Forum and now MEW Going downhill pointless article in MEW 335

[derek hall 1Participant @derekhall1]

Is one possible future of model engineering somone designing something with 3D CAD and then sending the file off to some factory to make it and send it back to be painted and fixed to a bit of polished wood?

John made a good comment basically about space needed for a workshop.

New modern houses being built near me have postage size gardens, no room for a shed, and buying a house with a garage as an option makes the cost of the house even higher.

I suppose the same could be said for anyone into model railways wanting a permanent layout.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Is one possible future of model engineering somone designing something with 3D CAD and then sending the file off to some factory to make it and send it back to be painted and fixed to a bit of polished wood?

That is probably a bit more creative than what we have now with the various kit build locos, traction engines and stationary engines where many would not be able to run around a track or rally field if the only option were to make it all yourself.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

On the subject of attracting beginners some of the suppliers could do a bit more particularly now with very few shows which means most will be doing their shopping online.

What would attract you more a much photo copied B&W image, a CAD rendering or maybe a photo of a nicely built example, the later is still to come .

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

The photo of the nicely built model for me.

Rob

 

[derek hall 1Participant @derekhall1]

If the objective is to help a newbie then I think three pictures:

A pic of the drawing

A pic of the 3D CAD rendering

A pic of the model

Just thinking that this would show the amount of work and commitment needed to build the model/tool from start to completion.

But definitely a picture of the end result, something to aim for…

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

A photo of the completed engine makes the 3D render redundant. But including a render with parts removed to show the mechanism would draw my interest.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

A section would probably be as good as one with parts removed. Also very useful to any novice builder as it should give them an idea of what goes where or even an exploaded view both of which are reasonably easy to produce with CAD.

Another thing about CAD that cropped up again this morning in the shaper thread is that it is very easy to include a 3D image of any part on the 2D drawings which makes it a lot easier for those not used to working from engineering drawings to visualize what they are supposed to be making.

PS Couple of in progress photos including some filing yesterday should keep the old school happy

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

The 3D cad rendering makes me think it is something to be made in a 3D printer by sitting at a keyboard in front of a screen. No interest to me. (Edit: Just saw the second 3D rendering, with cutaway. Yes that is interesting. )

Agreed the old bw photo is woeful and hardly likely to sell many kits or drawings. New photo of completed job definitely would be a winner.

It seems some/many suppliers in our hobby are older gents, often a single operator and not overly net-savvy. They are ME enthusiasts more than businessmen. Businessmen would have moved on long ago to more lucrative fields. Some I have tried to contact don’t even bother to answer email queries. Others do but could not be bothered with international postage because in their opinion it is too expensive – despite it being the willing customer who would pay it if they would condescend to accept his money.

Thing is, when those old boys retire or drop off the twig, the business often seems to just close down, with nobody taking their place. So maybe eventually model engineers will be forced to CNC machine or 3D print or CAD draw and contract out the machining because the casting kits will no longer be available. So the change to modern methods may come through necessity rather than willing adoption of new technologies.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Hopper I’ll not comment on your last paragraph here but will hopefully cover it in a forthcoming article. Just waiting to hear back if it is OK for me to use a couple of another suppliers images who are using some of the latest tec to make castings available again

Here is a good example where I feel the CAD image gives a better idea of what is involved than the photo, Hemmingway seem to do alright with the gradual redrawing of their products in CAD, often see them being recommended but never seen then advised against due to having CAD drawings.

I shoul djust mention that the “renders” I showed previously are not fully rendered as I won’t do that until all the adjustments to the “As Built” engine are done but they can be made a bit more realistic rather than plastic. The trunk guide for this engien and another engine as examples

 

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

There are those who would say ‘George Thomas never used CNC’. My reply would be he would have done if it was available.
Technology marches on and every generation has gladly embraced the new. There were great bonfires of wooden block planes with the introduction of all metal planes. Who would now consider drilling a wall for a plug with a club hammer and rawl plug tool. Battery tools abound.

That said there is often a cost in re-skilling and equipping. Our last head of mechanical workshop never did bother to learn the next generation CNC and use the HAAS mill. Too close to retirement to make the effort worth wile and the younger lads had got it covered anyway.

Personally I enjoy doing some things the ‘old way’ just to find out what it was like for our ancestors but am equally up for new tech where it helps.

The challenge is to keep everyone moving in the same direction and helping the hobby thrive.

regards Martin

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Hopper I’ll not comment on your last paragraph here but will hopefully cover it in a forthcoming article. Just waiting to hear back if it is OK for me to use a couple of another suppliers images who are using some of the latest tec to make castings available again

Here is a good example where I feel the CAD image gives a better idea of what is involved than the photo, Hemmingway seem to do alright with the gradual redrawing of their products in CAD, often see them being recommended but never seen then advised against due to having CAD drawings.

I shoul djust mention that the “renders” I showed previously are not fully rendered as I won’t do that until all the adjustments to the “As Built” engine are done but they can be made a bit more realistic rather than plastic. The trunk guide for this engien and another engine as examples

 

Those images are objects of beauty. Very well done!

Yes it had occurred to me that CAD and 3D printing would be the best way to make patterns for small model castings. Would be nice to see them bring back some of the old classics for which the old wooden patterns have been lost, destroyed or deteriorated with age. So much easier than making them out of wood and putty and then hoping they survive the first visit to the foundry.

[john fletcher 1Participant @johnfletcher1]

Got my MEW yesterday morning, I’m glad I got it for 6 copies. Four pages explaining how to fix a mini computer controlled lathe. Also 4 large pictures to fill a page? Definitely gone down the hill, as another reader has said make ME and MEW one magazine.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Hi Hopper, I have said it many times, 3D printing is not the God send it may seem to pattern making per se !

I speak from experience ! To 3d print a pattern one needs to understand the principles of pattern making and molding. Allowance for shrinkage both in the pattern and mold have to be considered. The slicing is the main problem leaving a series of small ridges that must  be smoothed before the pattern is any use and having had a 3D printed item reduced to a useless lump of plastic by a hot day not as long lived as one may think !

That 3D printed patterns can be made is true BUT NOT as simple as it may seem !   Noel.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Noel, as usual, nothing is ever simple! Yes I figure you would have to include shrinkage and draft angles etc into pattern same as traditional wooden patterns etc, and I thought that with people seeming to make things like change gears on 3D printers and saying they are durable etc, there should be some materials available that are more durable?

I know that today’s automotive and motorcycle manufacturers do some amazing stuff with rapid prototyping using the new tech for CNC and presumeably 3D printing but I am sure their gear is  a far cry from home hobby standard.

Maybe the way for modern ME pattern making is more like CNC milling patterns out of solid material that is more durable? My dentist seems to be able to CNC new teeth caps/crowns while you wait, ready to glue in and go.

But I suppose then that for ME work, you might as well just CNC the actual engine components rather than cast them. Maybe makes more sense for short production runs than doing castings.

Perhaps kits of the future will come as a set of part-finished CNC-milled-from-the-solid “castings” and the model engineer does the finish machining such as boring cylinders, machining pistons to size, drilling and tapping tiny screw holes etc.?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

The knowledge to make the patterns is no different whatever way it is made. A badly made wooden one with poorly sanded plywood edges would really be no different to a roughly printed one that has had little thought to how it will be pulled from the sand. That’s assuming it is going to be pulled as lost PLA or printed waxes are also options. Newer printers can also print with a finer layer height so less prep is needed and resin printers are good to go as the layering is hardly visible.

Current printers are now able to print in a lot more different materials these days so reinforcing fibres can be included and as these fillaments need a higher temp to melt they should be less suseptable to being left on a sunny windowcill. It is just down to how the person with the pattern take scare of it, I’ve redone wooden ones that have suffered from being stored in a damp shed for years or were made of poorly seasoned timber so moved before they ever got to be used.

The various CAD packages can also help the would be pattern maker, something like F360 has the option to analyze the pattern design for draft and much like the images you see for stress analysis will colour the surface sto let you see how much draft a pattern has.

Throw CNC into the equation and you can then cut your patterns from whatever you like be it wood, plastic or even metal, I’ve done all three and got good castings from them. Metal masters are easy you don’t have to allow for double shrinkage just enter the percentage for the final material being cast. No need to waste time making a wood pattern, casting an aluminium one from that, smoothing the rough ali casting and then using that for production batches. One I made earlier it was cutting while I got on with other things, again something you can’t get away from when manually making the pattern

Where I find the CAD and CNC or Printing comes into it’s own is with core boxes which have always been trickier to make than the actual pattern. Just a few clicks of the mouse will produce the file for a core box from the original part file. This is where casting still has an advantage over CNC cutting from solid as you can core in cavities that could not be accessed by machine. Typical example would be this full size Gardner cylinder I did the CAD for. There is a core for the bore, a core around that to produce the water jacket and a third smaller core for the exhaust passage.

Section

This is the corebox for the water jacket and that has a printed “core” so the sand has a hole down the middle

And the core produced (in two halves)

You can even check that all the cores fit into the moulded cavity formed by the main pattern

 

 

[martin haysomParticipant @martinhaysom48469]

forget the casting, just 3d print the thing in metal.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

It’s certainly an option particularly if just one is required and the size is not too great. That cylinder is 300mm long, two required and you don’t see iron being offered by many of the companies that do mail order printing.

Printing in metal also does away with the need for cores so no work making core boxes, no need to worry about draft, in fact you can print things that would not be able to be pulled from a sand mould without the use of loose pieces etc. A lot of this would also apply to lost PLA or printed wax as well.

Can still be pricy though, I just put a file of a small engine part in to one of the online print services and got a price which was about 10 times what I could get it cast for.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Dear Jason, I knew you would reply, in fact I would have been disappointed if you had not ! All of us here commenting KNOW what we’re talking about, know the terminology and the interaction. I admire the skill and ease with which you can use this technology but is it that common in the modern world ? To the newcomer it’s a world of magic, in the case of foundrywork a black art? A few basic tools and a wooden pattern can be made,I can see what I’m making, 3D printing would need for me to spend a considerable sum and spend more time than I have, learning  to understand computers and how to use them, CAD and then 3D printing. There would be no certainty that I would be successful ! For a younger person may be some of this would come easy, but there is still the pattern making to understand and any engineering that may be in what ever is being built.  Lost PLA or wax is just another skill one would need to learn.

How many people have played with their 3D printer, made the numerous gadgets that can be down loaded if their lucky or had the technology fail, not know whats wrong and given up ?

I bought an S7 in 1970, it took me 10 years to find the spindle lock, may be I should have given up then ? Noel.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Jason and Noel demonstrate the old and the new.

One with a vice bolted to a plank and hand tools, the other with a modern CAD and 3D printer to basically acheive the same end result, e.g. a casting pattern.

100 years ago, apprentices would spend literally years learning to file metal or saw wood squarely by hand – because that was the only way certain operations could be done with the technology of the day. Nowadays we have mills, CNC tables, chop saws and mitre saws.

So any enthusiast can now start to produce reasonable projects straight away without first having to spend a multi-year apprenticeship learning how to cut material freehand. Witness the person up-thread who drew up a set of chassis rails in CAD and had them accurately and cleanly laser cut, rather than getting out the blue dye, hacksaw and file.

And it is much cheaper to buy a 3D printer or a 3020 CNC, than a bulky mill and a set of tooling and dial indicators, with maybe DROs, stepper motors and rotary tables etc. for it ; 10 x cheaper. Plus the CNC will cut curves and circular features and move the cutting head much more accurately and consistently, than a novice learning to turn the X and Y by hand and dealing with back-lash and gibs etc.

That is the future. We no longer drive cars with manual chokes or manual ignition timing, but nobody minds about that. We no longer fly commercial airliners manually all the time; technology enables much greater safety, efficiency and accuracy, as well as auto-lands in poor visibility. Technology moves on and magazines will have to as well. The old manual workshop techniques will die out as those older skilled apprentices do, and the new modern methods will take over.

So the magazine should probably change to embrace these new technologies and these affordable machines. If I wanted to cut an aluminium bracket for my mountain bike, it would be useful to know which CNC machines are decent, and which are bad; which aluminium alloy I should use and where to get it; which cutters to use, and explaining about cutting speed, chatter, how to deal with swarf etc etc.

(Maybe a comprehensive report of all the CAD packages available. Which will run on Apple computers, which put your projects in the cloud or securely in only your machine, what the annual costs are, what the advantages and drawbacks are etc etc)

And we will always need to know about about joining metal: soldering, silver soldering, brazing, welding, riveting, glueing etc. Then perhaps a section in the second half or last third or quarter of the magazine about how things used to be done, with reminiscences from those old apprentices, and certain hints and tips – now often called ‘hacks’ – learned from their long experience that can still apply to the modern world.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Delicious irony, trying to find the latest hi-tech ways to make models — of 150-year-old steam engines.

Will the model engineers of the future make working models of Commodore 64 computers and Apple IIe’s ? Or Tesla car motors? Perhaps wind turbines and solar panels? Or will they still be making 19th century steam engine models using their home cold-fusion generators, downloaded directly from a vague idea in their brain implant, enhanced by AI during download?

 

 

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Ironic possibly, but no less valid for that.

A full working model of a coal fired steam locomotive someone has built is a fantastic achievement, no matter if the frame rails were laser cut or marked by blue dye and cut by hand. Or if the wheels were cast by the modeller or bought in. It is still a fantastic model.

I remember an older guy at work (not an engineering works), who bought in his steam loco he had made. It was incredible and amazing, and we were all very impressed that Reg had made such a thing.

However, the line stripe detailing on the paintwork was very poor – wobbly and inconsistent thickness. Obviously Reg’s eyesight or lack of steady hand or just no experience of painting very thin stripes had let him down. The rest of the model was no doubt well made and engineered, but that striping spoiled it. Reg could have used transfers or other more modern methods of applying the stripes to get a much better result.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I found it quite interesting how many people either have 3D printers or have access to them but are only able to print what they can download which is possibly why as Noel says they are gathering dust on a shelf. But that is not a problem as there are people out there who can do the CAD if you are unable or unwilling to learn it. I’ve done quite a fe wbits for members of various forums as well as others who I have been put in contact with or done the work via a third party.

here is an example one of the members on MEM posted that they did not have a pulley casting for their Redwing engine. Within the hour they had the pattern file from me and printed it that same evening. Dropped it off to the foundry when they were next passing and picked it up shortly after.

A lot of people will outsource the casting so why not outsource the CAD or pattern making? You may not even nee dto do that as there are quite a few sites on the web where somone has uploaded complete CAD files for popular engines and even whole locos or traction engines. The plastic Modeling world is going this way with many sites where a file can be had for free or purchased for a reasonable sum and you then just print it at the scale you want, assemble and paint.

As wth woodwork and casting there will be a learning curve with anything and that includes CAD and using that new 3D printer but as an example Graham Corry (Alyn Foundry) who I have done CAD and pattern making for decided to get a 3D printer. These were printed on the first and second evening of having it, his son was helping and probably doing most of it. I can’t see any lines on my set of castings from these first printed patterns which did ger a quick sand before casting.

Running engine shortly after

So good they wanted a bigger one which is just a few clicks away then do something else while it is printing

So it would seem some don’t need much time to pick up how to use a 3D printer. His son was also able to get printable CAD files withing a couple of days of loading the Alibre Atom3D software

Hopper, I see people making models of things that may only be a few years old so it is not a thing for model engineers of the future as it is happening now. Then there are all those with home workshops who don’t even use them to make models but they use the best technology available to them to make the parts they need for whatever use.

[Hopper]

On Hopper Said:

Delicious irony, trying to find the latest hi-tech ways to make models — of 150-year-old steam engines.

Will the model engineers of the future make working models of Commodore 64 computers and Apple IIe’s ? Or Tesla car motors? Perhaps wind turbines and solar panels? Or will they still be making 19th century steam engine models using their home cold-fusion generators, downloaded directly from a vague idea in their brain implant, enhanced by AI during download?

 

 

They won’t need to, as computers are useless without software. And you can already get emulators to run the original software on the PC sitting on your lap.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Hi Jason, those 3D prints are very smooth and impressive !

Please could you find out which printer and which slicer were used – Looking at the quality of those results, I think it is time that I upgraded from the 2nd hand printer my son gave me.

Thanks in advance.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Bambu Labs P1S and whatever slicer it comes with. They were not using the variable layer height on those early ones so probably 0.2mm layer height from the 0.4mm nozzel.

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