British Styles of Vintage Lettering!

[Chris55000]

Hi!

Has anyone succeeded in making the styles of lettering used on old Circuit and Layout Diagrams as a PC TTF?

I refer to:-

1) The sloping lettering used by P.W. & P.T. on their drawings up until June 1960;

2) The upright lettering used by Radio Constructor right up to it's end in Aug 1981;

3) The Condensed Upright Lettering used by Wireless World from 1944-1967;

4) the lettering used by Reddifusion/Doric on it's Service Manuals? I believe it's called "Architectural" lettering - if anyone has a Doric Mk 3 CTV Manual handy to look at they'll see what type of lettering I mean!

In my opinion circuit-diagrams on here aren't "authentic" unless they've been annotated with one of these styles of letters - valve circuits lettered in Helvetica, Arial, Times, etc., just don't 'look right!'

Chris Williams

[David G4EBT]

If you've got examples of the fonts and can scan them, there are numerous websites where you can upload the image to see if the font is recognised. I've never used that facility myself, so I can't vouch for the success rate, but at this link to 'What The Font' you can upload images and there is also a forum where you can see examples of fonts that people have searched for and received answers:

http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

The forum stats at that site state:

Cases solved today: 179
Cases solved to date: 223,593

http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/forum/

Not the only such site and I make no recommendation and I don't know if it's entirely free or if they charge a fee - if you google 'font recognition' lots of other sites will pop up.

It may be that some other members of this forum have used such sites and can offer better options.

Hope that helps a bit - good luck on your 'voyage of discovery'!

[emeritus]

Funnily enough, I just opened the latest issue of "Computer Shopper" that came in today's post, and it has a feature on "Customising and creating your own fonts". It's pages 152 to 154 of the April 2014 issue (they always date their issues a couple of months in advance) so it might not be in the shops yet.

One thing it does mention is www.myscriptfont.com , which will send you back a TrueType font set if you send them a sample of your handwriting. You download a template, make a JPEG scan, and upload. It is free. As I said, the mag only came today so I haven't had time to try out any of their suggestions myself.

[jamesperrett]

I wonder if they were made with stencils? I have a vague memory of some colleagues using stencils when I first started with hand drawn circuit diagrams in the 1980's.

[majoconz]

Yup. My Dad was a design draughtsman for Marconi's WT in Chelmsford 1947 to 1964 and he had a large set of perspex lettering and component stencils all contained in a wooden cabinet with felt lined drawers. Goodness knows what happened to them after he retired in 1983 from Plessey's Poole.

[RobinBirch]

A source of the old D.O. type stencils would be wonderful as most of the 1930s 40s 50s sets like AR88 and R1155 panel lettering use these fonts and replacing them accurately is very difficult.

Robin

[camallison]

There are still many draughting supplies companies in the UK - hard to find, even with the help of search engines. I found some lettering stencils at one such shop when on holiday around the Sheffield area. I didn't keep the receipt and so can't tell you where.

They are out there.

Colin

PS - just look for the brands Linex or Rotring stencils. They both do lettering and component stencils.