Member postings for Tony Jeffree

I wander if that is the reel solution to the problem - the spelling of all of these worms seams to be perfectly grate to me...

It failed to fix the "an" in your last sentence for example...

Regards,

Tony

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 19/10/2012 11:35:28

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 19/10/2012 11:36:05

Mac -

Yes, that is exactly what you were doing, if you take the trouble to read the words you wrote. If you intended to convey something different, you might try using different words in a different order. 

Regards,

Tony

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 19/10/2012 09:49:24

Actually it's worse than that. If I get a TV with the intent of watching everything else that is broadcast OTHER than by BBC, I STILL have to pay the license fee that supports the BBC. That is like having to pay a sub to EIM just so I can read (and pay for) MEW.

Regards,

Tony

Hi Norman -

Actually it is some of my later writings that you refer to I believe...my first outbreak of writing for MEW was back in '97...

Regards,

Tony

P.S. True, but I do tend to find that getting to the workshop to finish a project is best done on my feet rather than my arse, unless it is late on a Friday evening after too many glasses of Milk of Amnesia...but then, you have to watch out for the swarf on the floor.

Gray -

You are of course right - there is pleasure to be had from the project itself and from writing the articles, as well as from the appreciation that some readers express.

Ho hum...here we go again...

Comparing programmes on the BBC to articles in ME/MEW is comparing apples with chimpanzees - the situation isn't the same at all.

The BBC has sufficient financial clout to commission material and pay proper commercial rates for it; the economics of running a specialist mag like ME/MEW means that they simply cannot do the same.

Current going rate for a MEW article is £50/page (I don't know if ME is the same - never wrote anything for it because I don't own the right anorak/engine driver's hat). From personal experience of writing the occasional article for MEW (!), the time taken to generate an article, including the time to do the project that the article is about, is of the order of 2-3 days per page of magazine copy. So we're looking at a rate of £2/hour - maybe less depending on the complexity of the project. And of course MEW doesn't re-imburse the cost of the machinery, tools, materials, etc. etc. that are involved; that is down to the author. Now if David came to me and said "Tony, I would like to commission an article from you on building XXX", the situation would be rather different; for starters, I absolutely wouldn't settle for anything less than minimum wage (currently £6.19/hour over 21), so the page rate would suddenly go up by a factor of 3, and David would also have to sub me the cost of machinery, tools, materials...etc...assuming of course that I was prepared to write said article for the minimum wage, which in general I would not be (my hourly rates are a tad higher than that). If the mag was to pay page rates that were truly "commercial" then you would probably be talking about another factor of 3, so maybe £400/page would be more realistic. With the resultant hike in the production costs, the mag would have to pass it on in the form of a significant increase in the cover price - I'm sure that DC could opine on what that would be, but I am sure that the resultant outcry and loss of subscribers would be problematic. So commissioning articles on any kind of commercial basis is just simply a non-starter - end of.

So the ONLY way that these magazines can hope to continue is on the basis of readers writing articles about stuff they were going to do anyway, because it is their hobby, and they treat the £50/page that they get in return as a way of reducing the cost of their hobby rather than an income. That approach obviously has problems associated with it; firstly, DC can only select articles from what people send him, and secondly, the quality of the material will inevitably be variable, because the writers are (with a few exceptions) not professional writers. So some of the articles will need professional copy editing, but generally that is WAY less cost/time intensive than commissioning work from scratch.

The bottom line here: If you, the readers of the magazine, don't get off your arses and write articles, then the magazine dies for lack of material. If the readers of the magazine don't like what other people have written when *they* have made the effort to get off *their* arses to write articles, then they only have themselves to blame.

Still believe its a crazy argument? If you do, then YOUR argument seems to be in favour of closing down the magazine. Now that is TRULY crazy.

Regards,

Tony

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 18/10/2012 17:42:09

Terry -

You probably also paid less for it than a used Myford with equivalent tooling?

Regards,

Tony

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 04/10/2012 13:46:37

Ah...missed that.

Regards,

Tony

I don't see that claim made on the website anymore - at least, not on the "home" page.

Personal opinion: Don't hold your breath. But if you want a definitive opinion, I would suggest asking Myford...they should know

There are plenty of used Myfords to be had.

Regards,

Tony

They come uip on Ebay from time to time.

Regards,

Tony

Isn't the whole discussion of whether or not John M's jointing technique is new or old rather missing the point?

The important point (to me, at least) is that he is using techniques that I haven't seen described in MEW before, and seeing what he has done is already causing ideas to spark in my brain.

Laser cutting is getting more and more accessible to the model engineer - either as a bought-in service or if you want to go the whole hog, the entry price for a small laser cutter is comparable to that of a small CNC mill. Admittedly, you would pay more to buy a laser cutter capable of cutting sheet steel, but as demonstrated with the wooden CNC mill a couple of issues ago, there's a lot that can be done with other materials (wood, perspex...) as the starting point, and even a small laser cutter will handle those materials to a reasonable thickness. Combining the accuracy of laser cutting with the kind of easy-to-assemble jointing systems John M is using is very interesting. With free software available for CAD, the idea of shipping a set of drawings to your local friendly laser cutting house & getting back a kit of parts for your machine is very appealing indeed, and as John M indicates, the premium over the cost of material isn't outrageous either.

Regards,

Tony

Only if the bus has a roof rack

Regards,

Tony

I agree - it would be great to see this written up for MEW.

Regards,

Tony

I buy MEW because it has a broad spectrum of articles in it, covering topic areas across the board in terms of home workshop tooling and machining techniques. It is probably fair to say that in any one copy of MEW, there is about 50% of the copy that isn't of particular interest. However, I have a complete collection of MEW from issue 1, and I often find myself referring back to articles that I wasn't interested in when they were first printed. If I and others had clamoured at the time for those articles (or their like) to be removed from the mag's repertoire, and we had succeeded, my reference material would have been much the poorer for it. Similarly, there is often material in an issue that isn't directly relevant to what I am doing, but is interesting because it describes a technique that I wasn't familiar with...or whatever - it is all good stuff to be filed away in the back of the brain to help solving future problems. For that reason, I live with the fact that some articles I will simply skip over, and enjoy the ones that are interesting and/or relevant.

I would be the first to agree that I couldn't imagine anything more dull than articles on CNC programming techniques with yards of program listings etc. etc. and nothing to stimulate the brain of the reader; however, by the same token, I can't imagine anything more dull than articles describing yet-another-variant-on-a-saddle-stop or similar. The acid test, for me at least, is whether an article is sufficiently interesting that readers actually go out and DO SOME ENGINEERING as a result of reading it, rather than reading the article from the comfort of their armchair and then bitching about it not being to their taste.

I've written one or two articles for the mag over the years, some "mainstream" ME stuff, some on CNC, some off-the-wall, etc. Some of them have been criticised, in this forum and in the postbag pages, for reasons ranging from "too much CNC" to "too much humour"; however, from the direct feedback I get, it is very clear to me that there are very few of my articles that were a waste of my time, i.e., that failed my acid test of whether or not any readers *actually did stuff* as a result of reading them. That, for me, makes all the difference, and is the reason I keep writing, on whatever topic is currently occupying my workshop time.

At the end of the day, it is up to the editor to make a judgement call, in order to produce a magazine with broad appeal, and select articles for publication accordingly. As David's constant pleas in the mag indicate, he is of course limited to publishing articles that people submit to him - he doesn't have a magic wand that he can wave and conjour good quality articles out of thin air. So every reader of the mag is in a position to influence the balance of articles in MEW in a very practical way - by writing good quality articles on appropriate topics and submitting them for publication. But I, for one, would seriously consider not renewing my subscription if the CNC-bashing brigade succeed in having CNC-related articles banned from the magazine - that it would result in a poorer magazine content, and would ultimately be a dis-service to its readership.

Regards,

Tony

Edited By Tony Jeffree on 27/09/2012 18:09:01

... But of course, water jet cuts with a slight draft.

Regards,

Tony

I worry about self-drive car hire too...

Regards,

Tony

Norman -

Likewise, no experience of the S7 - I have one of John S's ML7 cast-offs, but the headstock bearing setup on that is very different to the S7 range, and it has never displayed a problem like that, so not clear how much I can add to the discussion other than a spot of levity

For what it's worth, if faced with a similar problem (to the one described by the original poster) I would start by isolating exactly where the problem is occuring - is it headstock bearings or countershaft/clutch or the motor itself? Should be possible to trace it that far - which bearings are getting hot, which ones still have free movement when the problem occurs, etc. etc. Having located where the problem is occuring, you have a rather better chance of fixing it.

Regards,

Tony

I think the noises must be just the echoes of the "KERRR-CHING" noises emitted by the Myford cash register...

Regards,

Tony

Hi CB -

You're right - you can order an ER16 Sherline spindle as a special; however, the standard Taig spindle for their mills is the ER6 version these days - and that is the one used in the article.

Regards,

Tony

Hi David -

Absolutely positive. Compare the views in photos 15&16 with the photos on the Taig website here:

**LINK**

In contrast, check out the Sherline mill here:

**LINK**

The shape of the pulley cluster & the longitudinal T-slots on the Taig headstock are a dead giveaway - also, I don't believe Sherline do an integral ER16 chuck on their spindles.

Regards,

Tony