Technical and engineering drawing.

[michael coleParticipant @michaelcole91146]

I trained with the MOD(N) in the drawing office and I sometimes stuggle with the drawings in ME and MEW. Yes to a series on reading drawings.

For some reason I find Mr Hall’s drawings differcult .

Mike

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Sorry Howard that you think it would be dry to read about how to interpret and understand complex technical graphics. I recognise that attitude from the many adolescents I have met over the years who can’t be bothered with books or reading ‘cos they’re boring.’  I must admit that there have been many times when I was studying that I found things ‘boring’  but unfortunately that is part of learning at time, it can’t always be exciting.

 

CAD is ok and I have been working with parametric CAD programs (mostly AutoCad and ProDesktop as used by Aerospatiale) for at least 18 years and am able to produce some workable 3d designs and animations and have taught many youngsters to do the same. In fact I still get quite a lot of ex students greeting me on the street or in the pub and thank me for inspiring them to become Engineers, Graphic Designers and even one Shoe Designer. However there are very many existing designs out there made to traditional BS standards or as near to them as makes no difference and there is still no real substitute for orthographics when conveying detail.  (That is British Standards, not bog standards).

 

The argument you put forward about boring articles is of course very relevant, and there are many boring articles in ME and MEW which I skim over and put on the back burner. I do not for example pore over every word of the Club news articles or the Q1 series etc for example because they bore me to death, but I still read the rest of the magazine.

 

I also agree about Mogens drawings but his are not the only ones available there are very many orthographics that beginners may come across as kit drawings as well as original designs and they need to be able to read those. Of course in your argument that we ought not to bother about ‘usta’ I assume that we should scrap all our steam engines locomotives and older technologies because that’s how it ‘usta’ be, and only look to now and the future and not how we ‘usta’ do things. You must really celebrate our industrial decline ‘cos that’s how we ‘usta’ do things?

 

As for ‘getting a life’ I think that I have an ok one and regret that you are getting so personal, it really is not necessary. You know nothing about me or my life.   I don’t normally discuss personal details but in your case I will make an exception.

 

I am now retired after a very successful series of careers. I followed an apprenticeship with a large Engineering concern and worked in the toolroom. I have three University degrees from very distinguished institutions (Including one in Engineering and Mathematics, and one in Graphic Design plus an MA in Software Engineering), am considered intelligent (member of Mensa) and attractive. I have two children, one is a PhD in marine biology and works at the University of Queensland (lovely place to visit) while my daughter is a senior manager with a very large German based publisher and has just returned from a very successful business trip to Hong Kong and the far East where her husband also travelled to set up branches to his business.

 

My wife to whom I am absolutely devoted, as she is to me, is a very attractive and accomplished business woman and computer technologist 20 years younger than myself. In the next couple of days we are off to visit our property in France for a couple of weeks and I will return there for the summer after brief return to the UK after Easter to complete the setting up of my UK workshop. Following that we are returning to France earlier than normal this summer as we wish to visit the music festival in Carhaix as we cannot manage Glastonbury this year We have decided not to travel to France in our van this summer, as we have enough wine at the moment in our cellar to see us through for a year or so. So we now have to decide if we have enough room in mine or my wife’s MX5s with the hood off given the rather good weather forecast or whether we really should be practical and take our rather large executive saloon. Decisions decisions!! – is that enough of a life for you or should I fit in more – I could go on and on?

 

As I said earlier there are many young people out there who thank me for my inspiration in determining their successful careers and my support and help in getting there, and I find that thanks enough for a successful professional life, my personal one being extremely satisfying. How about you, what about your life?

 

Many kind regards

 

Terry

 

P.S. I had a chance to make several international trips over the last couple of years with my wife and I can recommend Sri Lanka, the seafood is wonderful, while I also enjoyed Zimbabwe and Botswana – lovely people despite their problems, but I think I enjoyed the scenery in the Andes most of all – you really should try it.  I must be off now Howard, I’ve got to go and get a life!

 

Terry 

Edited By Terryd on 18/04/2011 22:55:11

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Posted by Ian Abbott on 18/04/2011 19:40:29:

Though Terry’s intention is to assist in decyphering drawings, a series of articles would in fact help in teaching drawing to beginners, just by explaining how everything works together.

 

I’m pretty sure that this is the right way around – figure out what’s in a drawing and how it’s constructed before attempting your own. That’s certainly a good reflection of how I was taught at school back in the ’60s. Fortunately we had a joined-up system whereby you could actually attempt to make some of the things you’d designed and drawn (within reason), and I certainly learned a lot by doing this. I started out by making wooden models of things from my drawings, and progressed to metal later. We spent years doing all drawings in pencil, and it was only quite late in our training that we were introduced to the ‘joys’ of inking – none of us could afford Rotring pens, so I regularly spent days with inky fingers. I discovered later that Rotring pens didn’t make much difference to this!

 

Interesting thing about fag-packet drawings though – I still use them, usually when that critical link between having a drawing and actually machining it doesn’t go quite according to plan, and needs modifying. And even when I’ve modified an ‘official’ CAD drawing, I tend to keep the fag-packet ones. No, not really fag packets – I don’t smoke, and anyway there are too many Govt. Health Warnings on them these days – no room left.

 

But as Graham alludes, where does this happen in the education system any more? If somebody doesn’t document some of this stuff, it’s going to disappear within a generation, due to us being a post-industrial society now. I’ve been told that some of this process is the basis of modern CDT teaching, but I bet students don’t really appreciate the CAD stuff they immediately start with – they take it for granted, but I’d say that a true appreciation only comes after you’ve had to do it all by hand. One of the things I really appreciate about CAD is being able to annotate drawings; my hand-lettering was never that wonderful, and it took ages.

 

So even though I appreciate Geoff’s point about there being a fine line between reading/interpreting a drawing, and doing one yourself, I still think that Terryd is attempting to start from the right point in the process. It certainly worked for me, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t work for anybody else, whatever age they start doing it. And its absence from MEW over the years seems to be a somewhat curious omission, I must say. And like a lot of the other respondents to this thread, I’m not saying this because I want or need it – I truly believe that it should be there for the good of beginners.

[Ramon WilsonParticipant @ramonwilson3]

You know I’d really like to add something to this but what can I say – it’s all been said – is there really anything to add that’s been missed?

 

So many good reasons put forward to uphold Terry’s original offer made in good faith in the interests of most (though I accept not all) model engineers – and not neccessarily only the beginner.

 

If nothing else Terry you can sleep easy tonight knowing many of us can see that  what you are saying is for the good of the hobby.

 

Ramon

 

 

Edited By Ramon Wilson on 18/04/2011 23:02:34

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Ramon,

 

Once more your measured and kind words of wisdom are much appreciated,

 

Thank you and best regards.

 

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 18/04/2011 23:25:14

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Ramon, not many more ways of saying what has been said, but I think I have said before that a late cousin of mine always said from the time I first meet him that “every day is a school day” and over the years I have come to realise it is true. No matter how well or how long one has been doing anything you can always learn something new about it, someone else has learnt something you haven’t and vice versa.

 

An engineering background should always give you some sort of edge of understanding drawings, even if you don’t grasp every aspect of them, but as it has been pointed out, not all ME’s have an engineering background. Myself I believe I have always had a natural ability to understand mechanical things and being able to interpret most drawings and sketchs, but I can’t say I know all the rules and standards about them.

 

I also don’t believe that anyone finds every thing in every issue of ME or MEW interesting, I find many of them have a lot of non-interesting things to me in them, but then I’ll read a letter that someone has written or a posting on here that has a reference in one or the other mag’ and some interest is sparked off by that aspect of the artical, the artical itself still has no interest to me though.

 

Regards Nick.

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

Hello chaps,

This is a very interesting debate. However I think that a fundamental point has been missed. That point is, that a drawing should enable someone to make something.

cheers

Bill Pudney

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Bill,

 

That is exactly my point and I don’t think it was missed.

 

Best regards

 

T

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

At midday in Melbourne, there are 61 responses after less than two days. That is saying a lot about Terry’s idea.

 

I was also expecting more responses with regards to the little test. Are you too embarrassed to speak up?

No, it’s not a trick question Nick. It has everything needed to construct the SIDE elevation, and makes the point about `reading’ a drawing and the need for acceptable standards. Have a look at Steve Garnett’s posting on 18/04/2011 13:46:13. He mentions SWMBO and her `instant’ recognition of the missing view. Congratulations to her!

 

Hi Dick, And I thought I was old.

Terry, You mentioned Spatial Awareness. That’s something quite a few engineers appear to lack.

Geoff, Could it be that you are related to the man who most inspired me at school? His names was Robert (Bob) Sheppard and taught Practical Drawing at a Lancashire Secondary Modern.

 

Steve, I was delighted when (c.1960) we switched to ink drawing and `Page’ pens, and were able to get rid of all that graphite dust. Mind you, mistakes needed to be erased with an electric eraser, which could easily burn a hole through the tracing paper.

I’m probably babbling on too much, but . . . at a factory producing a wide variety of plastics mouldings (in those days they were thermosetting materials), we had to `tool up’ for a Bakelite switch plate. It was one of those small but extremely complicated shapes with faces, angles and curves which only a switch manufacturer could invent. To make sure we had all of the correct dimensions, it was decided that we should reconstruct the drawing from the dimensions provided.

 

No matter which way we tried, we couldn’t get any part of the drawing to meet where it should have met. Finally, the drawing was sent back to the customer so that they could review it and offer comment. I can’t recall the outcome, because I moved on to work with another company, but this was another example of why drawing standards and an ability to be able to read them are important.

When I was first introduced to Automotive Industry drawings here in Australia, (having been fully indoctrinated into 1st angle [English] projection), it felt as if I was being introduced to an appalling mess. It was 3rd angle with reference points somewhere in the middle of the vehicle. It was also hard to distinguish between construction and product outlines, because they were all the same thickness. Ugh!

Let me say also (as if it weren’t obvious), that I delight in seeing the old stuff , like the escapement drawing in `With the Watchmaker at the Bench’ by Donald De Carle c.1933, a style I often tried to emulate.

Here’s a copy . . .

Regards to all,
Sam

 

I wonder where the yellow went?

 

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

One thing I hate is when someone tells me that I must do this or that before I can enjoy my hobby.
I was told by some nurk that before I could join whatever I would have to attend a series of courses (lasting about 4 years). I am afraid I gave them a ‘dusty’ reply. I was then given a load of ‘verbals’ about my ‘attitude’ and that I should understand that they knew best and to use their facilities etc I needed to take the proscribed courses.

I do not know (nor do I want to know) what BS 308 is – it could be Boiling Stoppage no 308 for all I care. I have no idea what a 1^st or 3^rd angle is. I have seen drawings made by a ‘super designers/engineer’ (with a D.Phil) for something things which could never be made. I have heard of people, who were told to ‘work to the drawing’, and produced a box full of swaff. Try drilling a 13/16”hole into a ¾” boss.  A SNAFU as usual. needless to say the designer was never to blame. 

When I tried to join a local M.E. club ‘they’ visited my ‘shed’. They were very critical of some of my tooling (homemade stuff). I had only bothered to finish those surfaces which were necessary for precision and the way in which the tool worked. I should have surfaced every bit of the thing. To them even the natural finish of BMS was not good enough. I used ‘black iron’, and on some bits I had just brushed off the rust. The tools worked and did what I wanted.

The day when I have to please some jumped up little toad by years of study and courses in things I am not interested in or have to ask permission to enjoy myself. That is the day ‘I man the barricades’.

End Rant but I feel better for it.

Edited By Richard Parsons on 19/04/2011 07:39:16

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

I will ask about a drawing series in the MEW survey.

That will answer the question.

regards David

 

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

I am with Terry and Sam on spatial awareness, am I unique in being able to look at a “proper” drawing with dimensioned views, to construct a vision in my mind of the 3D object and to rotate it (again in my mind) just like the modern computer programs allow you to do? I think not, if the information is enough to do that, then the drawing is OK.

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Posted by Richard Parsons on 19/04/2011 07:34:59:

One thing I hate is when someone tells me that I must do this or that before I can enjoy my hobby………………….

I wholeheartedly agree Richard, but what I hate more is when some jumped up nurk thinks that he is the centre of the universe so articles etc are naturally aimed at him and is not simply able to ignore things that are of no interest. I also hate those narrow minded nurks who find the occasional mistake in drawing (oooh I have never made a mistake they say) and badmouths a whole technology. It;s rather like finding an occasional spelling mistake in Shakespeare and damning it as crap or a couple of bad notes in the middle of a Beethoven Sonata tells them all musicians are nurks, rather in the same way as rest of the adolescents I have come across.

 

However, to be brutally honest I don’t care whether you know what BS 308 is (laid out standards for engineering drawing for 73 years until 2000) in fact it is simply the equivalent of a dictionary in written or spoken language. If you find learning is dry and dusty you’ve had the wrong teachers, Remember the old adage, ‘things can’t be boring, only people’.

 

T

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, mistakes, who me? Well you must of heard the old saying; “he who has not make a mistake has not made anything”

 

Well I for one have made a few, both at work and in my own pastimes. many years ago I was called out to a breakdown during the wee hours to fit a new bearing in a machine which took a couple of hours. Later that day about dinner time I think, when I went in, I became aware that the bearing that I had changed, had to be replaced again. Now this bearing was notorious for being a frequent failure until the machine had a modification in that area. (bad manufacture design)

 

When I examined the failed bearing that I had fitted, I realised to my horror that I had fitted the wrong bearing type, luckily it was not uncommon for this failure to occur within a few hours of it failing, so no real inquiry was made to the cause. But with every bearing that failed so did the shaft and plate that it was mounted on fail also. The shaft and plate were made/repaired in house, but these bearings cost close to £300.00 a go, add that to the down time and the extra man hours to fit another bearing and repair the shaft/plate, makes a pretty expensive mistake.

 

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 19/04/2011 11:43:36

[Ramon WilsonParticipant @ramonwilson3]

Gray,

About five years or so ago our parish council sent round a ‘survey’ to see if villagers would be prepared to have £50 per year added to their Council Tax to pay for a very elaborate, and to most, totally over the top, community centre. Typically most villagers ignored it but of those who did respond, just on 300 out of a potential of 1200 households, well over 80% disagreed. The Chairman of said council then decreed that as so few had been returned this could only be construed as most had give their tacit approval! What’s this to do with the topic, well not a lot but does reinforce your view that surveys can be read to suit the need.

 

As I see it David has a difficult job in trying to keep a balance. What is ‘boring’ ( wouldn’t it actually be better if that was re- phrased as ‘of no interest’)  to one will not be so for another. ‘Pleasing all the people’ – etc is definitely to the forefront here. Wasn’t it just a while back that David said he had had complaints that a series on a building a ST-10 was too difficult because the complainant had no equipment? As an editor of a ‘model engineering’ magazine how do you actually deal with that?

 

However that said, just the response to the original post shows a high degree of support for what is being suggested so perhaps this should be re-considered in this light.

 

I agree totally with Nick in the belief that one can learn something everyday and that does not necessarily mean on matters relevant to engineering either. There is a saying normally used in a derogatory manner – “What he know’s would fill a book, what he doesn’t would fill a library” Well perhaps we should aim it at ourselves a bit more – what we do know may well perhaps ‘fill a book’ but what we could still learn may fill one or two more – despite the age we are at. And as for mistakes – well you’re right there too Nick. The difficult part for some however is admitting them. (One day I’ll relate the tale of the leadscrew nut).

 

I have a feeling this matter has yet to run it’s course. I do hope the outcome will be favourable to all but perhaps that’s rather optimistic.

 

Regards – Ramon

 

PS The community hall? No, never did get built. The actions of the chairman brought the village together like no other issue. It resulted in a Parish Poll with a 94% turn out.

 

 

Edited By Ramon Wilson on 19/04/2011 12:46:10

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

Posted by Graham Meek on 19/04/2011 12:55:49:

 

One thing about this type of Survey it is not using up any Paper stocks and costing ME in the process.

 

Unfortunately, another one of the (several) deficiencies of this website is that it doesn’t support proper polls in threads, as some do…

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Grahame

A fudge is not intended.

Surveys are useful and we take note of the people who fill them in.

There are plenty of boxes for readers to fill in answers, they are not all tick the box questions.

 

Hi Ramon

I had a few people complain about the Stuart series, the one I started, not Harold Hall’s one.

Result, I stopped publishing it.

This was because as editor I felt I should not put in what I got complaints about as it was written by me.

If a contributor had written it, not a problem.

Publish it for the benefit of those who would find it useful.

 

Having worked in engineering for many years, the methods used by many home workers without experience suprise me.

Then I realise that is how other people do it and then write about it in Model Engineer so teaching others.

I would rarely mark out a hole, centre pop it, drill it then clamp it on the mating part and spot through.

I would set each component in the mill and drilling them individually using the readout and then bolt them together.

They should then fit.

 

The chances are if I marked them out and drilled them, they would not go together as accurately as I would like.

 

Terry, write the first of your articles and I will look at it. If any good I will publish it in Workshop.

I will email you a set of guidelines shortly.

regards David

 

 

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I can foresee a big problem if an article on tech. drawing is published in MEW, all the ex draughtsmen ( me included probably) will find something not correct ,then it will all start off again.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Graham

You know it will be in Workshop don’t you?

 

Hurry up Terry

With your article, we get a new subscriber.

I might lose a few though.

regards david

 

Edited By David Clark 1 on 19/04/2011 14:50:27

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Gordon

No problem

Terry has stuck his head above the parrapet, you can shoot at him on the forum.

regards david

 

[Geoff SheppardParticipant @geoffsheppard46476]

Sam,

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but having done a quick check back to 1841, I can find no Lancastrian branch of the family. We are firmly rooted in West of England industry (mainly mining and early railways), with a major input from the forgemen of Pontypool. Perhaps that’s why I’ve found myself in the post of Chairman of the Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society!

 

Regards

 

Geoff

[The Merry MillerParticipant @themerrymiller]

I can foresee a big problem if an article on tech. drawing is published
in MEW, all the ex draughtsmen ( me included probably) will find
something not correct ,then it will all start off again.

 

From Gordon W.

 

I entirely concur with you on this issue Gordon.

 

Bearing in mind that most drawings that found their way to the checker would always come back to the original draughtsman for modifying, sometimes more than once because even the checkers missed things. Then once the Quality Engineer, the Production Engineer and finally the Chief Draughtsman have had their say, back would go the drawing again to the draughtsman for more corrections.

I’m talking about drawings done by hand on paper or melinex, even so once we started on CAD in the early 1980’s we still had the same problems to contend with but this time mainly in the interpretation of BS 308.

 

 

Being steeped in the intricacies of BS 308 drawing practice ( I wish I had kept my copies) No doubt at least 2% of it’s content will come flooding back. Happy days!

 

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

Ok I have had my rant. Now for something more constructive, when looking at some of the drawings in ME and MEWS I have difficulty in spotting the units used. Could the drawings have a simple code on them? Say ‘I’ for Inch, ‘M’ for Metric and ‘B’ for both.

I know it is a bit off topic, why not also put your surveys ‘on line’. One of the problems with postal surveys is that you fill them in but it is raining and the PO Box is ½ miles (0.8km) away. The P.O Box is full, sealed, the local Postmen on strike or what have you. With the ‘on-line’ version fill it in. press the button and go to the pub/feed the dog/lag SWAMBO for the winter.

I am not and newer was a trained professional artificer. All I know I either learned in dad’s workshop or learned by trial and error or from reading. My interests could have gone in two directions Model Engineering or wood carving. Somehow the iron beat the wood.

I find the quality of drawings in both ME and MEWS is good as I can understand them. I find photos even more useful as I can see what is what. I have two drawings in my album they are both dreadful, but they are the best I can do.

We were to have been taught Technical Drawing at my grammer school. Lesson 1 was how to sharpen our pencils and draw lines. It was OK. Lesson 2 was ‘incoherent’ and lesson 3, the teacher was ‘indisposed’ so ‘indisposed’ he had to be helped off the premises. So it was back to the confounded Gardening lessons which I hated. The only fun I had burying things, spades, trowels, hoes, the instructor’s hat, etc. I once nearly buried the instructor. After that they never let me near the manure barrow again.

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

It should be very welcome I think. Its thebasic language of what we do, and anyone who doesn’t understand engineering drawings just doesn’t “talk” engineering.

 

Theh problem is that many just don’t want to put any effort into learning the tools of the trade, and somehow in this modern world of quick fix games, no one will say “You need to know this now (metaphorically) pin your ears back an listen, because if you can’t do this, you are never going to make a model”.

 

Its rahter like the feeble minded responses about beginners articles being too complicated. They aren’t – mostly they are very good and well pitched, but in the same way that the authors are writing articles and not encyclopaedias, the beginner has to want to learn and has to take a magazine artircle as a basis for additional and personal research. Nowadays its all on the internet and easily googled anyway.

 

So I’d say go for it – illustrate it well with 1st 3rd and isometric drawings side by side. Those that want to learn will and will hopefully progress or join a model club and find help. Those who don’t have that motivation wil fall by the wayside, where probably they were going to fall anyway.

 

As for putting it in Workshop – that is a shame when you have beginners series on making this or that in ME.

 

 

 

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Hi Sam, doesn’t look like any one knows the answer to your trick/puzzle judging by the lack of responses.

Tony

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