Good news about a Mexican Nicholson file

[Jim Koepke]

I'm finding the metal working side of making planes as fun as the wood working aspects on making my own tools and truly appreciate your inputs on both aspects.

+1 on that. Sometimes I wish I had taken some metal shop classes.

Also on George's posts, they are often copied and saved in my own files for future use.

jtk

[ian maybury]

I guess ultimately that metal and wood working merge Jim - in that one opens the way to all sorts of possibilities in respect of the other. Woodworking (both machines and hand tools) has tendency to bring so many aspects of engineering that get taught in a very theoretical manner in college into a properly practical context. Metallurgy, materials, machine design, practical consequences of tolerances, bearings, and alignments etc.

You've obviously been there George. One of the classical issues in organisations tends to be when the bean counters try to force technical staff through purchasing officers in order to try to say money. There's of course engineers/technical people that run amuck and have no concept of value, but good purchasing decisions by definition entail a balancing between technical, financial and lots of other considerations. Trying to force these calls through a one dimensional and technically clueless choke point must inevitably leads to serious problems and ultimately to very poor value indeed...