Is it just me?

[NJHParticipant @njh]

John

I think the quote you refer to is "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" John F Kennedy ( NOT Spike Milligan I'm afraid – much as I liked him!)

Yes of course CAD, CAM etc have a place and this will increase more and more as time goes by. This is especially so in a commercial environment where time is of the essence. For retired old gits like me, who spent a lifetime in electronics, the time that I now spend " playing" in the workshop and developing manual skills, which I'm sure are second nature to you, is what it is all about. I have lots of projects on the go and, in truth, I'm not particularly anxious to complete any of them. To paraphrase another politician – for me the important thing is the journey ……and I'm not anxious to spend any more time in electronic interaction than I do already!

Regards

Norman

Edited By NJH on 11/09/2013 00:16:19

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by John Stevenson on 10/09/2013 23:21:13:

Today a customer brought in a drawing of a 'C' spanner, simple sketch made by drawing round the shape on a scrap of paper. he wanted 6 off.

I sat down at dinnertime and drew this up in a simple CAD program, I could have used a free one but preferred the one I'm used to. saved the drawing as a DXF file and emailed it to the laser cutters. Rang them up when I got in the shop to see if they had the file, yes and they are £2.80 each.

OK'd the job and they will be cut by tomorrow dinner. Now perhaps you don't want 6 spanners but they would have cut one or more to the point one of something quite complex.

John

What I want to know is where I can find a laser cutting company that turns jobs round in a day or so and (from your details) does not have a large minimum order charge.

Please pm me if its commercially sensitive information!

Ian P

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Ian,

PM'd you with the details but may not suit you depening where you are.

Reason is I use a company that has a laser cutter for their own use, they do contract work but it's not their first line and they are not geared up to send bits out.

Result is I have to collect or in this case I'll get my customer to collect.

Been dealing with them for years, don't spend an awful amount with them but we work well together.

What they are handy for are panic jobs, if I get one and it's a genuine panic i can send them a file, ring them and tell them it's a panic, jump in the Donald and by the time I get there the job is waiting.

This is a classic.

DC fork truck motor, back bearing let go and result was the cast housing exploded, not that uncommon.

OK quick measure up and in this case because I just want rings, phone the order thru and pile in the Donald.

Rings cut and get back.

4 bit of flat cut as well and whacked into resembling a curve and a bit of weld.

Throw it all on the lathe and inside that load of crud this was hiding.

So basically half a days work to earn £3 17s and 6d

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by John Stevenson on 11/09/2013 09:09:58:

Ian,

This is a classic.

DC fork truck motor, back bearing let go and result was the cast housing exploded, not that uncommon.

OK quick measure up and in this case because I just want rings, phone the order thru and pile in the Donald.

Throw it all on the lathe and inside that load of crud this was hiding.

So basically half a days work to earn £3 17s and 6d

So, taking inflation into account that is a very lucrative job!

Ian P

[TomfileryParticipant @tomfilery]

All,

I read, with some dismay, the "I don't want to learn CAD/CNC" comments and feel that some are missing a trick!

I have an engineering background, both heavy electrical and electronic, but have never been able to produce drawings to a good standard. A good few years ago I bought TurboCad and now use that for anything I either make, or want to plan. This has included:- extending my house, rearranging the bathroom, refitting the kitchen, planning the block paving layout for the garden/patio, as well as drawing up numerous narrow gauge locos and rolling stock in 16mm scale – both for actual building and for "lets see if I can use that power unit in that loco". For me, CAD lets me draw to a standard I could never have achieved with a pencil and lets me try things out and move items around the drawing without having to start copying and cutting out paper shapes, or messing around with tracing paper. When away from my workshop (e.g. on holiday), I take a small notebook PC and continue my drawing/ planning.

Ok – I still do "back of a fag packet" sketches for bit and bobs, but if I'm doing something more involved, then I usually draw it all out on CAD. OK, so I don't produce a full set of workshop drawings and only dimension what I really need. However, it is dead easy to go back and check dimensions you might have missed off. One really crucial feature for modellers is the ability to measure something in the real world (say a railway wagon) draw it out full size and then scale it and dimension it in your chosen modelling scale, meaning that if you need a version in a different scale, you just resize it and don't have to redraw/ redimension.

Ok – so I'm a convert and many of you aren't, however, Ireally do want MEW to keep me informed of new developments and (perhaps more importantly) want to be able to assess what kit and expertise I would need, should I decide that I do want to take the plunge into CNC (or any other technology). We have had a couple of articles recently explaining some of this detail, but I still feel that if someone could produce an "idiots guide" showing "what cnc could do for you" that would be really helpful. John Stevenson has done this a few times in his posts and long may he continue.

If we continue to adopt the "bah humbug" approach to newer workshop technologies, we will definitely die out as a hobby. At least the CNC side might bring younger people into the hobby, who might then develop a greater interest in general engineering and actually building things in the real world.

Regards Tom

[Chris ParsonsParticipant @chrisparsons64193]

As I newcomer I have very little to offer as far as articles (at the moment) but after reading this thread thought I would 'chip in'?

I have always had excellent advice and help from this forum, and if the price of having it is to have to subscribe to the magazines to support the forum I would do that?

The reason I haven't is that at the moment I have so many books to digest, and skills to learn – many of the excellent series from Howard Hall (PLEASE don't leave the forum!) and would echo his comments that for someone like me I _do_ need to have the obvious stated – coming from an IT background (in Local Government) I do not have a 'peer group' to get advice from (although I have now joined a local ME club) and you are all my 'peer group' but I understand that many experienced ME would not find such basic articles of any interest and also need something to keep them subscribing – but I am actually making a milling vice at the moment…

I do use CAD – because sometimes the plans I have are not so clear, or imperial and re-creating them is a learning exercise and makes it a little easier to modify them if I have to. Many years ago in college I used a drawing board for drafting and just see CAD as a modern equivalent (the ballpoint instead of the fountain pen)

It is a little easier for me I guess because using software all day long means I can learn this a little quicker but must emphasise that I still don't have the engineering skills and knowledge (yet) – but think CAD is a complementary skill for making anything that requires a plan, although a lot of my plans start off with a grubby pencil sketch in a small notebook and the 'posh' version gets drawn in CAD when I have worked the concepts out.

I can see myself having a go at all aspects of ME – perhaps even converting my mill to CNC in the fullness of time because I am interested in seeing if I can do this (as a project!) in the same way that I am making many of my lathe and mill tools, because I am interested in seeing if I can do this too so I would like a magazine that covers a wide range of ME topics including ones that at the moment are beyond my capabilities

The CNC aspects would also encourage the '3D printing' community – although for me this is not mature enough yet (it will get better) and I prefer to make things in metal although this may also come in time. I have drawn a CAD plan for a friend to get something cut with a waterjet, and it is a small step to passing this to a CNC machine to do the same perhaps, but I would still want to know how to operate the machine myself before automating it – and if others do not see the need or have the desire to use CNC, or alternatively to learn the manual skills then this is OK with me but I would prefer to do both

I think I have said in previous posts I build model aeroplanes from wood and plans, not ready made but that is because, for me, the pleasure is the learning the skills and creativity not always the end result, if that makes any sense

One thing I am sure of, is that I would not want to be the editor of either ME or MEW – it is hard to keep everyone happy!

 

Chris

Edited By Chris Parsons on 11/09/2013 11:29:13

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Tomfilery on 11/09/2013 10:49:30:

All,

We have had a couple of articles recently explaining some of this detail, but I still feel that if someone could produce an "idiots guide" showing "what cnc could do for you" that would be really helpful. John Stevenson has done this a few times in his posts and long may he continue.

Regards Tom

Tom and others, when Ketan was doing the shows we did put on talks on CNC which were very well recieved.

However it's one thing do do the talk and show but totally different to lay it out as a subject in a magazine where you have to compete for space and also not all of the readers would be that interested.

I have found out the hard way that at the beginning the punter needs his hand held every bit of the way. Jump a couple of steps and they get lost and loose interest.

I can appreciate this and the number of times I have read an instructional book and Chapter 1 is OK, then Chapter 2 by Chapter 3 we are cooking with gas but suddenly on Chapter 4 they are talking about things not mentioned before. Skim back, re-read and no, not there.

Check to see if some ba@$ard has cut 4 pages out but no, so you loose the thread and loose heart.

An idiots guide [ and I feel I'm well versed on this as ower Gert reckons I'm an idiot ] to CAD / CAM needs to be in three sections.

CAD to draw the part with loads of screen shots [ this in itself will get the flat earth society blunting their pencils writing in on the back of a reused postcard ]

CAM to show how the drawing is defined in CAM and what information is used / needed.

And finally actually cutting the part which really is the realm of a you tube video. This puts virtually all three sections out of the realms of a monthly magazine given the time scale and length of article needed to do full justification to it.

This subject is more in the class of a blog or web page to achieve this.

[Anonymous]

Posted by John Stevenson on 11/09/2013 19:28:31:

I have found out the hard way that at the beginning the punter needs his hand held every bit of the way. Jump a couple of steps and they get lost and loose interest.

That's a shocking indictment of the punter. Don't people have any staying power? Sure, one makes mistakes, gets p****d off, wonders why one ever set up a workshop in the first place, thinks about taking up knitting; but if you keep plugging away, reading, searching the internet and asking questions you get there in the end.

I made most of these parts in the first four weeks of using a CNC mill; having never seen or used one before. I'm not a professional machinist, so if I can do it I'm sure other people can!

I broke tools, got references wrong, ruined work, got up at 4am because I couldn't sleep, and drank lots of beer, but I did get there.

Regards,

Andrew

[Thomas GudeParticipant @thomasgude37285]

There's a bit of talk about atracting young blood to the magazines. So as a 27 y.o. new to the home workshop engineering (note not model engineering) I thought I would chuck in my 2p.

M.E. – I have never bought this magazine as model locos are not high on my list of interests and as it seems this is all that appears on the cover (apart from the odd clock) it doesn't attract me – and I know I'm not the only one.

M.E.W. – I buy this every now and again from the shop after flciking throught the pages. As a beginner I have found the ads very useful as it helps one understand the prices of certain machinery, gives some interesting online recources and helps with research for someone with an empty workshop. I can see how this can get repetitive for the long-term subscribers – but have any of you picked up a highstreet glossy recently? You have to trawl through 20 pages of ads before you even get to the contents page!! I think we have it good.

I also enoy the hints and tips section and the machining for beginners but I cannot justify buying it for just these two articles so there has to be something else to interest me. Some of the articles do interest me and so I buy it. However more often I find the articles extremely niche, often requiring a specific make of machine tool to modify or attach to. I think a more broad approach to making these kind of tools, attachments or just interesting mechanical devices would be more enlightening. Plus more than once I have got lost in the articles due to my lack of knowledge on the subject – surely the point is to educate on making and using a new tool? If I knew how it worked & how to use it I would most likely have one already and therefore wouldn't need to make my own, no? My opinion will probably change as I become more experienced and wizened.

As for CAM/CNC – not for me, I spend all my working day sat infront of a screen using CAD and for me the hobby is about the feel of making something with your hands rather than getting to the end result as quickly as possible. With possibly the exception of 3D printing if you have your own mini-foundry – Any casting you want – very cool. I can however see the benefits of CNC for machining a complex profile, I suppose it would depend on how often you would do this.

Now if there was a magizine that contained a mix of stuff you find in MEW and the kind of content and inclusiveness you get on the HMEM forum I would be a definite subscriber. I am not after the magazines to change for my interests and frankly I don't have the right to say so. Just pointing out my own observations and feelings and remember no one is the average reader – there is no such thing.

Cheers

Thomas

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

I for one would like to thank Thomas for the above.
We the readers here are better informed.
Now what good can it do?

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Last night I was sorting some old mags out and found a few from 1950 in a bad condition and not worth saving as I have better ones.

Quick read thru before they hit the fire and I noticed that the articles were vey sketchy.

Many were only half a page, even two page ones often had no pictures or drawing, relying on words alone to get something across.

Three articles that did interest me were that sketchy it would have been hard to follow or make.

So a quick read up on postbag to see how many were complaining about the brief state of affairs ?/

No one.

So either that was when men were men or we have bred a nation of whingers.

John S.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Thomas you really should look at ME more often as you seem to have the wrong idea of its contents, current issue

Shaping machine article, Mill engine, IHC Mogul tractor, Marine engine, Chuck backstop, Norden engine, Model Engineering in Cambodia and 4 loco related articles which I also don't care for but its a lot more varied than you make out, maybe 70% non loco.

J

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

It's tempting to say that the problem with ME is too many photos of Steve Eaton winning things. He need to have a year's sabbatical!

Neil

[Diane CarneyModerator @dianecarney30678]

Posted by Thomas Gude on 12/09/2013 15:20:05:

M.E. – I have never bought this magazine as model locos are not high on my list of interests and as it seems this is all that appears on the cover (apart from the odd clock) it doesn't attract me – and I know I'm not the only one.

errr… the last ten covers ….

One loco
One hot air engine
One marine engine
One traction engine
One tractor
One stationary engine
One aero engine
One bicycle
One tram
One milling machine
No clocks

Are you looking at the one that says MODEL ENGINEER at the top….?

I don't know… give a magazine a bad name…..

Diane

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Diane,

We desperatly need a new sub forum for whingers.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by John Stevenson on 13/09/2013 12:45:22:

Diane,

We desperatly need a new sub forum for whingers.

And a sub-sub one for the spellingly challenged.

Ian P

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

What sort of writing style do people like in articles?

Dry factual details of the major elements.
LBSC style with every drill and movement listed but some whole chunks left out because they were explained on the loco before.
Most of the detail but not assuming a complete beginner.
Mostly high quality pictures with a bit of text (Bogstandard web article)
Interspersed inclusions of interesting off topic material (Keith Wilson, LBSC)
Drawings that comply with BS123456 or sketches that show what you actually need to know.

I like KW's style as it gets the details across without beng a list of operations. LBSC could get a bit too tedious with the endless "chuck a bit of 1/2 inch …."
Does anyone remember Gerry Pournelle writing in Byte magazine in the seventies? I had no interest in his subject matter of business software but his style was gripping. Perhaps because his day job was a fiction author.

Now that high quality colour photos are the norm how much text is required? I never needed to read the instructions for Meccano as the photo showed it all but I have met people who slavishly followed the "insert screw into double angle…"

Edited By Bazyle on 13/09/2013 13:41:04

[Anonymous]

Posted by Ian Phillips on 13/09/2013 12:49:10:

Posted by John Stevenson on 13/09/2013 12:45:22:

Diane,

We desperatly need a new sub forum for whingers.

And a sub-sub one for the spellingly challenged.

Ian P

But surely that implies that all bad spellers are whingers?

Andrew

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by Bazyle on 13/09/2013 13:39:52:LBSC could get a bit too tedious with the endless "chuck a bit of 1/2 inch …."

My first M.E. project was to build the beam engine Mary following Tubal Cain's book. His words and music were very like LBSC's and, as a complete novice, I found that level of description essential. Now, with a bit more experience and having ruined more parts than I care to remember I usually just skip those bits and do the job my own way but I certainly don't object to the how to being included for those who need it.

Russell.

[Anonymous]

I don't think one can be too prescriptive; the style of the article and drawings will depend upon the author, and the intended audience.

Out of idle curiosity I read the preface for the first ever issue of MEW yesterday. Three things stuck in my memory. First, the magazine was intended for those with workshops, but not exclusively those who build models. Second, there were going to be no long, multi-part series. Finally the magazine would still include "extensive information on the making of models".

I do remember Jerry Pournelle, Chaos Manor, and his laws. I started reading 'Byte' in the mid 70s, when it was still a fairly technical computing magazine, with significant hardware content. I can't remember when I cancelled my subscription, but by then 'Byte' had become almost exclusively software, and mainly for the PC.

Regards,

Andrew

[Jerry WrayParticipant @jerrywray14030]

I used to be an avid reader of ME; as a member of Reading SME I collected as many issues as I could get hold of, free from other members or bought through various newsagent such as WHS Martins and others. I probaly read 90% of them cover to cover. (and No I haven't still got them; my ex probably binned them around 1990). I continued to subscribe for a while but no longer. I'm afraid Diane's 10 different topics in 10 weeks bears little relationship to how often these same topics illustrated by the covers have appeared over the life of the Magazine.

The older issues were very absorbing but after 1950 or so they became very repetitive. As the construction of many projects for the average person with a normal need to earn a living takes a long time, several years in many cases, any issue needs to have some thing which is interesting, and not necessarily focused on the acquisition of new skills. As we get older most of us reach our own level and the learning curve becomes steeper. Experience tells us that everything now needs a purpose, rather than being entertaining, otherwise the isiot box in the corner beckons us.

In my forties the construction articles could be viewed as a challenge but now with many of the similar articles I look at them in the same light as with my reading.

When I pick up a book, newspaper or journal if I don' find it grabs my interest within a few pages then it's not for me. With limited horizons is it worth my time? I may not be around tomorrow.

Sorry to be Job' comforter but for most of us that is the way we find ourselves thinking.

Jerry

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

I think some of the dissatisfaction comes from comparing previous edition’s of the mag. ( caused in my case by reading the archive in a few sittings….don’t do this… if you read too many at a time you will start to see what appear to be the same articles repeating )..well the urgency to read through the archive was brought on by policy change.
Which leads me to the other reasons.
.Primus subs policy change.
Secundus subs increase…
The above two bring to attention the comparison of the then and now content…then we see a thread about what would “normally” be a subject for MEW which (rightly since that is where the article has/will be submitted..contributorschoice) will /maybe Iin ME..
Compound that with contributors suggesting reluctance to submit to MEW as apposed to ME

Should I renew subs with MEW?..and what happens if there aren’t 12 editions before closure?…

Edited By jason udall on 13/09/2013 17:59:14

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

Futher ..if one submits article for MEW..how long should you wait before you can try same with ME?

[Diane CarneyModerator @dianecarney30678]

Posted by Jerry Wray on 13/09/2013 16:08:38:

The older issues were very absorbing but after 1950 or so they became very repetitive.

Somebody once said to me – you can look at Issues 1 to 10 of Model Engineer and you've probably covered everything. Well, I'm not sure that's quite correct. I think there was something in issue 12….

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Issue 9 covered CNC and issue 10 covered 3D printing. Model engineers ahead of the pack! Run by a nice brass Babbage computer (issue 8)

[Author]

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