'average model engineer'

Julian Wrote

"copper boiler making (flanged plates, silver soldering etc), making boiler fittings, forming platework, rivetting, setting valve gears, fitting parts, making injectors, pipework, painting and lining out and lettering etc? is that enough for you?"

Have to agree with you Murry, boiler flanging is not economic on a larger scale, this is  why Steam Technology's copper boilers work out cheaper as they can tig weledthem without flanging, plates can be laser cut to exact size with all tube holes ready to weld up.

As for boiler fittings not being suitable for modern production, anybody ever bought from Steamfittings, they make theirs with CNC machines but for it to be economical need to run several thousand at a time. Even for a one off CNC can be used to make very nice fittings that would not be easy to do by soldering bits of brass together, have a look at this post and the finished item that name plate you can see in the last photo, also done with home CNC.

Another example for making steam engines with modern technology is Steam Traction World, knocked out in batches of 20-50 on CNC machining centres, laser cut parts, CNC metal folding, Mandrel benders for pipework,etc, etc.

I'm sure if they were selling them as complete kits then they would use modern tech' to finish them. I have seen masks for lining out panels cut from film on hobby cutters which are much like the ones signwriters use to cut their vinly. An as for lettering I have used my home printer to make waterslide transfers of makers logos and thats been around for a while.

Its out there and really just the choice of the individual if they want to use it.

J

Edited By JasonB on 20/08/2014 08:06:24

Edited By JasonB on 20/08/2014 08:15:57

Ah well, it would seem that I am far too disreputable to be a 'model' engineer.

Andrew

Hi, the argument of if one has truely made something themselves will go on forever. Take the car industry for instance, excluding the high end companies who make them to order almost, I think the last company to truely make a entire car for general sale was probably Fords of Dagenham (and thats going back a bit) thier site made just about everything that went into making a car. In more recent times most car manufacturers buy in a lot of thier parts and just assemble them in thier factory.

I've just recently done a few weeks work for a sizeable local engineer company who make bespoke stuff to order, however many of the profiles where bought in, and many other S/S parts made from sheet were cut and pressed by another company, part of the job I had was fettling these and checking correctness of them, but the customer still considers the company that I was working for made thier order.

I think Model Engineering is what ever one makes it (pun intended) there is a skill in fitting and good assemble as well as actualy making parts.

Here's a thought about the thinking of if you haven't cut the metal with conventional hand tools, you can't say you have truely made it; so, if you have posted an opinion on this forum, have you truely written it? After all a computer and a forum are not quite the same as pen/pencil and paper.

This hobby is an expensive one but so are a whole load more, take photography for instance, is it wrong to buy a state of the art camara and then say that you alone have taken a second to none photograph with it?

Why not just enjoy what you like doing the best way you can do it to the best of your own ability and with whatevet machinery and materials you can afford. I do.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 20/08/2014 09:46:53

.

Likewise.

The only reason I have not applied for a bus pass is that once it is issued I am then officially a "Muddle Enjineer"

Until then I'll continue to work 13" to the foot.

| "This hobby is an expensive one but so are a whole load more, take photography for instance,"

Oh dear Nick! I guess my main hobby, in terms of time spent, is photography. I also have a decent workshop where I have, at times, made the odd model. Yep both can be "expensive" hobbies and could take up unlimited amounts of cash. Equally both can be practiced on quite modest budgets. My workshop tools and equipment have been built up over the last 40 or so years and much is second hand. In the early years , when the kids were young, funds were tight so finding the tool at an affordable price was very satisfying. With them all having flown the nest it makes the funding a bit easier!

The great thing with a workshop is that you can "fix" pretty much anything so it is useful for all other interests. Am I a "Model Engineer"? Well, as I said, I have made the odd model and I have a couple on the " back burner " but, compared with some of the efforts I see in the mags and at exhibitions, I'm a hopeless bumbler.

In terms of periodicals that address my workshop interests Model Engineer and Model Engineers Workshop usually have some items that appeal so, as both of those, have "Model Engineer" in the title I guess that's what I will say I am! (......but hey - what's in a name?)

Norman

Of course, if you were modelling 'Tornado' it would be wrong to hand cut the frames...

"Tornado's 48-foot-6-inch (14.78 m) long steel plates were electronically cut from one piece of steel, as opposed to the original Peppercorn A1, which had two-piece frames riveted together. These are probably the most accurate steam locomotive frames ever produced."

Neil

I think Tornado used quit a few modern techniques to manufacture a classic design. I would imagine that if a coal fired steam loco were to be designed today it would not look much like the classic designs. Modern materials and manufacturing methods would probably allow a designer many more possibilites. I doubt that rivets would be used for anything and welded fabrication would prevail, would steam turbines be used instead of piston engines?

Mike

Hi Norman, I thought I more or less said that ! in my last paragraph, in a concise kinda way.

Regards Nick

Hi, Heaven forbid ! It wouldn't be a proper choo choo, and JS might not be able to moan about it

Regards Nick.

The cost of model engineering is not as bad as motorsport, it was costing £1k per event (BTRDA rally) in the mid 90's that included fuel, 6 ish miles to the gallon on stage, entry fee, tyres etc. Not included, accommodation food, beer, and repair costs.

Hi Andrew (Johnson)

You wrote ...... I look forward to that (small chain article), as I have just started mulling over the design and manufacture of the steering chains for my traction engines.

My traction engine is the 1 inch scale Minnie, so small chains are the order of the day - I hope you are not disappointed - although the method I describe should be possible to scale up, or indeed scale down depending on your eyesight!

I spent the best part of 42 years constructing my Minnie, interleaved with work and family life. My enthusiasm was dented in the latter years by looking at the broken steering chain where someone, at some point, had turned the steering wheel and pulled the commercially available chain apart. I just had to sort it out, which lead to my photographing the process and preparing an article.

So after 42 years my Minnie is complete.

Regards

Phil H

Firstly, I am definitely not a model engineer. This thread seems to me to be very straightforward. If you operate a manual machine to make a part, then YOU have made it. The machine could not make it without you. A cnc machine could make the part without any input, apart from its program, and being provided with the right tooling and raw materials. In effect, the machine has made the part, YOU did not. That is why centre lathe turners are "skilled" and CNC minders are not. It is only neccasary for someone, somewhere to write the software for the machine to make the parts to be asembled into a model, but the machine made it, the operator merely pressed the start button. CNC is generally not used for prototyping or "one off" jobs, it is a tool of mass production, It makes millions of parts at the lowest possible price, and mass production is about as far away from model engineering as the work I do building prototype machines is.For most of the components I require, by the time I had written and debugged a program, I could have made the part! the chances of me ever needing another identical part are virtually nil. As to paying someone else to do the donkey work, well, model engineers have been buying unmachined and semi machined castings for years. It is all a matter of skill, or de-skilling, it all depends whether you want to be an engineer or a computer programmer. Good cnc machines are not cheap, cheap cnc machines are not good! I saw someone complaining that all the 3D printer groups have died off and I really can't say I am surprised. Everyone was lured in to the sc-fi "thing maker" dream, and now the reality that you can make anything you want, as long as it is in (very expensive feedstock) plastic, has come home to roost. 3d printing of course has some uses, especially in the medical field, using hugely expensive machines and clean room technology, but at the other end of the scale they are useless. If you look at the hours put into the "worlds first plastic gun" (trust the Yanks to make a gun!) you could, in the same time have made many real guns,on machinery made and designed hundreds of years ago, and you could have fired them more than once as well!!

When computers first entered the education system, there was much talk of how they would "revolutionise" education.......................it simply hasn't happened. Exam results are certainly no better today than they were in the pre computer era, and many claim they are worse (my wife is a degree level mathmetician and teaches advanced maths at secondary school) All the metalwork and woodwork shop equipment was sold off (I know, I bought it and replaced with a subject called (in our local school) Resistant Materials, where little Johnny would "design" a camera, or at least the SHAPE of a camera on 3D cad which would then be chewed out of plastic billet by something from Denfords, and little Johnny would get his CAD/CAM certificate, which was of course completely worthless as by the time he left school all the CAD/CAM had gone overseas. Computers are a clever bit of innovation, but they themselves cannot innovate, only WE can. If we want a better computer, or a better anything, WE have to innovate and engineer it into existence. Only then can we set the CNC machines to mass produce it.

It all depends whether you want to be a skilled innovator, or an unskilled machine minder. I know which appeals to me!. If you are in the other camp, why not get an interweb connection straight into your shed, write a bit of software to search the net for cad plans, then you would only have to go there once a week to load new stock, and you could pay someone to do that, and the assembly for you. Then you wouldnt have to dirty your hands or waste time on such a tedious hobby.

I am wearing a fully fireproof suit, asbestos underwear, safety boots and a welding helmet, FLAME AWAY

With respect Phil, I really think you are oversimplifying the CNC thing. You are making it sound like a popcorn machine spitting out thousands of like components overseen by a dullard.

Which is far from the truth in my opinion and experience.

graham..

Phil - Respectfully:

The guys at the work machine shop (producing scientific parts for technical research) can not understand why someone would use a manual milling machine for one-offs.

And, on demonstration, I can understand why they say that; and I agree with them. Their machines can take GCODE, or can be "conversationally programmed", much like one would do on a mill, but without the handle twiddling and mistakes.

The CNC programmes I produce, for instance, the set of name plates engraved with raised letters could have been done from PC-board etching, or some other farmed-out process, or I could have done them at home, all my own work, on my CNC mill. So, I did them at home.

I think you should have a cuppa, and re-read your very positive and spot-on comment "Computers are a clever bit of innovation, but by themselves cannot innovate, only WE can" - and think about the computers in your life, and how they have changed the way we work - no asking for an operator to make a call, no sending these communications by ink and quill, and cars that actually start when it's cold!

Feel free to read and comment on **LINK**; yes, it is my blog.

Hope you read this positively - JohnS

A couple of points,

1 In the good old, bad old days, when men were men etc etc, there were very few skilled machinists, relative to the number of machines. The skilled men would be setting up manual machines for semi skilled operators to use. Where I did my apprenticeship (Saunders Roe) there were something like a dozen capstans which were all set up by one man. The semi skilled operators had to be able to read a set of instructions and twiddle a handle which moved something until it hit a stop, when the handle would be twiddled backwards, and so on. From memory, in the machine shop there would have been something like 50 or 60 people, of whom about 10 or 15 who were considered to be "Skilled", or Tradesmen. Similarly there was a bank of mills which would be set up by a skilled man, and operated by a semi skilled person.

The last place that I worked had an all CNC Machine Shop, including Inspection. There were about 30 to 35 people working there. Of those something like 20 or 25 were considered to be able to prepare CNC programs, obviously some were senior to others and were capable of undertaking breathtakingly complex tasks. None of them were "button pushers" but skilled people. We were a jobbing shop that produced small batches, sometimes batches of 1!! seldom more than 25 or 30.

So from this, in my experience I think its fair to say that the type of skill required has changed from a person who had an intimate knowledge of a manual machine to someone who has an intimate knowledge of a CNC machine, It's very likely that the manual machinist of a bygone era would be gobsmacked by what a modern CNC machine is capable of, and that a modern CNC machinist would be gobsmacked by what a skilled person on a manual machine is capable of. Horses for courses.

I think that it's true to say that for every technical innovation there is a related loss of skill somewhere.

For instance look at draughting. Again, where I did my apprenticeship, there were about 250 draughtsmen, and a handful of Engineers (thats degree qualified Engineers....). To be a draughtsman you had to first be a tradesman, and understand how things were made. The draughtsmans job was to turn the concepts of the Engineer into something that could be made. The last place that I worked had a handful of what I would call draughtsmen, maybe 5 or 6 when I retired. However there were maybe 50 or 60 people who prepared drawings and models for manufacture, invariably they had a degree, their job title was "Engineer" but the function they endeavoured to perform was that of a Draughtsman. The fact that they did their work on a CAD station is relevant, there's a lot of technology available in CAD stations. The technology in many ways is amazing, but it is still a requirement that the operator must understand how a thing is to be made. Some of them (most of them) didn't know the difference between a mill and a lathe and had no idea how things were made. I spent a large part of my time conducting "Design for Manufacture" exercises and holding the hands, (in a technical sense!) of these new Draughtsmen.

Of course the modern Manager would say that "...stuff is still being made, isn't it?" which is true, but what happens when the last Old Ph**t retires?

Apparently its called progress.....

cheers

Bill

Edited By Bill Pudney on 21/08/2014 06:35:10

Bill,

Showing your age if you were an apprentice at Saunders Roe as it became BHC in 1966 and quite a few of my school friends did their time at BHC later Westlands and now GKN.

The biggest draw back to CNC is cost, not so much the part but the machine/hardware and software and as things stand I can not see that the cost can be justified in our hobby.

No doubt about my age Bob!! Yes I was at Saunders Roe when it became BHC, I finished there in 1969

I also understand about the cost of CNC machines. Another part of my last job was buying new machinery. One of which was a Mazak Integrex in (about) 2003 or 4. At the time the total bill, including lots of options, well most of the options to be fair, came to about AU$450,000. From memory this machine replaced 2 older CNC lathes, two or three milling operations on some subject parts, and was well on the way to paying for itself in something around 2 years. The Integrex is/was a fantastic machine, a very capable lathe with 5 axis milling capability and two spindles, it could make very complex parts completely machined all over in one setting, amazing. If cost was no object I would have one of these, or the latest version in my shed, but obviously they are not practical for the model engineer.

At the same time we got rid of one of two of the Hardinge HLV(??) manual lathes, the turning section asked me to find out how much a new one was. The Hardinge website showed them on "Special Offer" for US$38,000 with free delivery in the US. Shipping to Australia would probably have been another $2000. I'm guessing but I imagine that that was the end of the manual Hardinge lathe. At about the same time we bought a couple of Bridgeport (from Leicester) NC "teach" mills, basically a classic B'port mill with fairly simple NC, they provided a good changeover from manual machines to full CNC. I think that they were something like AU$15,000 at the time but my memory could be misleading me. They would be a good machine for a model engineer. Since they stopped manufacturing in the Leicester factory, obviously they are not made any more!!  At about the same time I was quoted AU$15,000 plus for a well specified Myford (long bed, hardened ways, gearbox etc etc)

cheers

Bill

Edited By Bill Pudney on 21/08/2014 08:38:39

I am not sure about that. I costed out a machine for myself and I am always really conscious of cost - It was basically an X3 with three stepper motors, ball screws and drivers (My friend has just done a conversion so I am going to ask him - he will know to the penny) the software was all Linux so no cost other than my own time so conceivably if you can find a second hand machine at a good price - include your hardware - you won't be a million miles away from the new cost of an X3.

No, it won't be an all singing all dancing machine, but it would work - quickly and efficiently AND it would give you all the learning you would need for a good grounding in CNC machines.

Bob on here has bought a new Tormack mill and I have fiddled with it a bit. I am very, very impressed with it and I could conceivably justify buying one, $8000 for the base machine and take it from there. It would get you quite far. CNC is the future of the Model Engineering hobby and as more and more people take it up, more and more kit will become available and the prices will start to look reasonable.

I am totally ambivalent as to whether or not people take up CNC machining, I can see quite clearly the direction things are going and John A Stuart has described the different demographic in excellent terms. The two will collide at some point and it is then that the hobby becomes interesting.

graham.

Bill!

"A fool and their money is easily parted" is what my grannie used to say.

LinuxCNC, (including the ability to take a picture and engrave it) free. The OS it runs on free. QCAD, free. dxf2gcode, free.

Ok, I think I'll give the author of QCAD some money, as he did a really good job of it.

And, I did purchase CamBam (runs on Linux) as a whim, and it's fun, but not used all the time.

Anyway, it is possible to do a really good job with zero cash outlay.

Check out the engraving I just did for a friend; the total software cost (including picture editing, etc) was zero cost. (yes, they need debarred, and the outline is rough cut, it'll be removed to dimensions on the finished model)

How do you get cheaper than zero dollars/pounds/etc?

"The biggest draw back to CNC is cost, not so much the part but the machine/hardware and software"

John you have only shown that 1/3 of the equasion can be had for zero cost, what about the machine & hardware