What happened to the conclusion of CNC 4th Axis?

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

The 4th instalment of the series “An Accurate CNC 4th Axis”, published in Issue 178 of “Model Engineer’s Workshop”, ended with the message “To be continued”.

It didn’t appear in issue 179, and is not present in issue 180 that arrived this morning.

Anybody know the status; was the message wrong, or should there be another instalment?

Edited By Gary Wooding on 03/08/2011 13:48:33

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

Twas an error.

Series was concluded.

regards David

 

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

So now it’s finished is anything going to get published to point out the short coming of the design as was pointed out here ?

 

John S.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi John

No.

Without checking, I believe a lock was incorporated to stop it moving.

The writer had no problems anyway.

regards David

 

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

So what happens if I want to make a pair of these on the CNC 4th axis ?

 

 

No good locking the table off there as it’s under constant movement.

 

Be a bit of a pain engraving ad ial with 200 divisions and numerals oni f you have to lock off all the while.

 

John S.

Edited By John Stevenson on 03/08/2011 18:54:44

Edited By John Stevenson on 03/08/2011 18:55:02

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi John

Use professional equipment in a professional workshop.

regards David

 

Edited By David Clark 1 on 03/08/2011 22:52:28

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

So a model engineer is limited to using Micky Mouse techniques and equipment ?

 

Perhaps I ought to stop demonstrating this sort of work at Model Engineering shows with the type of machines found in a home workshop ?

[adyParticipant @ady]

To put things diplomatically.

 

You are being a teeny bit belligerent here David.

(Not your fault either. I know. Got loads to do too sans doubt)

Edited By ady on 04/08/2011 00:36:27

[adyParticipant @ady]

So it was really a 3axis article, which got completely unintentionally tagged as a 4-axis article.

 

(6 guinnesses talking here)

[Andrew EvansParticipant @andrewevans67134]

Should we be adopting a similar system to scientific publication in that articles are peer reviewed prior to publication?

[DerryUKParticipant @derryuk]

<Should we be adopting a similar system to scientific publication in that articles are peer reviewed prior to publication?>

I have thought this for a while now and the current mew 180 contains a couple of examples where this would have helped. But …

money is involved. Who will review articles for nothing? I can’t see the publishers wanting to spend more money.

A shame really.

Derry.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Posted by Andrew Evans on 04/08/2011 09:55:53:
Should we be adopting a similar system to scientific publication in that articles are peer reviewed prior to publication?

I had always thought of ME (and by extension MEW) as being the “Journal of Record” for the model engineering fraternity. In times gone past I believe ME had a technical editor who would check all articles and a panel of experts who could be called upon to comment on particuar aspects, such as electrical safety. I also had implicit trust in most of the contributers and would take anything written by George Thomas, Tubal Cain or Dennis Chaddock as gospel. Judging by the pleas from the editor for more articles I guess those days are gone, or possibly I am less naive.

If I had issues with an article I would write formally to the editor explaining my concerns which, if he felt they were valid, he could print in the magazine. This would thus be put on record to allow readers to make up their own minds. If I had a fix for the problem then I would hope that the editor would accept an article describing said fix.

 

Regards, Rod

[Anonymous]

I don’t think that the scientific review process is applicable to ‘hobby’ magazines such as MEW.

 

The purpose of peer review is to assess the validity of the work such as, is it original, are the conclusions reasonable from the work and/or data presented, does it add to the body of knowledge, is previous work correctly cited etc? It is not intended to correct basic errors. That is left to the author, who will receive proofs from the printers prior to publication to correct layout and composition errors. It can be a lengthy process, usually a year or more, from initial submission to publication and usually involving re-writes.This is an expensive process which is why subscriptions to scientific journals often run to hundreds, or thousands, of pounds per year.

 

I suspect that if the same criteria were applied to MEW there would be very few articles to publish. After all there’s very little in MEW that is genuinely new, in the scientific sense.

 

Regards,

 

Andrew

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Roderick Jenkins on 04/08/2011 13:05:09:

If I had issues with an article I would write formally to the editor explaining my concerns which, if he felt they were valid, he could print in the magazine. This would thus be put on record to allow readers to make up their own minds. If I had a fix for the problem then I would hope that the editor would accept an article describing said fix.

 

Regards, Rod

 

 

I did exactly that, sent a nicely worded email up for inclusion in postbag that outlined my own personal experiences and pitfalls.

 

It was ignored and that is why I voiced my concerns on this forum.

 

John S.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi John

It was not ignored.

I looked back through the article.

It had a lock on it.

It was fit for purpose for basic indexing and light milling.

If I did not use articles I perhaps disagreed with, I would be unable to publish anything.

I have to compromise between profesional engineering and an amateur and decide what is best.

I will use your letter in the next issue.

regards David

 

[DerryUKParticipant @derryuk]

OK, drop the words ‘peer’ and ‘scientific’.

 

Often an author cannot see his errors as he is too close to his work. Just because I can turn a piece of metal down to 5mm doesn’t mean that I can write about it. But, if I do and if revieiwed then the comment ‘did you really mean 50mm and not 5.0mm?’ can save the day.

 

Likewise in the current MEW issue, did the author really mean to connect live and neutral to the same terminal? We all know the answer I suspect.

 

Derry.

[Andrew EvansParticipant @andrewevans67134]

I guess MEW is somewhat unusual a magazine. Most other magazines you see on the shelves are not composed of articles sent in by readers but by professional writers. I think this is both an advantage in that anybody could in theory get their article published and a disadvantage in that the article may have problems.

I think the reader must ultimately assume responsibility for copying any ideas from the articles in MEW. If a design is poor you will either know by experience to avoid it or you will learn the hard way by wasting time and maybe some money but at least you will know for next time. There is the mechanism of scribe a line for readers to feedback on articles and I think it makes sense to publish as many of these as possible.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

One has to wonder that if this subject had not reoccurred nothing would have been done to address what could be short comings for some. ?

 

David is now going to publish a letter that was originally sent on 15/3/2011

 

Would it not have made more sense to publish it the time so builders could make up their mind whether the design was right for them ?

 

John S.

Edited By John Stevenson on 05/08/2011 12:57:42

[DerryUKParticipant @derryuk]

<anybody could in theory get their article published>

Wouldn’t want to stop that.

 

Is it me or is the standard of writing better in the ME?

 

Derry.

 

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

It seems to me that expecting “perfect” (i.e. professionally prepared and peer reviewed) articles is a bit much in what is essentially a hobby magazine. Certainly the author should include the design specification, which would include the “not required to rotate whilst cutting” in the case of the 4th Axis in question. For me part of the enjoyment is to take an article as a kick off point for my own contrivances, so any inaccuracies or errors are irrelevant.

cheers

Bill Pudney

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Bill Pudney on 06/08/2011 02:33:16:

It seems to me that expecting “perfect” (i.e. professionally prepared and peer reviewed) articles is a bit much in what is essentially a hobby magazine. Certainly the author should include the design specification, which would include the “not required to rotate whilst cutting” in the case of the 4th Axis in question. For me part of the enjoyment is to take an article as a kick off point for my own contrivances, so any inaccuracies or errors are irrelevant.

cheers

Bill Pudney

 

 

 

I agree with you Bill, however on the last statement would you, probably as a beginner , have realised without a discussion that there were some issues with a given design ?

 

I was in the same boat exactly some years ago hence my letter.

I built a head, far bigger and heavier than the one in the article and finished up scrapping it .

Should I have known better? I should but I didn’t and it cost me a fair bit of time and money as I had two timing wheels made up to suit.

 

John S.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

There does appear to be another part of the CNC 4th axis to be published .Also there appears to be some more of the converting Myford to CNC left to publish as well.

Obviously got missed after I handed it over to other staff.

Will sort it out in issue 182.

Issue 181 is virtually finished so too late to add it in there.

regards David

 

Edited By David Clark 1 on 06/08/2011 09:57:29

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