MEW 319 – Roofing A Shed??????

[Peter BryceParticipant @peterbryce59229]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 18/08/2022 20:29:29:

Trouble is, if too many start cancelling or finding free on-line routes, for whatever their reasons, it could ultimately push the cost of these already expensive magazines up, leading to….

Trouble is, if there's very little relevant content in the "already expensive magazines"………

Readly is a subscription service – it isn't free!

£9.99 per month but you have access to almost every printed magazine Worldwide plus a large selection of newspapers!

MEW must have been added relatively recently as it wasn't available last time I looked – however both MEW and ME are there now!

Peter

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

"We all have a book in us".

I imagine every single person who has commented on this thread has a good level of knowledge on one subjet at least that they could share in a model engineering magazine article. Our hobby is dwindling, so the pool of authors is getting smaller. We can all do our bit by offering our skills for a few quid.

I've lost a few really interesting model engineer friends over the past few years. I wish I could chat with them again and enjoy the benefit of their experience. If anyone wishes their legacy to be helping out other model engineers with their expertise, this is a win/win opportunity to do so and support the magazines which, if the posts above are to be believed, are starting to struggle for content.

[JAParticipant @ja]

I thought the article was excellent. So much that I am going to donate all my money to keep this forum free.

Bye.

JA

[Anonymous]

I must admit I missed all the content complained about; I only skimmed the bevel gear CNC article to see if i could learn anything from it, as in the past I have CNC machined bevel gears. Still, I suppose an article about roofing a shed is better than one about a shed shedding a roof.

The stock answer to those who complain is to write an article for publication and enlighten us. I have written articles for ME and MEW, athough nothing recent for a variety of reasons.

So the challenge for Peter Bryce and Iain Hogg is to put pen to paper!

Andrew

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

It's easier to complain than help I guess. These magazines are a product of our hobby, a very niche little subject. We are standing idle in a sinking rowboat complaining that no-one else is bailing out the water.

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

I know it's not at the same level of readership, but when I was editor of a local car club newsletter the hardest part of the job was filling the pages, until I came up with a cunning plan . When I attended a get together I would make a bee-line for a club member with a camera. I would then ask them nicely if they would write an article for the club. 99% did. Most of them worried about their spelling or grammar. Not my strong point either, but my co-editor being a retired teacher could handle that part easily. I think they enjoyed the experience. My level of expertise in any of the fields required for an article to get published is almost zero.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Peter Bryce on 18/08/2022 16:40:06:

Posted by Nicholas Wheeler 1 on 18/08/2022 16:23:45:

But the shed in question is a workshop which is a major part of the magazine's title!

Nonsense – using your logic, why not 7 pages on London Fashion Week?

Because let's face it, the designs are worn by a "model" which is a major part of the magazine's title!

Peter

That's one of the reasons why I've long argued that we should lose the 'model' part of the title! It does nobody any good and leads to stupid arguments about what is and isn't 'model engineering'.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by lee webster on 18/08/2022 22:22:01:

I know it's not at the same level of readership, but when I was editor of a local car club newsletter the hardest part of the job was filling the pages, until I came up with a cunning plan . When I attended a get together I would make a bee-line for a club member with a camera. I would then ask them nicely if they would write an article for the club. 99% did. Most of them worried about their spelling or grammar. Not my strong point either, but my co-editor being a retired teacher could handle that part easily. I think they enjoyed the experience. My level of expertise in any of the fields required for an article to get published is almost zero.

My success rate was far lower! And we couldn't get anything from the club chairman, so I went with the piss take that my co-editor knocked up to fill the space while we waited. After three years, we'd had him as a spy, ballet dancer and a number of other daft ideas.

Another actual contributor complained that I wasn't supposed to change anything after I had corrected her spelling and added some more punctuation – just three full stops in 2000 words made my eyes bleed, although having to read her tiny handwriting with a magnifying glass didn't help.

I've never bought a magazine where every article was something I absolutely had to read. Just like this forum, the most interesting stuff has always been on unexpected topics and the 'model' part of both MEW and ME is of very little interest to me.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Being brutally honest, it is not really fair to blame the publishers of a hobby magazine for sparse contents (I refuse "content" !) if the problem is too few contributions.

That is so whether a commercial "glossy" like ME and MEW; or a club newsletter – but I am rather biased. Although never a professional writer I have had letters published in ME, helped write two or three papers for the British Cave Research Association's Transactions; and years back I did time as editor of two, separate, caving-clubs' "Journals". Sounds fancier than "Newsletter".

A notable feature about the last, and this may be paralleled for some model-engineering club magazine writers and editors, was the effect of putting a lot of effort into the latter club's publication's appearance.

I was the first, and it eventually transpired last, of its volunteer editors to have used physical copy-and-paste techniques, and though unable to use photographs, those methods lifted the look of the Wessex Cave Club Journal over four 1980s years from rather staid to a style that helped encourage even more very good articles – it always had those. I did have an Amstrad PCW9512 for the text (and even used it for a book mss); but my successor could go much further technically, helping the magazine become a high-grade DTP creation rich in photos, the cover ones in colour, on its glossy paper.

Now, a commercial magazine can give us all the looks and more in shovels full, using professional techniques and skills few hobby clubs are likely to have. Yet for both commercial and amateur specialist magazines written largely by readers, looks are still only part of the story. They still need good, varied contributions from readers, and a plentiful supply and variety usually attract more articles – and about the publication's main subject..

It seems that as if the magazine is perceived as worth writing for, more people will write for it. I think good appearance without going too far suggests the publishers respect the writers' work, while worthwhile material is its own attractant.

'

Complaints about "our" magazines are not new. I have met those who say "There's nothing in Model Engineer", meaning there is, but they see it as mainly long serials about how to build things they are not building themselves.

Maybe so, but I sometimes glean information useful more generally. On the other hand, reading how someone milled some detail of very high-grade project will not necessarily teach us much about milling than is available more easily in the Workshop Series and similar reference-books. Besides, those accounts apply to the builder's own skills, machine-tools and accessories not necessarily duplicated in our own.

'

Cost will be a big factor of course, especially and sharply now, with everything else; with a fiver a fortnight shop price for ME. (I think MEW is similar). With cost comes value – is your year's stack of magazines more valuable to you than your Workshop Series collection (10, in mine); irrespective of which cost more to accumulate? (Or the two books on machining, that keep popping up right next to this panel, in the ARC ad…)

'

In recent times, ME has improved with the historical articles, museum reviews and the like; and I do approve of the policy of separating all the trade ads from the articles.

However, if in the end we might feel we don't get what we pay for; we won't if not enough of us write at least letters or short articles, not just the long constructional serials.

It's up to us, really!

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 19/08/2022 00:10:33

[Ebenezer GoodParticipant @ebenezergood76202]

Posted by Nicholas Wheeler 1 on 18/08/2022 22:42:00:

Posted by Peter Bryce on 18/08/2022 16:40:06:

Posted by Nicholas Wheeler 1 on 18/08/2022 16:23:45:

But the shed in question is a workshop which is a major part of the magazine's title!

Nonsense – using your logic, why not 7 pages on London Fashion Week?

Because let's face it, the designs are worn by a "model" which is a major part of the magazine's title!

Peter

That's one of the reasons why I've long argued that we should lose the 'model' part of the title! It does nobody any good and leads to stupid arguments about what is and isn't 'model engineering'.

I agree, very little modelling is done in my workshop, most of the work I do is general repair & modification of obsolete stuff, daft things like a hot tub pump £500 + to replace & no parts available modified to take an Ebay wet end and back in action for £80, door lock plates for my mate XK jag, and on the back burner a spline adapter for an obsolete Selva propeller shaft. I haven't bought MEW for a long time, I tend to surf forums and Websites for interesting material. The problem is you can't please everyone but a wider spread might be better.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

The very first edition of MEW opened with an editorial which included the line ‘the magazine exists to concentrate primarily on workshops and their use’ and surely an article on the repair of the roof of a workshop comes under this heading?

There is a long tradition of articles in ME and MEW which spun off from it on workshop buildings and their construction – indeed in 1905 H.Muncaster of steam engine fame wrote a series of articles on the subject.

I suspect that there are two reasons for this thread – firstly the article was not needed at this point by many readers although perhaps more might find it a useful reference and secondly there were undoubtably people upset that other subjects have not appeared because this one took up space – although like my fellow newsletter editors who have already commented sometimes it virtually takes red hot pincers and cattle prods to extract work from authors to have the variety of articles one might like!

Another thought is that some may consider this article an aberration as nothing like it has appeared recently – but surely that is absolutely the point – it is a topic of use/interest occasionally but not every issue or even every year.

Finally I can only add to the comments on contributing articles if you wish a subject to appear in MEW.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by JasonB on 18/08/2022 18:47:35:

MiM is also on there, even if you can't read the German you can look at the pictures.

Sounds about my level.

More seriously, can you print out pages of magazines in general from Readly, if you want to print out say drawings etc?

Edited By Hopper on 19/08/2022 09:28:49

[simondavies3Participant @simondavies3]

Posted by Andrew Johnston on 18/08/2022 22:06:26:

The stock answer to those who complain is to write an article for publication and enlighten us. I have written articles for ME and MEW, athough nothing recent for a variety of reasons.

So the challenge for Peter Bryce and Iain Hogg is to put pen to paper!

Andrew

+1

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

I have written articles for both magazines over the years and actively supported the hobby in other ways. MEW was spun off ME back in the 90s ! I kept all the issues from No1 and had thought that Issue No 300 would be something special, even as an MGB fan I found it a disappointment. I stuck with it for almost a year longer before reluctantly throwing in the towel ! May be it is time for ME to reabsorb MEW ? Noel.

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

If the magazine goes away from Model Engineering then I will drop my subscription.

Why would it need to drop the Model in the title of either magazine that is what they were aimed at to start with if you want to fix a bike or whatever using engineering tools then find a forum or magazine for that purpose or better still start your own magazine.

That is just my personal view on it and will not get into discussions as it will not change my mind

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Derek Lane on 19/08/2022 10:42:21:

If the magazine goes away from Model Engineering then I will drop my subscription.

Why would it need to drop the Model in the title of either magazine that is what they were aimed at to start with if you want to fix a bike or whatever using engineering tools then find a forum or magazine for that purpose or better still start your own magazine.

That is just my personal view on it and will not get into discussions as it will not change my mind

I've been buying hobby magazines for forty years. In that time none of the more practical car/bike magazines have covered workshop engineering practice and tooling beyond we machined a new part in a friend's lathe or buy a planishing hammer to do this. MEW is the only one that does that, and the various projects are usually good demonstrations of design/tools/methods/principles. I'm far more likely to recover a shed roof than produce bevel gears on a CNC, but they're both equally interesting.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 19/08/2022 00:06:22:

…those accounts apply to the builder's own skills, machine-tools and accessories not necessarily duplicated in our own.

That's one minor reason I stopped writing artlcles, and also why I no longer post here about my traction engine build.

Andrew

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

The whole debate about the Model in Model Engineer's Workshop is moot. It is a commercial matter of branding. The new owners paid a lot of money for the right to use the Model Engineers Workshop name, largely due to its association with with Model Engineer and its 100+ year history, plus the more recent 30 years or more of history of MEW itself. Anyone could start up a magazine and call it "Workshop". But it does not bring with it the heritage and authority that translates into sales.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Oh, please don't use that as a reason not to write.

My point there was that the serials recounting projects being built, are not necessarily instructions on how to build them!

They show instead how the builders are proceeding; but they often suggest methods adaptable to overcoming related process problems in our own, possibly very different, projects.

Obviously though their main theme is showing us the builders' achievements – the model itself.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Andrew Johnston on 19/08/2022 11:56:41:

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 19/08/2022 00:06:22:

…those accounts apply to the builder's own skills, machine-tools and accessories not necessarily duplicated in our own.

That's one minor reason I stopped writing artlcles, and also why I no longer post here about my traction engine build.

Andrew

I wish you would though!

I find it odd that professional technique and equipment being used for 'Model Engineering' upsets some people, almost as if it's cheating. Surely not?

My workshop is the best I can manage for what I need to do, which is hobby-experimental. Doesn't worry me that others have more space, wonderful tools, bigger brains, more money, and far more skill. I'm in the game for fun and interest, not willy waving. (Please don't post photos of impressive appendages!)

Dave

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 19/08/2022 12:21:30

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 19/08/2022 12:20:44:

Posted by Andrew Johnston on 19/08/2022 11:56:41:

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 19/08/2022 00:06:22:

…those accounts apply to the builder's own skills, machine-tools and accessories not necessarily duplicated in our own.

That's one minor reason I stopped writing artlcles, and also why I no longer post here about my traction engine build.

Andrew

I wish you would though!

I find it odd that professional technique and equipment being used for 'Model Engineering' upsets some people, almost as if it's cheating. Surely not?

My workshop is the best I can manage for what I need to do, which is hobby-experimental. Doesn't worry me that others have more space, wonderful tools, bigger brains, more money, and far more skill. I'm in the game for fun and interest, not willy waving. (Please don't post photos of impressive appendages!)

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 19/08/2022 12:21:30

OMG I wish I could unsee that.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

"My workshop is the best I can manage for what I need to do, which is hobby-experimental. Doesn't worry me that others have more space, wonderful tools, bigger brains, more money, and far more skill. I'm in the game for fun and interest"

My viewpoint exactly. We are all different, and constrained by our skills, time, interests, space, equipment and budget.

Consequently, articles need be cover a variety of subjects.

Personally, I am not inspired by CNC (Although it will produce results impossible to "Handle twirlers" ) and no longer into rebuilding cars, or machines, but there is always some information to be gained from such articles.

But overall, we always find something of interest, otherwise why would we buy, subscribe or submit articles?

And why would we be getting so hot under the collar about the content?

Not ALL articles will interest ALL the readers, ALL the time.

Maybe "Live and Let LIve" should be more often in our minds.

"If there is one thing that I can't stand, it is intolerance"!

Howard

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I should like to see a little more 'chatty' content in articles. There are a lot of things I am never going to make but an article with plenty of 'asides' makes for an interesting read. When we start out we are hungry for everything we can get regarding how to do stuff but as we get more competent what others are doing and why becomes of greater interest. Solving problems in interesting ways with less than adequte equipment and even tales of disasters (we all get them) make an article into a good read. I am a George Thomas fan as I've said probably too many times before and one of the things I like about George was his way of explaining how and why he came to design and build a particular piece of kit. After reading a piece by George you feel you knew him a little better.

I know some are better at this than others but personal content to me makes a run of the mill article into a pleasent read. ME and MEW are or should be something of the club magazine not just a text book.

regards Martin

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

i have read the article and found it of use. A cost comparison of different ways of reroofing would be helpful. i have always refelted using heavy duty felt. But have seen others use corregated plastic coated "tin" , bitumen or plastic, often on top of the felt.
The editors can only include articles that people are prepared to write. The pool of engineers must be dwindling as a result of product being sent abroad. The subset with the ability to write interesting articles will be smaller, as will those with the time and willingness to do it. sadly a lot of knowledge will / has disappeared with them.

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

This thread has shown many shades of opinion reflecting the content of MEW. I am not into models but I do admire the skills shown by builders who are. My interest has settled into machine tools, the repair of, improvements to where appropriate and interesting solutions to engineering and handling problems that are not CNC related [a closed field to me]

That being so there are not many who write on such topics for the magazine, but that doesn't detract from it as a whole which should reflect the varied interests of the readership, provided by those who chose to tell us about them.

From time to time material will appear which may not appeal to all but I do not think it fair to attack such articles with the vitriol that started this thread. 

Brian

Edited By Brian Wood on 19/08/2022 14:10:19

[Author]

Posts