My google skills don’t seem to be up to the task of this somewhat complicated and specialized question, so here it is:
What kind of engineering/technical drawings would an average craftsman (gunsmith, shipwright, mason, architect, etc.) in the early to mid 1800s utilize? What would be their (the drawings’/diagrams’) level of sophistication/standardization?
Would a layman who is NOT a craftsman, but a member of a profession that utilizes relatively sophisticated technology for the day (for example, an experienced sailor) recognize the significance of whatever technical/engineering drawings/diagrams were commonly in use at the time, or would they appear to be gibberish?
Those drawings are beautiful. I have seen some real blueprints from the Arkansas State Capitol and those were awe inspiring. They even had a sheet or two with calculations. Much more elegant than the current AutoCAD drawings.
Lots of practice… and occasonal use of a little razor, to scrape off small blots.
I studied draftsmanship for 7 years; the first 2 years were pencil only, the next ones we had to ink the drawings - on the most absorbent paper ever invented by man. I once presented 23 copies of a single drawing to show that, while I hadn’t been able to get a clean copy, I could not be accused of “not trying hard enough” (something I was quite sick of hearing, generally from teachers who couldn’t explain what they wanted in a way I understood). Moving to papel cebolla (non absorbent, translucent: you placed it on top of the pencil drawing and inked directly on the papel cebolla) was wonderful: once you’d learned to avoid blots on super-sponge paper, getting one on this was rare enough to have your desk-neighbors remark on it. And when, on the final year, we got to use Rotrings (pens using china ink cartridges, each pen of a fixed width to be used for the different types of lines) instead of instruments where you had to modify line width mechanically and load the ink in between two metal leaves, it was like the drawings drew themselves - we had to worry about placing the lines where we wanted them to be, but blots? What’s that?
Ship builders had been using detailed plans for hundreds of years - see this planfrom the National Maritime Museum - and engineers like Stevenson or Brunel were using accurate engineering drawingsso I can’t see a naval officer - or any educated man - from the 19th century having a problem interpretting a technical drawing.
ETA One thing I should have added in responding to your OP: I don’t believe the drawing conventions were standardised. I can’t find a good reference but I suspect each shipwright/engineer used his own style.
