What is (Traditional) Model Engineering?

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

Bazyle

As Jason says my question was related to his earlier comment, the thought did cross my mind regarding posting elsewhere but like most topics they get a mixed lot of postings.

Emgee

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Two posts bringing polititians into it have been binned. You know the rules.

[derek hall 1Participant @derekhall1]

I find this topic very interesting to be honest, and although it has drifted somewhat from the thread title towards engineering in general.

With so many now doing degrees (it seems many pointless degrees to be honest) and with that maybe comes a percieved sense of entitlement. The word “engineer” paints the picture to them of doing practical work, getting your hands covered in oil and wearing a boiler suit all day, a ghastly vision appears in their mind!

In a previous post, it was mentioned about planners, thinkers and schedulers etc, and I get that. The “actually doing” is the type of work that seems to be thought of as a task by those who went to uni, as a relatively unskilled dirty job that plebs do esp those that didn’t go to university.

This is a discussion that regularly comes up with regards to the word “Engineer” and what people outside the world of engineering think it means.

The big problem not just in attracting people young and old into the world of model engineering is attracting people into engineering as a career, at all levels.

Several points have been raised in this thread, such as no space for a shed in the garden of a modern house (certainly not a spare room), cost of tooling up, time invested, etc against alternative things to do in ones spare time, esp if you have a young family, mortgage or rent and work long crazy hours.

I wonder if the world of model railways, model boats and Amateur Radio are having a similar problem with attracting newcomers?

I am 66 and currently starting out in learning about the Raspberry pi, not model engineering but it’s a STEM “thing” and if I can maybe introduce this to my 7 year old grandson it might spark into life a rewarding career in engineering for him. Whether he ends up in his 50’s doing model engineering though, who knows! But the spark doesn’t exist at present and maybe never will if there is no one to create it.

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Hi All,

I have tried to have a skim through this thread but I really struggle with the longer posts so apologies,  I haven’t read too much.

I don’t really do much in the way of building / making models, more just make stuff that I can use or to solve a problem that is in my head. I see something and think ‘but I could make that’ so have a go but I joined this Forum after reading several for a good while and this one stood out by far as the least full of keyboard warriors and seemed to have the most genuine and helpful folk so here I am

I have always kind of had an affinity for diagnosing and fixing stuff. Yes it failed / broke but why?

How I started, came home from school when I was 10, parents had had a bought VHS recorder. My dad was at work (power station) so I took it out of the box and set to it with screwdrivers and stripped it apart completely to see how it worked (there went the warranty!) . My mum just kept asking if I know what I was doing. My dad came home from work and, well to say he had something of a tantrum is a mild understatement!! Within half an hour it was back together, connected up and working perfectly. That’s when he realised that it was going to be a little more than me just asking never ending questions when he was working in his garage.

Comprehensive school – occasionally, hated every second of it but still got c or above in the proper exams.

Ended up doing either Marine, Agri / plant or motorcycles (with a brief few years in IT). Last job was full time Station Mechanic for the RNLI, been volunteer crew since late 80’s but ended up getting a full time job with them till I got injured.

I really want to get into Fusion 360 / SE or similar but my brain really struggles with learning that sort of thing, I need someone to show me – monkey see monkey do.

What was that I was saying about longer posts? sorry!

Anyway, that’s my bit of background 🍻

[derek hall 1]

On derek hall 1 Said:

I find this topic very interesting to be honest, and although it has drifted somewhat from the thread title towards engineering in general.

I tried to explain the relationship in a couple of posts, but they were already much too long!    Thing is Model Engineering doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  The hobby, like many others, depends on the “big picture”; which is engineering today.  When youngsters are taught the National Curriculum, they will be told about CAD/CAM, not manual lathes and mills.    Though manual machines were fading fast when I left school in the distant past, they were still fairly mainstream, hence relevant and interesting.   Much less so today!  More likely to see manual lathes in a museum than in action. Engineering has moved on, and a youngster looking at traditional Model Engineering today is unlikely to relate to it!   It does appeal to older men though.

With so many now doing degrees (it seems many pointless degrees to be honest) and with that maybe comes a percieved sense of entitlement. The word “engineer” paints the picture to them of doing practical work, getting your hands covered in oil and wearing a boiler suit all day, a ghastly vision appears in their mind!

In a previous post, it was mentioned about planners, thinkers and schedulers etc, and I get that. The “actually doing” is the type of work that seems to be thought of as a task by those who went to uni, as a relatively unskilled dirty job that plebs do esp those that didn’t go to university.

Having finished my career in a senior engineering/management position, I’d say the prejudice is the other way round.   My view that engineering is a team sport isn’t original.  Senior engineers know that skills are essential at all levels, and value them.  Though it happens, and may have been common in the past, looking down on the workforce is rare.  Though I joked “staff are like carpets, they exist to be walked on”,  the reality was respectful.   Unfortunately, hands-on technical workers often assume they are looked down on.   Many examples on the forum of chaps believing that their narrow practical skills and “common sense” make them superior to blokes who can do the sums and understand the text-books!  Maybe supported by an apocryphal example involving meat pies.  🙂

For historic reasons, many practical men have a massive chip on their shoulders!  Not entirely without cause – leaving school my GPO techie friends were delighted to be paid above average for their skills, but were seriously annoyed to find in middle-age that promotion was nearly impossible.  Their skills were valued, but the employer didn’t trust them to do management, which requires different skills. Unfair I think.     Whoever is responsible for the rift between engineering levels though, the result is toxic.   Last thing a project needs is a team where everyone despises everyone else.

…

I am 66 and currently starting out in learning about the Raspberry pi, not model engineering but it’s a STEM “thing” and if I can maybe introduce this to my 7 year old grandson it might spark into life a rewarding career in engineering for him. Whether he ends up in his 50’s doing model engineering though, who knows! But the spark doesn’t exist at present and maybe never will if there is no one to create it.

Good idea, and I think doing Raspberry Pi will come in handy later as the boy rises through the education system: he will be able to tap into your experience.  Could spend years simply investigating how Pi’s work – very interesting.  Programming is fully supported – the full set of UNIX software development tools as well as easier to learn, but powerful,  languages like Python.   Thousands of application packages to explore if that’s your thing rather than programming.   A multitude of practical possibilities: my nephew set his up as a media server, and one of mine is a data logger. The Pi has a very unusual capability – whilst running a full-blown multi-user/multi-tasking operating it also exposes GPIO ports, and can connect directly to electronic projects.   And many electronics projects drive electro-magnetic machines, for which a lathe and mill are needed. The boy will want them, just not immediately.

Model Engineering and interests of youth are connected, but not in the straightforward obvious way that attracted LBSC into the hobby.  LBSC joined when a mechanical workshop was state-of-the-art.   Though mechanical workshops are still important, they’re rarely where a young person would start.

If the hobby is to survive it’s necessary to understand the problem, which is why Martin started the thread: it’s part of a SMEE initiative to tackle what’s become an ageing hobby.  (I am an ageing hobbyist.)  My view is that the best approach is to appeal forcefully to older folk approaching retirement, whilst simultaneously raising our appeal to youngsters.   Youngsters won’t rush to join, but planting seeds early will pay off:  I wouldn’t be surprised for it to take 30 years before they come back.

Exactly what the seed should be isn’t clear to me.  Steam engines and clocks are exceptionally good, as are smoke and smell devices like a spark eroder.  Trainee projects like tap-wrenches and centre-punches are definitely not seeds!   Nor are elderly men burbling nonsense about the perceived shortcomings of modern youth, or trying to sell out-dated favourites like Imperial Measure.   All we have to do is come up with an exciting mechanical thingy, needing an ME workshop and build skills, that will stick in their memories for a few decades, and not require a brain the size of a planet to understand!  Something mixing computers, electronics, and a mechanical do-dah with a high wow factor.   All suggestions welcome.

Dave

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Sorry Bit off topic ‘cos I didn’t look back far enough. There are some discussions around the internet (as usual) of people trying to decide between SE/F360/FreeCAD. Owing to your post I’m now reconsidering F360. Best drop this subject from this thread now.

[simondavies3Participant @simondavies3]

Hum, interesting thread, sounding similar to many others in the past.

However, it differs from many of those in that some contributors have identified a couple of points that I wholeheartedly agree with:

• There is a fixation around live steam – operating and building yet another design
• There is a deep focus on the purest forms of machining metal – lathe plus mill – and little regard to methods of joining metals apart from silver soldering/brazing

I appreciate that #1 probably drives income towards clubs, especially in the UK and is visible, tangible evidence of ‘what people do’, but at the same time it is (In My Opinion, rarely humble) a very siloed and limited focus.

Designing, redesigning and building models of a form of locomotion that reached it’s peak development around 90 years ago would appear to be a self limiting route to take. On rare occasions, I see articles which mix live steam with a much more modern technology to improve the breed, make live steam more efficient or add something that wasn’t possible 50 years ago. Here I am thinking of TiG welding boilers, microcontrolled boilers, data collection and monitoring using computing instead of mechanical methods of analysing efficiency and loads…

Caveat here – if all you want to do is build locomotives and/or drive them on a track, this clearly isn’t a comment aimed at you!

 

In my opinion (rarely humble as mentioned above), there is too little regard given to more modern techniques available to e.g. join metals together – many of us have MiG sets that can ‘glue’ bits of steel together, some even have TiG which can produce a very pretty joint. However the standard, default method is silver soldering which in turn, limits the metals used to brass and derivatives and steels. There are some exceptions such as Jason who literally glues bits together and makes good with more glue. I have recently been looking at metal forming using electro-plating – fascinating and in conjunction with a 3D printed part, the opportunity for creating some very interesting components. But not an obvious technique for here…

Furthermore, there is little cross-technology going on – obviously merging microcontrollers and eg a steam plant isn’t to everyone’s taste or desire for relaxation, however for younger generations who don’t see the logic behind excluding a particular technology, it can only be seen as a bar.

 

In summary:

·         ABS (Anything But Steam)

·         Mix the methods with some alternative joining/machining

·         Look at the larger engineering field beyond the pure metal removal techniques

Apologies for those who just want a quiet life building their next 8F or whatever, but if we want to attract people into this model engineering field, it needs to be attractive and not focused on a couple of niche interests.

As an aside, my background is growing up in a family where the first task if something broke was to take it apart and hopefully fix it, usually with Araldite. My first lathe at 18, followed by an electronics degree, motor sport as a diversion. Then into the software end of telecoms, supporting, selling and other commercial activities and diverting myself combining technologies to build my own CNC mill followed by 3D printers and the software/hardware to match. In parallel, acquiring and using all forms of welding. Now, 40+ years later, still doing similar things, learning how to use some recently inherited woodworking equipment, still fixing and prototyping.

 

Just my 5c, I will now go back to my “Light Engineering”, using my machine tools to build, repair and prototype for my own specific interests

Regards,

Simon

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

One of the issues with “Model Engineering” is the name!  In the context of hobbies “model” immediately raises pictures of airfix kits and the like.  Some of us make such things, many of us don’t.   Branding is important.

 

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I guess the issue is that the meaning of words change over time and ‘model engineering’ has been going for a long while. Initially I suspect it referred in part to the production of working models of large steam engine installations used for demonstration, education and sales purposes. Modelling in its wider sense has not gone away rather the reverse. When we wish to create something new in the engineering sphere and indeed many other disciplines we attempt to model it first to try out ideas, refine the design or establish the theory of the science.

A little like the debasement of the word engineer which can mean someone who fixes your washing machine to the person able to design a nuclear power plant, the term model engineer can suffer linguistically.

Personally I liked ‘ Engineering in Miniature’ as coming closer.
When all is said and done we are not a religion with a list of articles to which you must subscribe otherwise you are out. We seek to serve anyone in a workshop who wants to make or repair stuff (and that’s even a little restrictive).
I see our job,( SMEE, the magazine/website/ the shows and the suppliers ) as needing to interest and support whatever anyone chooses to do in their own machine shop, bench space or even their own imagination. We need as organisations to be relevant to you. Something we strive for but are limited by the effort that volunteers can achieve.

Engineering aside the other value of clubs, and I would say maybe the greatest value, is social. In bringing people together in a supportive enjoyable way. I certainly have benefited from this aspect with SMEE as I’m sure have many who are members of local clubs.

I have learned from, grown to like and become fond of people from different backgrounds and experiences than me which has changed my life for the better.

I believe that the hobby is worth fighting for. Anything in this world that unites people, encourages creativity and brings joy must be worth the effort so I say workshops forever long may they last.

regards Martin

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Though “Engineering in Miniature” would seem to exclude all those who don’t make small versions of large items so you are not including the experimental or the guy using his workshop for anything but miniatures which from the replies above is quite a large percentage.

Hobby Engineer may be more inclusive.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Not really I’m just saying it’s possibly more inclusive. whatever you title it it’s going to b limited.Home engineering maybe cuts it.As I say we are not limited by a set of articles.

regards Martin

 

 

g

[Coggy CParticipant @coggyclapsaddle]

I think perhaps it is a matter of age. As I get older I see men and some women go through two stages of “rebellion”. The youth rebel against anything the older generations embrace but then when the same youth reaches middle going onto old age there sets in another stage of rebellion against the modern life. Is that why we have grumpy old men. Perhaps we are grumpy because we feel left behind, out dated, redundant so we stick with what we know, stay in our own world.

Technology will always be taken up by business because it is money driven, that is why computers and robots are replacing people you can see it everywhere from factory floors to supermarket checkouts but hobbies is different. We many use our daily skills within our hobbies but the goal is different. At work we seek to get the job done and move on to the next, but  hobbies revolve around the pleasure of doing and escape. As work becomes more detached from the “hands on” perhaps more people will seek to escape it by learning the old skills. I think it is something we are already seeing. There seems to be more TV programmes about old crafts and skills.

Perhaps the future will see many of today’s youth after having spent a career key tapping reaching their grumpy old man or woman stage of their life and jumping for joy and filled with pride when they show off some item and say “I made this with my own hands” because they dusted off their dad’s or granddad’s old lathe and took pleasure from learning how to use it.

Of course they will have to be showing their newly hand made item to their own peers, show it to the then youth of the day and they will probably respond with with “why?”, they won’t get it until their time comes.

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

Personally I liked ‘ Engineering in Miniature’ as coming closer.

Perhaps the American description  “Home Shop Machinist” would be more inclusive ?

That doesn’t tie someone with an interest in machining/fabrication/engineering in general at home to any particular interest or discipline ?

Nigel B.

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