The ultimate drafting board...you have one already
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mklotz
Too right. I'm one of those "we doan need no steenkin' plans" guys for sure. While I will on occasion draw a diagram to work out a relationship between parts, for the most part it's TLAR (That Looks About Right) all the way.
I'm applauding Marv's admission, and the concept it projects. His abilities are clearly stratospheric, but formed in a natural way. Study. Retention. Application.
http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/q...-v-block-58650 Exposed in the first couple sentences.
No way to estimate how many well known market items received identical treatment, over certainly many, many centuries, let alone millennia.
And the big factor why those ancient articles exist still. Mass figures in longevity, along with fit/ form/ and function. Marv's examples prove those factors.
TLAR is not an unreasonable means of design work. It takes practice to establish intuition, such as he (many of us) built over years studying old hardware and tool catalogs.
Even when sliderules did calculations, designs got the benefit of an extra 10 or 15%, based on the very same intuition.
There were small if any distinctions between good Machinists, Mechanics, and other Builders from Engineers. Many started as one type or another of apprentice, without formal education. In fact, many originated their field of choice. Oil industry, mass production, construction, aircraft, maritime, civil projects, automotive, even hydro-electrics; about any conceivable field had full populations of intuitive minds. They in turn spawned new fields...
Then industry was no longer supplied with hordes of vocational students. CAD, loading and stress, fatigue, etc programs took over and 'uncovered' extra percentages as cost factors. So when you wonder why your old __________ outlasts the newer (but lesser) equivalent, it's not such a mystery after all.
Accountants and paper leaders run companies now. They wrest manipulation and lecture-sleep over talent and free thinking; and wonder why suggestion boxes stay empty...try to settle production issues in meetings...arrange cause and effect matrix studies...'empower' subordinates to address what's wrong...and compelled to fund STEM education as a means to remain in business.