Michael;

First – well done with your effort.

Second – it takes courage to enter, and to judge. I look forward to viewing your next entry. Life is a learning experience, and without criticism and encouragement and a door to walk through (for further knowledge!) life would be boring indeed. (that applies to both entrants and judges, and to editors, too)

Off to dinner, then into my workshop! Got to get that CNC drill operation perfected. John.

Michael – the operation I currently enjoy the most is watching a mesh of holes get drilled in plastic; a few holes a second, all precisely placed. Ah! the little pleasures of life. Now to get myself off to work through the snow and cold – reality hits hard sometimes!

John.

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Something I have said for a long while, even said it on here and been shot down in flames for it so very nice to see someone as respected and experienced as Ivan saying the exact same thing.

A lot of 'novel' tooling is often quite rough as it's not known whether or not it will function as required. If it does function OK then it tends to get used unless a MKII is needed.

I actually threw a piece away like that this week. OK wouldn't have made an article as all it was was a drilling jig for doing 3 M5 holes.

Made from 5 pieces of rough cut steel flat and welded with the proverbial Pigeon $hit [ lesser crested variety ], no matter what it looked like it worked and probably at a rough guess earned me upwards of £2000 in it life.

Even if it had been a jig for something useful and recognisable in the home shop it would still have been rough cut and welded up.

Might just grab this original jig out the skip and enter it at the next show, with judges notes of course

Can't see it getting a medal though.

John, well said.

Hi Michael, I thought your vice was very well made and presented, but I did fail to realise what was different from other vices that I've seen before. However, I could see that a lot more effort must have been put into your vice than I had put into my oilcan and could not understand why my entry received a higher award than yours, but then I'm not a judge. With regards to judges notes, I have always thought, rightly or wrongly, that they should be of your own interpretation to explain your own methods and reasons for the final exhibit so that anyone judging your work is not left thinking such things as; "I wonder why it was made this way" or "Why isn't it as specified on the drawing" ect. When you've created something of your own design, maybe this is more important so that the whys and wherefores are explained. I try to keep my notes as concise as possible but to the point and believe photos help to do this. The statement about my oilcan not ever seeing oil or dispensing it is likely to be true, by myself that is, but it has functioned with clean water and I have started to make a second one that I not going polish up. As for spending it's days in a display cabinet, I have not got one. Yet !

I started to make my oilcan from Morgens article out of curiosity without any intention of entering it into the MEX as I was finishing off my tapping and drilling machine which I entered into the loan section, but still supplied judges notes although it would not be judged, but some visitors like to know how you do things and why and what you use. during the time I was making it, it dawned on me that I could also enter this in the loan section, but I got carried away with cleaning it and making it a bit tidy, I decided to give it a go in the completion as I thought it really did look too nice to use.

Awards are always nice to receive whatever level they are, but I've never entered any of the competitions expecting one. I like to think the best thing that I could achieve is that at least one person has picked up an idea from any of my exhibits, be it to reuse a piece of material that they would have binned or a particular adaptation for something sitting in their workshop or they may go home thinking that if I can do it they might be able to do it to and maybe improve it also.

Please don't be put off by your competition entry efforts and look at it as a learning curve for the next one.

Regards Nick.

The problem with judging competitions is that its subjective, no one person looks at something the same way as others, even if they are given guide lines to follow these are interpreted differently. In my main hobby there is judging for the best engine, one week a heap of rubbish wins and the following week another engine wins because it is nice and shiny because that is what the judge wanted.

Martin P

> My love for wet and dry and metal polish wont allow me to accept that an entry should loose marks because it has been unnecessarily polished to within an inch of its life and afterall there must be a category in the judging for quality of finish….

I don't think they should lose marks, but they shouldn't GAIN marks over a tool with an appropriate finish.

I note that Giancarlo's spectacular model locos which are finished in bright metal are judged as general engineering models, not in the loco classes where they would lose many marks for a non-realistic finish.

Now don't start me on model boats with brass belaying pins…

Neil

I have been prompted on occasions, even when I was editor, to comment on the awards given for workshop equipment, but to be honest have chickened out. Even this year, with both magazines commenting on the small number of entrants, an ongoing situation for very many years.

However, it was this thread that made up me finally make up my mind to offer some comments. Even so, I do not intend to comment on what has already been said but to offer my thoughts on the subject.

Deciding to enter two non tooling items into the 2012 exhibition which I thought were just possibly candidates for a bronze, I also considered it was about time I took note of my plea, as editor, and enter three from the many workshop tools I had made. I had no excuse, I had to go to take the two I wanted to enter. To be honest, I entered the others just to see what happened, I had little hope in receiving a medal, perhaps a bronze for one maybe.

The items were a Dividing head, Rotary Table and Mini boring head gaining Very highly commended, Highly commended and Commended in that order, no medals. This is not sour grapes on my part, I was very pleased with my results as my two other items both got silver medals and in quite diverse classes Horology and Horse Drawn Carriages.

Comparing the Tip Cart with the workshop equipment entries cannot be done reasonably as they are so very different, the Cart being mostly hand made. The clock though not that different to my workshop equipment. What then are the differences. Lets just consider the Dividing head

The clock made to a provided design.
The dividing head made to my design.

Making the clock was much like making most other clocks. Note I do say most.
Making the dividing head had its own problem areas.

The clock was very time consuming.
The dividing head much less so.

The clock was made to a high standard of finish.
The dividing head did not need a lot of attention with regard to finish

The clock works well
The dividing head works well even providing more divisions than the Commercial Semi Universal dividing head and with very much greater scope for direct dividing, typically. using gear wheels, both from the lathe and elsewhere.

Where does this get me regarding the judging criteria, well here are a few pointers.
1. Was the exhibit designed by the exhibitor.
2. If so does it follow closely to other designs, or is it unique.
3. Is the item commercially available, if so how does it compare.
4. How well will it perform its intended tasks. Is it robust enough for example.
5. How easy, or difficult, will it be to perform its intended tasks.
6. What machines did the exhibitor have to make the item.
7. How difficult, or easy, would it have been to manufacture on the available machines.
8. Is it using the best, or at least adequate, materials for the exhibits purpose. No dovetail slides made out of aluminium for example, and I have seen it.
9. If there is some appreciable non metalworking aspect to the exhibit, a wooden storage case for example, should this be scored or not.
10. Would it have taken a long timeto make the item, needing patience.
11. Now to a debatable subject. FINISH.

If done on a points system how many for each consideration. All 1-10 or say Finish getting more than design.

Here I may be getting myself into deep water. But, typically, I consider that most stationary steam engines (and I've made five)are much the same, in terms of the difficulty in making them, with of course the little extra problem area here and there. Most workshop items are a one off, OK with a lot of standard machining operations but setups can be very very difficult to chose and work to.

It was in this area that the awards I had for my workshop items puzzled me. The Mini boring head, fitted into a well made finger jointed box, the head finished to a good standard and the machining required being much more complex than most would tackle without guidance and certainly much more difficult than the other two items which most would tackle. This was awarded just a Commended certificate. Incidentally, I did send details of the complexity with the exhibit.

If you would like to see the mini boring head and the setups for making it see my website here–**LINK**

I will close to say again, this is not sour grapes on my part just some comments to see if something can be done to encourage more to participate in this class. Could not the standard for a bronze medal be dropped a little so more could consider they were in with a chance. A medal is nice but a piece of paper much less so.

Harold

I've read this thread with considerable interest, as most of my model engineering is based on making tools. I attended Sandown for the first time this year, and was a bit disappointed with the tooling section of the competition. I felt that there was a both a lack of numbers of entries, and a lack of complexity. Mind you, our own (Harrogate) exhibition has been very poorly supported by tooling of late.

As could be seen from my GHT display, I'm no exponent of the wet and dry school of finish. If it does the job required, and the edges don't cut the hands too often, then it's a good tool.

Poor old Neil Read is taking a bit of a kicking lately, what with the drill expert having a go about his inability to off hand grind a drill within tolerance, and then for, what I took to be reasonable comments, his critique of a milling vice.

Regards,

Alan.

Ditto. I agree.!

I know very little about engineering. But to do so in ANY genre be it sport, art, jam making or engineering will most likely be seen as 'Throwing ones toys out of their pram'

"It's just not cricket ole boy. It's not the British way" !!!

Nick