Article suggestions?

I'd like to know which of these subjects you'd like to see covered in Fab Shop (free, online, written by terrific people ):

1) Welding 6061 aluminum

2) Welding chrome-moly steel (4130)

3) When to use lift-start TIG, and when not to

No. 2 is already on the schedule, but I'd really appreciate it if I could get a feel for what folks are most interested in.

Thanks.

Reply to
Ed Huntress
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Is there enough to cover for an article. I would think all three could be covered in one article.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

The 4130 article is going to be medium-length. I'm asking for 1200 words or so. The lift-start probably will be shorter. The 6061 could be anything; I haven't asked for it yet. It depends on how technical they want to get, or how many processes they want to discuss.

I wouldn't combine them because they're all very different subjects.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I made a bad assumption, That they were all about TIG welding.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

A lot if it will be, but I'm hoping the sources address other processes with 6061 and 4130.

For these articles, I don't impose too many requirements. These really need an expert to handle them in reasonable time. I just tell them a few subjects that need to be covered and wait for them to tell me how it is in actual practice. I may ask for additions after I see a first draft. That's how the "welding with 6010" article was done.

The key is finding specialists who really know the subjects from a professional and scientific angle. So I stick to the big suppliers (Hobart, Miller, Lincoln, ESAB, etc.) who have such people on staff.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Besides, one might think 1200 words is a 'short' article, but it's a LOT of work to put 1200 words of useful documentation together, and just ONE metal probably could use up 2500 words, with all the detail that _could_ be introduced.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Well, the article I wrote today, on another subject, was 2,200 words. That's an unusually long article. But it used to be the average length of an article, in print. Today, especially in digital magazines, it's more like 1,200 words.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Like I said! 22K-25K words is hardly enough to well-explain a detailed subject.

It's a sorry comment on folks' willingness to READ that they balk at articles longer than 1200 words!

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Since I've been doing this for 40 years, this is what has changed from our end: We tend to slice off narrower subjects today, and the goal is to write tighter than we used to.

In business, at least, it appears that people have less-liesurely time to read.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

In MY business, _not_ finding the time to read highly-technical, involved and difficult articles is a sure way to failure.

I was just this afternoon sent a 42-page Hercules document describing the _detailed_ characteristics of nitrocellulose and the solvent packages that can be used with it. It was a difficult read -- but worth every moment of the hour-plus necessary to read it through _the_first_time_. And I shall read it again and again.

I think "leisurely time" might be translated to "lazy time", because reading detailed technical documents is NOT a "leisure activity" in my trade -- it's an absolute necessity.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Will it cover TIG, MIG and gas welding? All are valid methods with both

6061 and 4130. Gas being the "lost art" process in both cases these days. Even though it gives better welds in 4130 (less brittle in the HAZ and easier to prep) Oxy-hydrogen on aluminum is fun BUT can easily kill you if you don't pay attention as it tends to leak through just about anything...

As for which I'd rather see, probably the 6061 aluminum. I do some now and again but it's always nice to get another opinion on the process.

Reply to
Steve W.

Several years ago I wrote a couple articles for a regional fishing magazine. (10 or 15 years ago) They threw a fit over any article over about 750 words. They said they wanted quality stuff. Things useful to people reading their magazine that other magaizes just don't publish. On the other hand they didn't have any issue running pretty pictures. Sometimes pictures that didn't even really go with the articles. Then they limited articles to

750 words. Are you kidding? I did get one out that was 1100 words once (ONCE!), but it mentioned one of their advertisers.
Reply to
Bob La Londe

I hope so. This is an industrial magazine and they are indsutrial suppliers (Hobart for the 4130 article), so I may have trouble getting O/A in there.

The reason I want to do the 4130 article, though, is because most of our readers who weld also do some welding for themselves. And we know about the interests involving 4130.

The info available on welding it, written for the non-pro audience, continues to include some mistaken ideas. I studied it at length back when I was with American Machinist. This is the article I've wanted to publish "some day," which cuts through the old-wive's tales.

I've specified that I want the pre-heat/post-heat info in there, on a scientific basis. I also hope we'll cover cold starts and MIG. A big deal will be filler metals.

Sure. Again, though, it's not of much interest to industrial users. The EAA and Kent White (The Tin Man) have published useful info on O/A welding of 4130. White has studied metallurgy and he doesn't toss bad info around.

I'll see what I can get. Thanks.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Yes, sad. And it's proof that

Instant Gratification Takes Too Long

Reply to
Larry Jaques

"Bob La Londe" fired this volley in news:noti98$in5$1 @dont-email.me:

Duh! I meant 2.2K-2.5K... Oh, well. I guess I didn't READ the few words I wrote!

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

The ones that tick me off are the magazines that split the articles up into 5 pages with maybe 1/4 of the page actually being the continuing sections. Rifleman does that and it's a PIA to keep flipping around. Put the articles on consecutive pages and no mixing of the various articles among the pages. The article A section A, article B section c and the answers to article R from last month should be separate.

Reply to
Steve W.

Yeah, Oxy-Fuel has been relegated to the "isn't that the antique section over there". It was what I learned on most metals, long before TIG was anything but an industrial process. (Wow I feel OLD) It's like those of us who have worked with babbitt or lead work on a car. Roll us into the corner and wipe off the drool now and again....

Reply to
Steve W.

Oner of the few things I remember from the many Technical Writing courses I flunked was how difficult it was to condense a complex technical explanation into an Executive Summary in plain English that contained only as much as a businessman needed to know, namely the "bottom line".

I was tempted to write 'Trust me, this will make you rich." and confine the rest of the essay to the Voice of America's 1500-word Special English vocabulary for foreign listeners, which about matches the word set Liberal Arts college students use anyway. Chemists have to learn words like dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane and (for you) pentaerythritol tetranitrate.

Looking back, maybe part of my problem was that the writing teachers were failed authors who used the class as a captive audience for their tales. For example I learned that composer Leonard Bernstein wouldn't hire the teacher because he wasn't gay.

--jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

How do the opinions go on Richard Finch?

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I don't know what anyone else's opinion is, but mine is mixed. I don't recall -- is he one of the guys who says you shouldn't bronze-braze

4130? I think he also was leery of cold starts, too, right?
Reply to
Ed Huntress

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