is all over the ruler and changes uphill and down hill, pretty broad definition. Wish I had copied it.

Ron

[video]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor%27s_wheel[/video]

 

[Streetcar]

Back when I was in school, I saw picture of ancient Roman survey wheel take drove a gear. The wheel dropped a rock every 5000 paces.used for their version of mile markers on military roads

 

[/pine]

[video]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor%27s_wheel[/video]

used more often by estimators and DOT crews etc, than surveyors...

 

[dodge man]

I personally hate the wheels. They will skip once in a while although we have one with dual counters.

I agree with pacing being more accurate than people think once you get good at it. When we did a lot of highway work we laid out stations every 100 feet I got good at it.

 

[/pine]

I personally hate the wheels. They will skip once in a while although we have one with dual counters.

I agree with pacing being more accurate than people think once you get good at it. When we did a lot of highway work we laid out stations every 100 feet I got good at it.

:thumbsup:
When I was in college for a degree in civil engineering...the first thing they teach you in surveying class is pacing and determining what your "personal pace factor" is...count paces and apply the factor to determine distance...

BTW...all route locations are sectioned in 100' stations and incremented to two+ decimal places of a foot (no inches)...

 

[dmccarty]

Before GPS I did a lot of pacing and it's more accurate than you might think. Generally you use a little bit longer stride to make them more uniform. After a while you get pretty good at it, tying into roads to calibrate and learning to compensate for when you are taking shorter steps....

Yep. I don't want to remember how many decades ago it was, but I took an orienteering class once upon a time. It was in an open field and the instructor had laid out markers at different bearings and distances. First thing we did was figure out how many feet were in our pace where a pace is two steps. This was done by walking a few times back and forth over a known distance. Then we had to follow a set of compass bearings over a given distance. You had to use your pace to figure out the distance and if you had the bearings correct and the pace correct you ended up where you started. Simple.

There is a large local park in the area, it is really a great place and I used to spend at least one day a week walking or jogging there. An orienteering group created a VERY detailed map of the park which I ended up buying. I would pick places in the park off the trails such as an old, all put hidden barbed wire fence, "hidden" grave yards, small dams, building foundations, etc, measure off the distances and bearings and then go find those points. Twas amazing to me how accurate your pace can be.

One day I was walking one of these routes I pulled out of the air and had to go through an area that was loaded with downed trees. I was crawling over/through some trees when I saw a small piece of paper about 2"x3" on the ground. That was odd because I was in the "middle" of the park, deep in the woods, and well away from any trail. I picked up the paper and it was a part of the same orienteering map I was using! :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing: Kinda unreal that someone using the same map had gone the same way I was going. My route was pretty much random. :confused3:

Later,
Dan

 

[Oldoak]

I personally hate the wheels. They will skip once in a while although we have one with dual counters.

I agree with pacing being more accurate than people think once you get good at it. When we did a lot of highway work we laid out stations every 100 feet I got good at it.

No different than any other instrument or tool. A person has to know how to use them and know their limitations or drawbacks. :confused3:

 

[dmccarty]

That certain parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon, situated in the Town of _____ , County of ________, State of Rhode Island, bounded and described as follows:

NORTHERLY partly on a highway known as _____ Road, partly by land now or formerly of [Person 1] and partly by land now or formerly of [Person 2].

EASTERLY on ____ Brook.

SOUTHERLY by land now or formerly of [Person 3].

WESTERLY partly by said [Person 3] land and partly by land now or formerly of [Person 4].

Containing approximately __ acres. Be all said measurements more or less, or however otherwise the same may be bounded or described.

When we were looking to buy land I spent quite a bit of time in the deed and GIS office looking for parcels in a given area of a certain size owned by people living out of state. I got a decent list and I was about to start sending out mail to the owners when a really nice parcel came up for sale but it was not on our list. We bought that land it is was owned by someone out of state.

Anywho, many of the parcels I looked at had property descriptions referencing trees at a creek, a big rock, a rock in the middle of a road that does not exist, a store that is long gone, etc. One of the parcels was a subdivision of a large lot and was done by someone with limited drafting skills. I don't think my drafting teachers in high school would have given the person a C.

Reading the deeds was really interesting though since it should the history of the county. I can't remember the wording that was used but I saw deeds that showed the lack of rights for women.

Later,
Dan

 

[cqaigy2]

We bought some land, very very thick brush. Realtor showed me pieces of new orange painted re bar with orange flagging as the lines to the oddly shaped piece.

After fencing and with goats to eat down the blackberrys for a few years. I'm walking the fence checking for damage and happen to notice a short ground leve piece of bar/pipe with yellow plastic cap on it. I recognized it as a survey marker, it was twenty feet on the inside of my fenced area! ullinghair:

I hacked back the blackberrys and found the rest of the survey markers, including the one in the creek then i reset the fence. Fortunately, there wasn't brush where i had to reset the one fence line, as the goats had eating it all down. :laughing: