Home shop vs work place

Sigh...yup

Gunner raising his hand

"A vote for Kerry is a de facto vote for bin Laden." Strider

That is the sign of a tru craftsman, the prints are allways drawn after the work is done and there are never any mistakes, it's much easier to make the print fit the part.

Been there do it all the time.

Best Regards Tom.

I build everything in CAD first in my shop. At school I rarely get that option, so all of our welding machine carts look like Mad Max Road Warrior rejects.

I've always had to work by the seat of my pants as it were when building something in the shop. Perhaps a small rough sketch but other than that I've never been able to sit down and draw out just what I wanted in it's final form. My problem has always been that as I'm working with a project I see better ways of making it work as I progress. I see what it is I need in my head and work out the kinks with my hands as it were. My buddy on the other hand can't pull something together without a detailed drawing he has worked on with CAD or paper and pencil and in fact shakes his head at me when we work on a project together.

Rusty

Nope, I generally design first. Of course, at work that's as close as I can get to it, design. That's a big part of why I have a home shop, so I get to build it, too.

Pete Keillor

Nope, generally I am a little anal retentive towards overthinking it first. Unless it is something ridiculously simple, I will problem sketch it out once or twice, and the whip it up in CAD to verify all of my clearances/measurements, etc. I'm relatively proficient in CAD(I like Solidworks right now), so it doesn't take that long. I don't get worried about detailing things like weld types, fillets, etc. Just a complete design verification. Prints at work are detailed fully, but I won't be building from them so I need to convey all the little information I would inherently know are design intent.

I've caught enough things doing it this way that I doubt I will stop.

JW

I *always* work from a print of some sort. At home it's typically a pencil sketch, at work it's mostly a cad print. But sometimes that gets reversed. :)

Without a print I get lost fast, mostly because I can't keep the dimension numbers stored in the 'buffer' in my head....

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

one difference is that at work you can go and buy the stock you need. At home it is recycled armchars, TV trolleys and so on, so getting in there is the only way to get things to fit. Geoff

-- Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam. I have a catapult. Give me all the money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head

Most of the time I can see the part in my head. Though not as well as in the past. A rough sketch-and if you saw my drawing ability you'd know why-is a help and if the device is complex the sketch will show me where there might be features that interfere. With customers it is mandatory to have at least a rough sketch. Prevents spending hours on something that goes into the trash. ERS

Not only don't I make prints for stuff I do at home, but frequently the dimensions of parts I make are derivatives of the available stock (or sometimes even the fasteners)I dig out of my "hell boxes."

The most I ever do is jot down a dimension I'm trying to hit while machining something. But that's a recent phenomena, due to a rapidly disappearing short term memory.

Hey, as they say up north, "Pretty is as pretty does."

Jeff

I tend to start with a drawing so the CAD program handles angles and lengths but I don't think I've ever ended up with something that looks exactly like the drawing. My son on the other hand rarely uses a drawing except for maybe a very rough sketch. He's built several heavy duty bumpers for trucks just by taking a few measurements and starting to work.

IMHO, when you draw it up accurately beforehand it's engineering, if you just throw something together it's art! :-)

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers (1879-1935).

In my home shop I will usually make a *very* rough sketch just to have a place to write down important dimensions. Adjustments "on the fly" seem to happen as things progress. Works for me (most of the time ;)

Rex the Wrench

Gears wrote:

--------------------- At age 70 I taught myself Qcad (or tubo cad). Wouldn't go to my home shop now with out a quicky drawing by Qcad. All the dmenison are checked out for me plus you can save the drawing for future reference. A tip, Set your printer 81/2" x 14" portrate, makes for lager drawings.

Don Warner

Never let the facts interfer with your prejudices

---------------------

I will normally make a rough sketch of what I think the object will have to look like, but as the pieces go together, I'm thinking about making sure I have the best way that I can do it. ("Pardon me, sir. It is not that my parts don't look anything like your print, but your print doesn't look anything like the parts.") What with the latest batch of "engineers" bringing in a part, "Make me something to do _______ ", there is very seldom any real print made, before or after. (I always thought that the engineer was supposed to come in with the prints in his hands, and if it didn't work, it was his fault. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore.) There are times now, that when I'm working on something at home, I'll spend more time looking at what I have done, and wondering were to go next. "Drawing? We don't need no steenking drawing!"

It depends on the complexity of the part. My most recent project, I needed to calculate the length precisely, and to position one feature as a function of that length. I wrote a program to calculate the length (based on the diameter in an indirect way -- the smaller the diameter, the greater the length needed, and the rest was seat-of-the-pants design. Hmm ... 4" OD, 16 TPI sounds about right. 1" thread length (including runout groove), and mating it with a Delrin ring with a matching ID, OD based on the stock (5"), 1/4" inner flange, and the rest of the 1" length threaded, resulting in 3/4" threaded length (including the counterbore to make the thread easier to start).

Something with a lot of moving parts is more likely to get drawn out.

If I'm going to use CNC, a CAD drawing converted to a control file seems to be the best route for a mill, but for my little Compact-5/CNC lathe, I usually just program it off the top of my head, sometimes one feature at a time. Face it first. Turn the OD next, thread next -- each as a separate program, unless I'm going to make multiples, in which case the tool changes and all the stages in a single program make more sense.

Enjoy, DoN.

You should see the pool plans I go off of most of the time. Address and tile #. Then the sales baby calls asking why I didn't tile things that are not there !

In my shop I do not draw much cause I don't want a record of it.

I usually think it out before I start , but sometimes it's fun and knowingly dangerous to just go for it. Kinda like drying my sweaty hands on the steering wheel while its spinning back.

Drawings are the way to go if there is no way your going to remember it all. Plus, changing one line can save a lot of headache later.

Jim you get buffer "underrun" as well? Huh. Me too.

Paul Reno

Guess I'm backwards... I build first then draw it out in the computer...

Hey Tom, What kinds of things do you like to build?

-- btw, Still waiting for you guys to start using my free classified section, help me make it to be huge. Check it out, it's a nice classified ads website. Suggestions are welcomed.