“Have nothing in your home which you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” --- William Morris
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“Have nothing in your home which you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” --- William Morris
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So all those extraneous and unnecessary holes in the plane are negative space! Very interesting. I still think he missed an opportunity by not making a skeleton front knob. That would fit the theme of negative space very nicely.Originally Posted by Derek Cohen
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As a [former] mechanical engineer and product designer this makes me cringe. You can design some things this way, but not something as user-interaction-intensive as a plane. IMO subjective properties like "balance" and "[perceived] center of effort" can't be evaluated from CAD or by mocking up components.
The real shame is that modern technology has brought all sorts of rapid prototyping solutions, that make it easier than ever to go from CAD to a representative article.
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Yeah, it would be interesting to see how the designs would be influenced by doing prototypes on a 3D printer using metal-infused filaments --- that's an interesting specialty, which I don't think has come up yet --- filaments which are designed to mimic the weight/density of various materials so as to allow handling of a prototype w/ reasonably proximate weight.
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Yep, though those have pretty crappy mechanical properties (the ones I've seen are PLA). I was thinking more along the lines of a combination of CNC milling and laser-sintered metal printing. The part costs have come down a lot, to the point where they'd make sense even at BCTW's volumes.
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I think that someday,when they get the metallurgy worked out,machining will be ADDITIVE (3D printing technology),not SUBTRACTIVE(cutting metal away in lathes or milling machines,or grinders). Today,cast tools are still inferior to forged. But,that can change. When it does,vast changes in manufacturing will occur.
Have you noticed the cast styrofoam texture on your car engines? That is because styrofoam like pre cast patterns are placed in the sand. When white hot metals are poured in,they are vaporized,allowing metal to fill the cavities,leaving the tell tale surface texture behind.
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Yeah, we used to do a journal on powdered metallurgy, back before it became mainstream — still a lot of difficulties to be worked out before that is truly workable for demanding applications such as hand tools.
It will be interesting to see how the economics of such things play out, and nice to be able to order anything, since everything which can’t be affordably done mass production can be done affordably as a one-off item.
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The shop where I teach on weekends just added a metallurgy course, and got a CNC plasma cutter. Wow- that thing cuts 1/2" steel!!! They also got a laser for engraving wood and cutting small parts from wood. The world is changing, and although the artisan is not lost- the skillset of the artisan has evolved. What I mean by that is the artisan still creates, but with different tools, knowledge sets, and methods.
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I am right there with you.
I believe there is some degree of rapid-prototyping for sizing and formal evaluation, but the fact that there is rarely a fully functional model ready until the entire production batch is finished seems like an invitation for failure. I am an engineer working with precision devices. I prototype and manufacture with several local machine shops and understand how expensive (time/money) the prototyping process can be. Making 1-5 parts can often cost 5-10 times the cost of making 20-50 parts and there are lead times of 4-12 weeks. I've recently invested in two rapid prototyping machines (FDM and SLS) simply because I expect can often catch silly errors or make simple modifications without having spend thousands of dollars and 1-3 months time between revisions. I still believe that there is no substitute for a pre-production fully functional prototype regardless of the cost.
It's interesting to tie this discussion to the previous discussion of tools that have been long "delayed" getting to market (i.e. Lie Nielsen Plough Plane). Good and robust design does not appear out of thin air, and getting things right the first time is virtually impossible (and is not a realistic goal).
My approach to design is similar to a model of natural history. Designs and mechanisms do not exist in a vacuum but rather they communicate in a great continuum. The best designs evolve given functional requirements and environmental pressures. There are occasional great leaps forward, but mostly the process consists of many diligent refinements in pursuit of perfection (however unattainable). The zenith of design is reached when you can look at a thing and find that any change would result in a worst product.
To redesign the wheel every time you sit down at the drawing board (or mousepad) will guarantee that your design will be fraught with the problems of an early unrefined design.
That being said we are on the cusp of major changes in methods of manufacturing joining additive/subtractive processes. For instance there are now methods of combining SLS techniques and 5 axis machining with metals like titanium to create parts that are orders of magnitude cheaper, stronger, more complex than using conventional methods. These processes are being used in the aerospace industry to rapid-prototype/manufacture parts for the next generation of space exploration. It's really exciting stuff!
Last edited by Niels Cosman; 05-11-2016 at 3:07 PM.
"Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden."
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I just read my own response, and it sounds like I'm saying all the CNC stuff is a good thing. It is in some cases- and in many cases I am saddened by the loss of the art of woodworking. It's much like photography. It's great to see the image immediately appear on the screen- as a former wedding photographer, I would have loved that in the film days- but it's sad to see the art of photography being lost to the ability to manipulate anything in the computer. As I watched a laser cutter do its thing for the first time, I was impressed, elated, and also a bit saddened- all at the same time.
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This is oddly on-topic. John Economaki designed and built, imho, beautiful furniture until he woke up one day in a hospital and was told he couldn't be near wood dust ever again. Now he designs tools for working wood by hand, almost entirely by computer. He says, in the video linked in this thread, that he was surprised to find that he got an equal and similar pleasure from "making" a 3D model as from making an object. I find it interesting that while the skillset, in being adapted to changing circumstance, becomes different, the mindset continues mostly unchanged from the most distant reaches of our histories.
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Yeah, I mislike how one company marketing CNC routers terms them as "3D carvers".
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One tool of theirs I do want is the CS 12 try square. One just went for $175 on eBay. I was going to bid $155. I love the gradations (easy to read) and that it has metric and standard. I use both. It's also pretty. Nothing wrong with pretty as long as it goes hand in hand with functional. I use a try square as my main measuring tool for most projects. You can't beat the functionality, but this is where you want a really good tool because there are so many variables with moving parts.
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Powdered metal not yet for hand tools? What about my nice PM VIII block plane blade from LV?????
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Indeed. I almost said exactly the same thing but bit my tongue for once.
In fairness there's a huge difference between the PM process used to form those blades and the sort of laser-sintering-based 3D printing processes discussed in this thread. I think the "not ready" comment was in re: the latter, though even there I would disagree. Rocket engine combustion chambers and turbopumps aren't exactly "friendly" applications, and yet SpaceX uses printed metal parts for both.
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