On Making Things

[ThomasPowers]

I have seen a large number of posts that generally start something like: "I wanted to make an XYZ and I found a good set of detailed plans for one"  and then continue something like "even though I have never made one and have no experience in this field I modified the plans cause I must know better that folks who are experts with years of experience  and the thing doesn't work right!"  

May I strongly suggest that for either a souffle or a propane burner that one does their *first* one following the instructions to the letter!  Then if you have problems the experts will be able to make quick suggestions on ways things commonly go wrong and not get bogged down in if the confabulator was left handed or not!

[Glenn]

Thomas is right. The designer usually spent many attempts, and untold hours to get it right. After building the first one according to plans, you now have a standard. Build the second one using what ever modifications you want and compare it to your standard to see if it has improved or not.

Many times things will not scale up, or scale down well. They were built at that size for a reason.

 

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

You two want to take all the fun out it!!

all kiding aside, not only if falowing the plans a good idea, learning the basic language, and the skill set nesisary as well. Most of us that work with are hands take it for granted that yiu know how to file, cut threads, forge a taper etc. but if you don't know what 1" to 3/4" reducing "T" or what threaded lamp rod is...

find out! If after a spin at google, wickapedia and your local hardware store your still bafled ask. 

 

[gote]

Hear Hear!

I have once sold the complete know-how to a production line. I used to be an internationally known expert on the subject. The customer, however, who had no knowledge about the subject whatsoever changed proven working design to  "This is how we do it here". One of his minions who never had even seen production of that kind even tapped me on the back to comfort me when he deviated from the drawings. 

Result: Expensive, inefficient and dangerous production. Comissioning took twice the time and was not really completed when production started.  The customer soon got into receivership and still owns me (a lot of) money.

It is a funny thing that the less somebody knows about a subject, the more prone he is to deviate from good advice. I have never had problems with customers who know what they are doing. It is the ignorant who want to show off their "expertize"

Göte   

[SJS]

Only wise people can learn from someone else's mistakes.  Fools ALWAYS have to learn the HARD WAY, if they manage to learn from their mistakes at all.  Ego protection often thwarts the proper learning process...  It isn't a crime to be ignorant, it is a crime to stubbornly persist in your ignorance;-)

[DSW]

I've seen it all the time in diving. New people who just have to change systems and find a "better" way to do something that already has been refined for years by others doing stuff the newbie will never do. Usually it's to combat some mythical problem that they dream up that will never happen in reality if they actually knew what they were doing, and followed some simple tried and proven rules.

[Richard Furrer]

And as we all know the BEST time to alter something is when you are not familiar with the tech and your life is attached to it.

I remember when I "improved" my hand bellows by placing it well below the forge level. Worked well with charcoal, but upon switching to coal I managed to have unburned volatiles settle into the bellows so my next puff after letting it sit a while became a rather impressive detonation which blew the coal around and inflated the bellows all on its own. Took me a while to sort out the whys and what-fors on that one.

Ric

 

[VaughnT]

Rather timely post, Thomas.  I'm seeing far too many novices, or complete strangers to the craft, asking the same basic questions over and over again, easily demonstrating that they didn't bother to take a few minutes out of their day to search for the million answers already out there.  While we've discussed this on IFI in the past, I still hold to the opinion that someone that refuses to do even the most basic research shouldn't be encouraged to start playing with power tools and fire.  

 

 

[John McPherson]

I can not speak for the rest of the world, but it seems to be rampant here in the USA. An entire generation, maybe two, has grown up without actually doing anything with their hands. They have seen a bunch of TV documentaries and youtube videos, however, and this makes them experts on every subject under the sun. It also makes the work and experience of others seem less valuable.

The sheer magnitude of the combination of ignorance and arrogance is staggering.

The thought process seems to be: "Hey, 'This Old House' gets a 3,000 square foot home completely remodeled in 8 weeks by spending 30 minutes a week, how hard can it be, right? CSI solves every murder case in an hour. I want to go to school to be be an Underwater Nuclear Pipe welder and make $100 an hour, should only take one semester, right? On the weekends I am going to build a brake drum forge and make Samurai swords folded a million times to pay my rent. "

[LastRonin]

I absolutely agree with you Thomas. It is rediculous for a novice to modify a proven working design when they have no relatable experience. And especially disturbing for them to then complain about it not working.

But... in those rare instances where a novice in this field has relatable experience and applies that to the design, I can understand. Though if it doesn't work, they still have no right to complain. For instance, the Frosty T-burner... instead of the type of coupling and connector he listed for the propane input, (and due to the experience I have working with pressurized tubing) I used a stainless 1/4" cbu bulkhead union. Tapped the hole drilled into the back side of the T for the threads on the union and threaded the long end into the hole. The nut I left between the T and the flange of the union, that way I could use it to lock down the coupling once tuning was done. The .30 mig tip fits perfecrly into the inside part and is clamped in place with the ferule and nut. I came off that with about four feet of stainless 1/4" tubing to an adapter to fit my propane hose. Luckily, it worked wonderfully. But if it hadn't, I would not have posted complaining that 'Frosty's design sucks' because I understood that I did not follow them exactly.

I recommend to anybody I talk to about building a burner to follow Frosty's plans.

Edited May 8, 2015 by LastRonin
corrected spelling error and clarified a statement

[ThomasPowers]

If you are re-inventing the wheel it works much better if you know what a wheel is and why the design choices were made.  I'll admit it's funny to see people using a design choice the "inventor" used just because they had one around in their scrap pile or it was the cheapest available at that time.  However if you are not up to speed on the whys and wherefores then it's a waste of time for both you and the experts.  

Classic examples include people who don't understand about how volumes and surface areas change when changing dimensions---I point this out to students when they are doing a S hook from 1/4" and I am doing one from 1/2" sq stock that I have to move 4 *times* the metal that they do. 

And as was pointed out messing with an explosive, (propane), without the skillset *is* taking your life in careless hands!  I've had a number of students ask why I take the propane tank off the forge and haul it all the way around the house to store it to next time---I point out the gas fired hot water heater in the garage and tell them I never want to bet my life and property to a valve that someone else has installed and messed with.

And as mentioned; once you have a good one made then you have a standard to compare your changed one to

[SmoothBore]

The sheer magnitude of the combination of ignorance and arrogance is staggering.

​A "standing joke" in most of the Engineering Departments where I've worked, ... goes something like .....

"It takes training to be a Truck Driver, ... but everyone is BORN an Engineer.

 

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[DSW]

I can not speak for the rest of the world, but it seems to be rampant here in the USA. An entire generation, maybe two, has grown up without actually doing anything with their hands. They have seen a bunch of TV documentaries and youtube videos, however, and this makes them experts on every subject under the sun. It also makes the work and experience of others seem less valuable.

The sheer magnitude of the combination of ignorance and arrogance is staggering.

The thought process seems to be: "Hey, 'This Old House' gets a 3,000 square foot home completely remodeled in 8 weeks by spending 30 minutes a week, how hard can it be, right? CSI solves every murder case in an hour. I want to go to school to be be an Underwater Nuclear Pipe welder and make $100 an hour, should only take one semester, right? On the weekends I am going to build a brake drum forge and make Samurai swords folded a million times to pay my rent. "

​It seems today kids don't know how to do research. To them, it's simply go on line and ask someone else to answer the question for them. They don't understand doing research in a library, having to read multiple sources on the subject and then condense down what they have learned to answer the question. They automatically expect someone to spoon feed them the answer they can simply regurgitate.

 

I also feel that we have lost a lot since most schools have dropped shop class. It's not just about building some lopsided bird house. Kids learned a lot more in class than they probably realized. I know we learned responsibility as we had to clean the shop by the end of class and every tool had to be back in it's location before we could leave. If the instructor went around and the tools weren't all hanging back where they belonged, we'd sit there until the tools were located and returned, even if you weren't the one doing wood working that day for example. You learned to take responsibility for your actions, and safety around dangerous tools. The arc welder and table saw scared the day lights out of me when I was taking shop. The table saw because the instructor had some nice big picts of what the shop looked like after someone was screwing around and almost lost their thumb using it. You learned how to estimate, measure, budget, and how to adapt if you screwed up. Cut one side too short and didn't have the material to cut another piece, I guess you need to scale the whole thing down enough to match the piece that was cut wrong, or determine if you can't cut a different piece out of that stock and shift things around so you can use some thing else to replace the one you cut to short. On top of all of this you learned how to use basic tools and how much work can go into even the simplest projects. All this in Jr High. 

 

I occasionally end up getting called in to help at the high school tech school where I help teach at night, during the day. It's sad to see Seniors and Juniors who can't even cut pieces of stock to the same dimensions, let alone understand how to make something square. And these are the "good" students, who apply themselves and want to learn...

[Steve Sells]

When my Dad retired, his replacement decided they did not need the conveyor system for moving parts because they have fork lilts just sitting around part of the day.  So he dismantled and sold that custom designed system for scrap, @ pennies on the dollar.  Soon production was less than half of what it was when he took over and did things his way.

Because those fork truck were sitting waiting for the next truck to park so they could unload them, they only appeared to not be needed there. Taking them away from the loading docks to move materials that used to be constantly moved by the conveyor system, meant trucks were taking very long to load and unload, while waiting for a fork trucks to be available to load/unload them, because the fork lifts were nearly constantly needed to be moving more parts down the line.   Also the time it took to move across the plant  between the loading area, and production line locations, and waiting for other fork trucks when they were moving materials.

His ego would not allow him to admit he was wrong about the conveyor,  so he then bought a few more fork trucks, and hired more people to drive them.   This didnt work very well because there was not enough space for the additional fork truck on the line.  These new fork lifts sat at the loading docks waiting for tailors to load as they did before.  But rather than a constant flow of parts, the line workers needed fork truck to move things, and the line was constantly waiting for another pallet of parts to move in or move out teh other pallet of finished parts. .

Higher labour cost from the hiring of additional employees, the purchase of more fork trucks, and their failing to meet orders; eventually caught the owners attention.  Needless to say by then they lost a few clients and and he was fired, (convinced the  workers had it in for him, never admitting he was wrong) .  The company purchased a new multi million dollar conveyor system to replace the one that was scrapped, but a year later closed its doors.   Too many clients had gaven up due to this place not being able to meet their needs, and by time it was noticed by the higher ups,  too many found new suppliers.  it was too late.

 

Ego of the new boss not wanting to waist time following up,  because he decided he knew what to do better than the person doing it for 15 years prior.

[Frosty]

I don't like to discourage newcomers from being helpful but we get a lot of guys offering advice who don't know diddly themselves. Sure they may have cobbled something together that works sort of but they don't understand the original nor what they've done. It's a common human technique to keep adding things till what you had in  mind starts happening. A good example is knots. How many things have you seen "tied" up with stack after stack of tangled cordage where one correct knot would've done the job AND been possible to untie without cutting? Heck a Granny knot won't slip if you turn each side twice or more so why learn to tie a square knot?

Watching someone try to untie a tangle they made can be entertaining, especially since they usually don't carry a knife. Unfortunately the situation may occur where someone's life depends on their ability to tie a knot, whether it's securing a load on the roof of their SUV or climbing down from a second floor balcony in a fire.

I've talked to Boy Scouts with the knot tying merit badge who didn't know a bowline from a half hitch let alone a sheet bend. But they TRIED says the Scout Master, we don't want to damage their self esteem. How about teaching them to take care of themselves? That way they have cause for self esteem, not a meaningless certificate. Schools have become about "through put for funding" rather than educational institutions.

Oh crap, I replied to this thread. I've been trying really hard not to, it's too easy to get involved in a rant. Kids will be kids and like the bumper sticker says, "Hire a teenager NOW while they still know everything." I was like that, I think everybody was. It's the people who have been around a few decades who still think they know everything. I used to work with guys who believed a degree in one profession applied to everything. Office mooks who were challenged driving a screw to hang a shelf bracket. You can FIND a stud in a wall!? You can make a set of shelf brackets faster than you can buy them!?

Okay, FINE. Just don't expect me to hang from your knots, trust a load you secured or your shelf to support something heavy. Heck, most folk don't even realize why I give a wall a thump with a knuckle under the shelf brackets or eyeball their knots on the load. EVERY-BODY'S knots and if you don't eyeball mine I'm going to double double check yours from now on.

And NO I'm not PC enough to scream "HE TRIED!!!" on my way to the ground either.

Frosty the old fart who's failed many a time in his life.

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

The internet is a great resurch tool, if one understands that just like libary reserch the auther can be wrong. Either they are regurgitating some one elses false information, they have misunderstood or miss aplied theinformation, alowed their personal belifes/biases to interfear with their conclusions or the are trying to mislead peaple for som personal reason. 

Onemust read multible sorces, veting each sorce. An example that comes to mind is the development of the stirip on saddles, almost a hundred years ago an archioligest postulated that thestirip was developed to brace knights in a lance charge. This is still taught to achioligests and in history classes, despite the fact that he wasn't a horseman, infact the closest to riding a horse he ever came was renting a hansom or 4wheeler cab. If one acualy looks at the development and use of the saddle, one finds that the Romans used lances from horseback, without stirips. The front (castle or pomel) and back (cantle) of the saddle was built up and had projections to encompase the rider, alowing him to brace his legs and hips against the saddle. Wile the hunns (and previus tribes from the eastern stepps) who were horsearchers had stirips, this alowed them to stand up and isolate them selves from the horse (at the lope/canter whenall for feet are in the air) providing a stable firing platform. In the modern era the stirip still provides the cattleman a stable platform in witch to launch a rope. Dont get me wrong, the stirip also aids in mounting, balancing and isolating your backside from the horses, but it dosnt held brace agaist the charge.

I see other backwards thinking involved in hoof care as well, When Mr. Ford putthe horse out of work we forgot all the reserch and development that went  into caring for the feet of horses, the US and other armies had spent a lot of time and resorces studiing best practises, but in a few short years many "horseshoers" were illiterat and often drunk (mentaly ill/learningdisabled?) many practices that would have ledto a Calvery ferrier being floged have become the norm, such as parting away live sole, paring away the frog, leaving either the heal or toe long despite conformation of the horse and setting the heals of shoes to close. I still see some these practises in folks that should know better, such as a couple of vet/farriers i know. 

[ThomasPowers]

In my Mountaineering course in college one of the ground rules was that the person who tied the knot was the first one on that rope.  Makes a fellow sit up and take notice of what they *should* be doing knowing they were stepping off a 300' cliff next.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Same rule when we repelled off the towers in the service, TP lol, 

 

[Stash]

Taking a tack to the portside. My wife learned do cook defensively. Her mother could burn water. She went the usual route- 'Joy of Cooking", Julia Child, and some of the other classics. She followed the recipes to the letter. She got pretty good, and that was one of the things that attracted me when she was in charge of commisary at the local theater  I worked in. Fast forward 32 + years. She still uses recipes- cookbooks, interweb, tv, whatever. But now the recipe is a suggestion. The basic concepts still apply- the chemical interactions, the timing, etc. Anytime she presents me with something new from a recipe she found, she will always say "but I changed this....."  Her experience has allowed her to make any recipe her own, and she does it almost intuitively. My waistline is a testament to her abilities. Yesterday she tried some no-bake cookies, but for some reason everything went pear-shaped. She thought a minute, realized that she had pretty much the dry ingredients for a baked cookie, made the rest up from experience, and we now have a batch of what she calls "Failure is an option chocolate cookies".  I'm a lucky lucky man. As I type this I'm smelling her version of some kind of slow roasted pork butt kinda thing.

Steve

[Daniel S]

When I was studying chemistry in college, the favorite phrase was "A month in the lab can save you an hour in the library".  I'm still guilty of falling into the trap, but I definitely try not to.  Another phrase along the same line was, "There's nothing new in chemistry", meaning you haven't searched hard enough for the answer.  In my working life it gets frustrating when people try and fail and assume something will never work without ever having started in the right place.  It is some people's nature to have low activation energy starting projects and then burn it all out without  getting a satisfactory result.  Luckily there are people here to answer questions when they get asked. It probably saves a lot of 911 calls for experiments gone wrong.

[Charles R. Stevens]

DS, Only if you take the advice offerd by trusted sorces and know enugh to be ignorant. 

Stash, whens dinner?!

 

[Frosty]

Steve: Failure is an option ? ? cookies? My mouth is watering! I learned cooking defensively too but it was in my Mother and Grandmother's defense. I hung around the kitchen thinking it looked like cartoon chemistry and getting in their way. Get in my folks way and they put you to work, it didn't matter if you were one of their kids either. I learned to cook using the "By guess and by GOSH!" method, hand full, big hand full, little handful, dollop, dab, pinch dash, etc.

I have Mother's "Joy of Cooking" and use it mostly for cooking times or baking recipes. It does however have some really good suggestions for might go into dinner.

Experience has a function of teaching us perspective, some folk are straight A students who can't do productive work in their chosen field while other folk didn't make it through 8th. grade but are about as good as it gets at the work.Dad could do calculus and trig in his head but had to go to work instead of finishing grade school.

Anyway, knowledge is important, very important but so is hands on dirty . . . work. Without a balance of both you can't be effective. For instance right now we have a fellow who's showing a fair degree of cut and paste knowledge but really has no clue what he's talking about. The statements may be correct in the letter but are almost completely useless in the spirit of functionality.

There is a problem with either side of the equation if it's the only thing presented. Just the work doesn't explain how and why a thing happens so it really limits the room for growth. While knowledge only without application is just ink on a page, of little value, except maybe recreation.

Say a person reads everything they can lay their hands on before lighting a fire. Maybe not the best way to learn BUT the knowledge is in their head so they'll have a better chance of recognizing what's going on and figuring it out. Then, under the scratching claw, another person just starts building fires and beating hot steel. If, when said person (would be me in fact) finds a book and starts reading the knowledge applies to what s/he's discovered.

One without the other is of little practical value but it's no reason not to keep acquiring both. Knowledge or experience are worth having if for no other reason than to have them.

Frosty the . . .

Edited May 8, 2015 by Frosty

[ThomasPowers]

A lot of cooking is experience!  I can be making a recipe and look over the spices and taste in my mind what each one would add to what I have.

Again this is pretty much start by learning the basics and following the recipes and then start making changes.  I too will look up basic instructions when I try something new and then decide on experiments to make the *next* time I cook it.  (Many medieval venison recipes work well with mutton)

[turbo7]

My favourite "Just because your an engineer doesn't mean you can make a matchbox work"

[SmoothBore]

we get a lot of guys offering advice who don't know diddly themselves.

​Bingo.

Too many think "sage advice", "personal opinion", ... and "wild-xxx guess", ... are synonyms.

And yes, ... "outcome based education" causes many to accept "consensus" as fact.

( The "Wiki" syndrome, ... where He who shouts loudest, is deemed correct. )

Eventually, ... the thoughtful ones will come to understand the difference between proven, verifiable information, ... and that which "sounds reasonable".

The thoughtless ones, ... not so much.

Since the "Mission Impossible" Team has never tasked me with correcting this intellectual imbalance, ... I'm content to "Let the Mystery Be".

 

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