Finally wrote-up my "How to Design Parts" section...

"Metal Man Joe" wrote in news:1148834864.544520.48960 @g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

Not sure how long tinyurl's are around..I suggest just copying it and insert it in some HTML on the website. You can credit me if you wish...but not a big deal to me if you don't.

Thanks for the comments Randy, I just added the dimensioning section and posted to rec.crafts.metalworking.

Best Regards,

Joe O.

Your list is now up under "Other Resources" at the bottom of the section. Thanks for letting me duplicate it!

Joe

"Metal Man Joe" wrote in news:1148865628.085618.150130 @i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Btw, I'm an ME and a machinist, so I understand both worlds.

If graduate students learn the way apprentices do, you should print out a copy (in a big font size) and whack them over the head with it when they first start requesting machined parts for their projects.

Put the print out in a three-ring binder if you're feeling particularly pissed off that day.

Regards,

Robin

Puts me in the third world...

These are chemists. Some of them need whacked on the head daily. :) Randy

I should have asked...is it ok to refer people to your site and put a link on our website? Randy

Hi Randy:

Yes, of course, that is what it is for. I'd love to get some links to the page, it helps make it appear in the search engines.

Thanks again,

Joe O.

I haven't yet had time to read the whole thing; but it looks like a VERY impressive piece of work. Is this something your customers have requested or are expecting? Is it something that's grown out of discussions that customers have welcomed, and that they want to have expanded? The reason I ask is that, in many cases, I'd expect customers to be a bit PO'd by a supplier telling them how to design parts - unless there's been some good "lead-in" of some kind.

Just to offer an analogy: If you went to a car dealer to buy a new car, and told the salesman you were looking for good gas mileage, and if the salesman started telling you that he'd seen you drive into the parking lot, and you were doing it all wrong, and here's how you really ought to be accelerating, shifting gears, and using the brakes... You'd probably turn around and leave. You've been driving for years. You know what you're doing. And what makes this salesmand think he knows more than you do about how to drive your own car?

If, on the other hand, you were ask some specific questions of someone you knew and respected, and if that someone answered your questions, and then offered to elaborate, and to give you a whole set of useful tips as part of the same conversation, you might be more than willing to learn some valuable stuff.

The difference between helpful advice and "You're an idiot - let me tell you how to do it" is often just a matter of presentation, even if the actual advice is identical.

That said, I hope your customers read and pay attention. The part of your work that I did look at seemed excellent, well written, and surely valuable in many situations.

I did see an error, though. In the first section, "DRAWINGS AND PRINTS", in the subsection titled "When possible, use solid modeling to create complex part design", the 2D drawing is wrong. If the contour is in the side of the part closest to the viewer in the "face" view, then it will appear as hidden lines at the bottom edge of the side views. As drawn, you have the contour appearing on the front of the part when looking at the face, and on the opposite side in the other views. Since the focus is on drawing good prints, I figure you'll want to fix one that's literally impossible to read.

Do you intend to publish this? Have you shown it to anyone at a trade school or an engineering college? This could be something with a LOT of potential applications, and with very wide appeal!

Good luck with it, and thanks for sharing.

KG __ I'm sick of spam. The 2 in my address doesn't belong there.

Kirk Gordon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@gordon-eng2.com:

Kirk, this would depend on the projection angle, would it not? That drawing is prefectly correct if using ISO E projection angle. As another point to Joe, the Projection Angle should always be noted in the border. Our has an actual projection in the upper left corner so you can see how the part is rolled through the views.

Hi Kirk:

Thanks for the note. I wrote the section mostly because of the questions I'd received from customers. These came from beginning designers, up to experienced Ph.D.s. People always wanted to know how to design parts in order to reduce the cost of machining.

I haven't received any negative feedback from customers. In fact, to date, I've received a number of positive comments. The two folks I quote on my links page

are both customers who wrote me unsolicited emails and agreed to let me publish their comments. Both are very experienced engineers.

I've gotten at least one or two new customers already who mentioned they had read the section before they brought the job in.

Now it may be that some customers are annoyed by the work. I did have a customer once a year or two ago write me an email that said "a machinist should never question the design of a degreed engineer" (seriously!:-)), but this customer was not a very good one. It seems that the more experienced and talented the designer is, the more they know that they don't know everything, and they seem grateful for any advice. I personally like getting advice too, although as you mention, it's nice to get some positive feedback at the same time.

Anyway, if you see any comments in the work that raise your eyebrows, let me know and I'll be happy to tone them down.

In regards to the drawing views, I just used the quick Solidworks default views that came up. I think they might be first angle projections.

I'm hoping the work will get passed around at some institutions. Some of the responders to my posts (I've posted a note on several newsgroups) have said they are going to forward it on. I'm an adjunct faculty member myself in Metal Technology at the College of Marin, for what it is worth.

Thanks again Kirk. You're the guy who should publish a book! Your posts are always fantastic!

Best Regards,

Joe O.

True enough. There are different ways to project a drawing. But in my experience, in the US, in this century (and most of the last), anything not specifically and loudly call out differently is always, necessarily, assumed to be one type of projection only.

KG

That's right Kelly - third angle projection. Europeans use first.

"John R. Carroll" wrote in news:WhLfg.116117$F snipped-for-privacy@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:

Yup, and since I work for one of the hundreds of European based companies here in the US...we use first :)

One of the cool things about 2D drawings derived from solid models is that you can usually switch the 2D representation between ISO and ANSI on the fly. Missler does it transparently. So do CATIA and UG. I think it takes a third party add on to get this functionality in SolidWorks but I don't know.

This sort of thing can be useful when you send your 1st angle stuff out for bids in a 3rd angle world and it's one of those things that goes unnoticed until you notice it - usually as a screwed up thing-a-ma bob.