Time for a name change?

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

The first 15 months of my 5 year engineering apprenticeship in the early 60's was spent on bench work using the basic tools eg 2lb/half lb hammers, cold chisels various,files, rule/scriber,calipers etc,that was the way I learnt and when the electric went off or l was in the depths of the Malayan jungle or the middle of the Atlantic armed with these skills and a basic set of tools almost anything was possible. I am glad I experienced those days, personally I prefer the old school way of doing things but if I was a youngster nowadays I would probably be using these modern techniques,the world moves on but it is rewarding to do stuff by hand

Mick

[Involute CurveParticipant @involutecurve]

I've built a few of bikes using a lot of CNC milling + manual milling and lathe work, I also make all my tanks and frames etc by hand, when I say by hand I don't mean this literally, I use various tools! inc. wheeling machine, shot bag, hammers, files, tube bender, Gas and tig welding, etc etc etc.
On one of the bike forums someone posted a picture of my bike, stating anyone could do that if they had a CNC machine, all you do is press a button, I extended an invitation for him to pop round to my workshop and press this button, with the offer he can keep the bike he makes.

I've been waiting ages for him to turn up…..

Some people will never know they don't know……….

Shaun

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I really haven't read anything in this thread as a good argument for a name change. The title is Model Engineer, it hasn't been called MMLME or MMME (Manual Metal Lathe Model Engineer or Manual Milling Model Engineer) or anything similar, it fact IMO the title does not suggest any particular machines or tools should be used and you don't need a machine at all to make an engineering model. I don't have anything that is CNC and doubt that I ever will, but that dose not make me believe it should not be included into Model Engineering, however if it became a dominant feature in Model Engineer, I would stop buying it. I believe the fundamental reason for Model Engineer is, that it is aimed at hobbyists with engineering in mind and as we have read on here, includes telescopes and photography amongst other things, but it still doesn't mean that every one has to turn to CNC. Must be a pun in there somewhere.

Regards Nick.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Roger Provins 2 on 05/01/2016 15:18:15:

I can still mange 10 hours a day when needed, I'm 73.

Have only one car not two and the rain cleans that.

Never had rented accommodation.

Never had a two up two down.

Never had to skive off to a shed, my wife never complains – she has her own hobbies.

Never shop at Ikea or Dunhelm.

Never have watch TV if I don't want to and I can't imagine my wife watch Eastenders or other crap.

 

So, as has been said, we're all very different.

Rog

 

Certainly wasn't having a pop at you Roger, in fact I went back and re-read the post to be sure and yes I didn't mention you at all. No Roger Provins of this parish was mentioned at all.

 

However you read my post from your point of view only, starting each point with Never, and then said " we're all different" a point I have stressed a few times.

Edited By John Stevenson on 05/01/2016 20:54:37

[Roger Provins 2Participant @rogerprovins2]

Posted by John Stevenson on 05/01/2016 20:38:58:

………….

Certainly wasn't having a pop at you Roger, in fact I went back and re-read the post to be sure and yes I didn't mention you at all. No Roger Provins of this parish was mentioned at all.

However you read my post from your point of view only, starting each point with Never, and then said " we're all different" a point I have stressed a few times.

Edited By John Stevenson on 05/01/2016 20:54:37

I know you weren’t John, if it sounded that way I'm sorry.

Referring back to earlier posts by several members: I actually agree with a lot that been said and I'm not anti CNC at all it's just that having worked with computers and programming a good chunk of my life now I'm retired I really don't want any more

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

One think I have not seen mentioned so far and this applies more to a CNC mill than CNC lathe.

This is the massive time saving on jigs and fixtures whether it be for one job or a run of jobs.

Simplest classic example is the stepper drive rotary tables or dividing heads with the Division Master or Ward indexer fitted. A button press to swap from any division to any other. No having to swap plates, no having to work or look up the new settings and piece of mind that you don't have to sacrifice a chicken so you don't loose count.

It is a one axis CNC after all.

Take a look at this job.

Four cylinder camshaft, not to fit anything just an exercise.

Now loads of people have made these, plenty of instructions out there all about the jigs and what radius to throw them at, then rotate so many degrees and do the other flank, then file the base circle.

How many chickens does one of these take ?

Here's the jig to do it, you may even recognise it as the thinly disgusised one you have.

As it wasn't for anything other than a test exercise we ran at the shows, we took the data for the Nemmit engine out of Malcolm Strides article and pasted it into Excel.

We then told it when it had finished that cam, move along 13mm, go round so many degrees equal to the overlap and run the code again.

The Excel file was just copied and pasted into the CNC machine because a G-Code after all is only a text file.

No chickens were harmed in the making of these 6 or 8 camshafts we produced over a weekend.

We could have produced a lot more but no one stands there watching from start to finish and

[a] it saves metal and setting up and

[b] gives you chance for a natter and walk round.

[Chris GunnParticipant @chrisgunn36534]

Here is my two penorth,

As far as name changes go, I would substitute Miniature for Model.

In my circle of Miniature engineers, at the older end of the scale in most cases, only 1 out of 30 or so has any CNC equipment capable of producing components and 1 has a CNC engraver, so only a small percentage of CNC compared to "traditional" methods. None of these 20 will buy any CNC equipment, but most appreciate what can be done and would readily buy CNC made parts.

Will new comers to the hobby start out with CNC if they are not from an engineering background? I would suggest not if this forum is anything to go by, most of the threads I read by newcomers describe buying traditional hand operated machinery and learning how to use it. I cannot remember reading a thread where someone says they have just bought a CNC lathe as a first machine and asking for help.

I would imagine that younger entrants to the hobby who have a background in CNC could well go down the CNC route provided they could afford the equipment.

When all is said and done, the CNC machinery can assist in the manufacture of most of the parts, but at the end of the day the parts must be assembled, fettled, cleaned up, tested, timed painted, lined, all of which rely on traditional skills, so being able to produce a nice miniature requires a lot more skills than programming a CNC machine, and it is a worry that very competent CNC machinists may not have the skills to turn a pile of nicely machined parts into a 5" G locomotive.

Chris Gunn

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Thank you Roger, I wasn't upset, I don't upset easily anyway- lifes too short.

For all, sorry if it seems I come across as being very Pro CNC, in fact I'm not. Most of my work is done on manual machines because usually everything is in a rush, I very rarely use or have drawings which is a must for CNC if it's complex

Simple stuff like 90% of lathe work can be done conversationally, just filling boxes in. A lot of simple mill jobs can be as well

With no drawing a lot of stuff is seat of pants job where you have to creep up on things.

What I don't agree with are the people who just poo-poo it out of hand as cheating or they already have closed minds.

Now the folk on here who have replied to this thread and say they want to get back to basics and enjoy doing it this way then fine, good luck to them, that is their choice, they haven't dismissed it out of hand for others.

My CNC's, two mills and a lathe, only get switched on when it's necessary to perform something that's faster or easier on them. Often because of what I do that can even be weeks inbetween.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Chris.

A lot of the younger beginners into a hobby such as this are ignoring this one and going straight into the maker movement.

They are computer savvey, they have all the latest gear phones, tablets, apps coming out of their ar ears and they want everything for nothing. With a lot of the open source stuff they can get it.

It's all about now, as settling down to build a loco that takes 3 to 10 years is not for them. To much new stuff has come out in the meanwhile. A drone bought last Christmas, 2014, will have lost it's appeal after only a couple of months and they are on to something else.

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

Hi John, you said in an earlier comment about getting a cnc lathe 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure it was in 1995 at Ally Pally MEX that someone was demonstrating an Emco PC cnc lathe, the small one (NOT SL) with 2 circular rails for a bed, anyone else recall that far back ?

Have you read all those ME's yet or were they otherwise disposed of ?

Emgee

[MalcBParticipant @malcb52554]

When homeworkshop CNC machining gets to this level, them maybe a name change would be in order.

**LINK**

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Malc,

We must be there then.

 

 

A crank we did at the shows at the same time we were doing the camshafts, we alternated the jobs to show a bit of interest.

 

Ignore the last two throws being off I got bored with 180 degree cranks, though this might be a challenge to time up ?

 

 

Funnily enough the code for this was done by hand and it was only about 10 lines long [ edit 22 ] as it's two mathematical formulae that work together, one for Y and one for Z, then repeat every pass until the journal is done.

 

In operation X once set doesn't move, Y goes in and out at the same time that Z moves up and down so the centre of the cutter is always over the centre of the journal. When machining, being a formulae and not a G-code it just sat on the screen and no one could understand it so at the end of the first day we ran the formulae thru Excel and got it to spit the G-code out. Following day because people could see the G-code scrolling thru they were far happier but said bet that took some coding.

 

This was the original code:-

 

#1=[30] ;BAR
#2=[15] ;PCD
#3=[10] ;PIN
#4=[18] ;Passes
#5=[0] ;A
#6=[1] ;Pass

G0 G21 G49 G40.1 G17 G64 G80 G50 G90 G98
M6 T1
M03 S4000
G43 Z10.0
G00 A0.0 Y0.0 X5
M98 P003 Q#4
A0.00
M5 M9
M30
%
O003
#5=[0]
G00 Z2.0
G00 A#5
G01 Y[[#2/2]*SIN[#5]] Z[[[#1/2]-[#2/2*COS[#5]+#3/2]]*[#6/#4]*-1]
M98 P004 Q358
#6=[#6+1]
G00 Z2.0
M99

O004
#5=[#5+1]
G01 A#5 Y[[#2/2]*SIN[#5]] Z[[[#1/2]-[#2/2*COS[#5]+#3/2]]*[#6/#4]*-1]
M99

Edited By John Stevenson on 05/01/2016 23:25:28

[MalcBParticipant @malcb52554]

John,

Yes, then it's got to a time for a name change.

I knew it was only a matter of time before a string of 'G' codes appeared.

You know what I thought when I first watched the video was:

Would I ever want a crankshaft made from solid bar stock in an engine of mine?

Surely with that amount of metal removal and the complex section changes left remaining, there must be a high level of induced stresses now present? Heat treatment would surely distort? Maybe vacuum stress relieving, who knows.

Or maybe just a demonstration/promotional video.

Edited By MalcB on 05/01/2016 23:45:29

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

Is that between centres John and did you leave something for grinding or finish with the milling cutter ?

Emgee

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Posted by MalcB on 05/01/2016 23:44:55

Would I ever want a crankshaft made from solid bar stock in an engine of mine?

Surely with that amount of metal removal and the complex section changes left remaining, there must be a high level of induced stresses now present? Heat treatment would surely distort? Maybe vacuum stress relieving, who knows.

Malc- my 3-1/2" gauge "Kozo Hiraoka" designed Shay has a crank shaft turned from solid.

Here is (hopefully) a link to a museum page – there is a picture of a completed crankshaft:

**LINK**

Totally FYI – John.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Malc,

It was just a demonstration but I'm curious about your remark, "would I want a solid bar stock in an engine of mine ? "

 

Not being an expert on model engines I thought most were like this or silver soldered up for bits ? In fact at the show it was noticable the number of folk who came up to us and remarked, "wish i'd got that, I was making a crank for my Lesser Crested Supercharged Hyphenated Gronge and the tool dug in, ripped it out the chuck and bent it all up"

 

One guy was on his 4th but in all fairness this was that tiny Whittle V8

 

Also as far as I know no-one heat treats model shop made cranks but as I say I'm no expert.

 

Emgee.

The blank has held in pot chucks and retained by a grub screw, you can see it better in the shot of the camshaft.

Because it was just a demo and for ease of setup both the crank and the cam shared the same pot chucks. The rotary table end was made from a MT2 blank end arbour just bored out and cross drilled for the grub screw.

The tail stock end as the same but parallel and not MT2. once the blank was fitted the tailstock was pulled to tension it and not pushed which would have put pressure on the blank as metal was removed.

Not a new idea at all, The old Victorian production wood lathes used the same idea. It was the only way they could turn the long slender stair spindles without them bowing and the operator wearing one.

We programmed the pin for 10mm diameter and once they had come off the CNC mill they were polished with scotchbrite on a manual lathe to clean them up. Hardly took any cleaning up. The finished up at about 5 thou bigger than they should.

Could have tweaked the program but TBH never even measured them until the job was done, all were within a thou of one another but we had not played with the tailstock hight or anything, as I say it was just a demo of how easy CNC made of a manual operation.

 

We tried to show these things instead of like many just engraving names on a bit of plastic.

 

[ EDIT ] Because of this we only machined throw journals and never plain main journals which would be an easy turning job.

Edited By John Stevenson on 06/01/2016 00:17:51

[MalcBParticipant @malcb52554]

Mmmmmmm…..just thinking aloud how the material stability of a bar stock produced crankshaft like the one in the video would be against that of a drop forged item. Not really an area I have any experience in I am afraid.

I have however seen a few stability issues from bar stock machining on expensive duplex stainless where material has been continually moving whilst metal removal was taking place. In particular where the biggest section changes were.

Not sure if this ever happens or takes place with low or higher carbon steels, maybe others can say?

Interesting link as well John A.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

ETW was confident enough to have solid crankshafts in most if not all of his IC engines? – but i don't see how that relates to whether or not you use CNC.

 

As for name changes – well 'the hobby' (or 'hobbies' will be called whatever the people doing it want, there's no regulatory body.

 

That said, my assumption was that the term Model Engineering owed its popularity to the influence of Percvival Marshall and his publication.

Google's ngram viewer suggests otherwise:

Looking at the details, though, this is from a very small sample. Most examples from the mid-19C use the expression to mean 'a good example' such as:

"Here comes Martin, the model engineer, in a lovely state," said one of the men. " Drunk again !" (1868).

That said, there is firm evidence for the term referring to making models before then.

In an 1874 book I found an ad for "The Model Engineers' Handybook", which is "A Practical Manual on the Construction of Model Steam Engines." The 1902 Seventh Edition is readily available if you google its title – there must have been quite a demand for this book!

Of course, as soon as people started selling machinery, salesmen needed models as they could hardly cart around a full-sized beam engine to show a prospective customer.

This 1851 passage by Alfred See (sic) not only shows that a model engineer made models then, but that it was both a profession and the use of advanced modern techniques rather than handywork to speed things up is not a new phenomenon:

Mr James' eminence suggests that 'model engineers' were a well-established profession by then!

In the absence of any real research, might I venture that model engineering started in this way as a specialist skill complementing the work of full size engineers. As the making of scale models spilt over into practice jobs for apprentices and then became a hobby for this working on full size machines and interested amateurs, it's natural that the name would be used.

Percival Marshall (and before him Paul Hasluck) popularised the word, no doubt. The very broad church that was The Model Engineer and Practical Electrician must have been the main influence on the definition of the hobby in the early 20th Century – focused on live steam but encompassing all aspects of the construction of small mechanisms in the home workshop.

I am sure Percival Marshall would be totally confounded by this hand-wringing about CNC. He enthusiastically embraced any new technology as it appeared and actively encouraged experimentation. I'm sure he would have seen CNC as just another box of tricks to use in the hobby, not an existential crisis.

From my own perspective, I don't see CNC as a threat to anything – it's just another example of how our hobby reflects full size practice.

Surely what matters to the future health of our hobby is encompassing as wide a range of engineering approaches, subjects, materials and skills as possible?

Neil

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Edited By Neil Wyatt on 06/01/2016 08:28:33

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

This chap, Doug Sleigh, says it very well:

http://www.nwlsme.co.uk/index.php/engineering/48-modern-methods-in-model-engineering

"To summarise there are lots of new technologies available to us as model engineers to me it's nothing to be scared about and there is no distinction between old and new methods all are valid none should be dismissed. I have a lathe from 1939 and a CNC machine from 2014 and I use both equally. As long as you enjoy your hobby there are no wrong methods."

Neil

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

If the OP wants to change their name that's fine by me. If they were asking how there is information on the web. Just search deed poll.

I find it hard to believe they were suggesting a forum name change so perhaps the above answers their question. If not a more precise name for this forum would probably be hobby-engineering 'cause that doesn't imply what people choose to make or the techniques they use to do it. model-engineer does imply what people choose to make and some, maybe the majority do actually do that, most of the time. This doesn't imply anything about what they choose to use.

Then there will be some people who have commercial interests in the area – it's not a hobby for them. Perish the thought but some might be model engineers and just make to sell.

John

–

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

There is one thing that bugs me about CAD on another forum, the ones that come up with a 3D drawings of a proposed engine design (Stirling Engine), with inference that "I'v drawn it so it works", but when it's analysed, there's no way it's going to work. My suggestion is (sometimes), have you built a proof of concept model?

The use of computer drawing on that forum is wide spread, from India, USA, Eastern Europe, and Australasia, and often by youngsters still at school.

Ian S C

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

On a Professional visit to a well known science based enterprise near to me it was observed by my guide that, when the "engineers" first come here from University we have to teach them "that just because they can draw it does not mean it can be made or work"

[egaParticipant @ega]

Neil Wyatt:

Excellent post on the derivation, etc of "model engineer" – thank you. I did a case-insensitive ngram search on the phrase and got rather different results from yours with the three variations separately plotted.

I took ME for many years but, after a period of reading MEW as well, opted for the latter. It's interesting to compare the slogans on the front cover, the latest being "THE GREAT MAGAZINE FOR HOBBY ENGINEERS" and the first "THE NEW, PRACTICAL HOBBY MAGAZINE".

[Geoff TheasbyParticipant @geofftheasby]

Wasn't it James Watt, who, apprenticed to an instrument-maker, was asked to repair a model of Newcomen's steam engine, at Glasgow University? (Not checked, off the top of my head)

Regards

Geoff

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Posted by Ian S C on 06/01/2016 09:52:00:

There is one thing that bugs me about CAD on another forum, the ones that come up with a 3D drawings of a proposed engine design (Stirling Engine), with inference that "I'v drawn it so it works", but when it's analysed, there's no way it's going to work. My suggestion is (sometimes), have you built a proof of concept model?

The use of computer drawing on that forum is wide spread, from India, USA, Eastern Europe, and Australasia, and often by youngsters still at school.

Ian S C

Not certain which forum you are talking about but if you look at Grabcad, a lot of their stuff is just plain rubbish. I found an engine there recently that looked really exciting and probably talked well down the pub but when you looked closely you could see the turbochargers were connected up backwards. But of course it would never leave the virtual desktop anyway, so nobody would ever be disappointed.

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