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Thread: Planing Madness

  1. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    My understanding of using a micrometer is if one is squeezing the piece being measured, they are using the micrometer improperly.

    Though there are memories of some of the less likely to succeed students in class putting dents in feeler gauges with a micrometer and a very unhappy instructor.
    I'm a (former) mechanical engineer. That's where they send the kids who think they're mechanically inclined but can't actually use the micrometer without denting stuff (or the Bridgeport without snapping endmills, or...).

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Patrick Chase View Post
    I'm a (former) mechanical engineer. That's where they send the kids who think they're mechanically inclined but can't actually use the micrometer without denting stuff (or the Bridgeport without snapping endmills, or...).
    That must have been why they kept me in the ranks of repair tech, rework tech or fixing things that other people broke. Sometimes my attention was directed toward coming up with ideas for new tools, techniques and procedures or writing a manual.

    One of the hardest things to learn sometimes is to be careful about sharing one's knowledge. At one of our meetings we were discussing our new equipment's communication system. One of the systems used for this is known as SCADA. Someone asked what the heck SCADA meant. My injected answer without hesitation was Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. I may have actually blurted it out wrong. Guess who was the guy who was assigned to work on any SCADA system problems after that. My vast knowledge on the subject ended with what the acronym meant. That didn't matter. Some quick study and understanding the components had me telling engineers what had to be done in some cases. Most often it was addressing and assignment errors. Occasionally it was a malfunctioning component and being able to identify what needed replacing. Another attribute that was helpful at the time was an ability to pick locks. Some of the equipment was in locked cabinets. Sometimes it was easier to fix a problem than it was to try to explain how to fix it to the engineer who was supposed to fix it.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  3. #18
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    Reminds me of a cartoon a long time ago.....through various "panels" it showed how a simple tree swing could go wrong....starting with what the Customer ( a child) wanted, to what finally evolved out ......wasn't pretty, and wasn't even close to what was ordered....

    Someone with a better search-fu than i have, might be able to find it, and post it here?

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by steven c newman View Post
    Reminds me of a cartoon a long time ago.....through various "panels" it showed how a simple tree swing could go wrong....starting with what the Customer ( a child) wanted, to what finally evolved out ......wasn't pretty, and wasn't even close to what was ordered....

    Someone with a better search-fu than i have, might be able to find it, and post it here?
    There are many versions of this, here is one:

    http://www.projectcartoon.com/cartoon/2648

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

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