showing build details

[Jon]

Google recently removed a feature by which you could restrict your searches to forum discussions. It was under the "More" menu, alongside Maps, Books, Flights, Apps. There are some workarounds.

You can use inurl:forum, since many forums include "forum" in most of their urls. Most forums (not this one, because we paid a fee to remove it) include the name of the company that writes the forum software in the page footer. For example, some common ones are vBulletin, phpBB, and XenForo. And, the words in those company names are uncommon; they won't occur normally on other web pages. So, you add those brand names to your search. You can separate different words with the pipe character (often found above your return key on your keyboard) to indicate "or".

And of course we can enclose a phrase (like "disc sander") in double-quotes, to indicate that we're searching for the phrase "disc sander", and not the word "disc" and also the word "sander".

So, a sample search would look like this:

"disc sander" vbulletin|phpbb|xenforo

[PJs]

Thanks Marv and Jon...I've begun a new education after trying some of your search techniques and finding the advanced search here. (guess I couldn't see outa 1 eye or hear outa the other) Jon; perhaps the Advance Search could be bold/italics and in the base template for all pages?? The google Search link really opened my eyes to the possibilities and the double edged sword of SEO....quite a Rabbit Hole as C-Bag puts it and a bit more than the Dewey Decimal System.

Here is a bender, which may be the one C-Bag was thinking of? It was on page 5 of the search for site:homemadetools.net bender via google and HMT. Interestingly it led to one of the offsite links here, then to Home Model Engine Machinist Forum.

Unfortunately it also points to the issues with other forums I mentioned above and may reiterate TJ's original complaint. Although not on this forum it has a flavor "Here's what I built" - Pic worth a thousand words. However for me, I get the idea of it and would build something with the same principles to fit my needs, as I did with C-Bag pointing me in a direction I thought might work. It also fits with what Marv says about giving too much detail on a simple mechanical process and that the people of that forum are likely machinists, having fun doing miniatures and can easily Punt to get what They Want from an Idea. As for the guy asking for plans...it's OK I feel if those exact operations are what they are looking for and they are a novice machinist or neophyte to the world of miniatures, unfortunately no response by the builder was visible. The bottom line is it's plenty enough for me to head down the road I want to go, without a lot of verbiage.

We're not all engineers or physicists, or machinist and most of us are just home shop builders of whatever we need to do to accomplish our projects, and bring forward our ideas. The magic is the alchemy of transformation from bits and pieces to something functional, sometimes elegant but almost always creative from a new perspective and need. Fortunately, here we have a huge membership of extraordinary builders and visionary's that excel at sharing their talents and wherewithal with the Pool. All one needs to do IMHO, is ask. I certainly have and Grateful for all the responses...this thread included!!

Many Thanks again, Marv and Jon for lighting my candle once again. Always Grateful! ~PJ

[mklotz]

Allow me to reinforce PJs' suggestion that the "Advanced Search" button be made a bit more visible, either by font size, color, or position on the page.

I've been a member of MEM from its inception and can say that many of the build threads have become quite boring to me. Endless pictures of parts in lathe chucks, drills about to enter a part, or taps partially buried in a part don't do much for me. Occasionally there will be something a bit out of the ordinary and that's worth discussion but much of the build is typically, well, stuff you need to know how to do if you're in the hobby of building miniature engines.

The folks who need a detailed plan to drill and thread a hole have to recognize that they have a responsibility to learn the basic skills on their own rather than requiring every contributor to re-explain minutiae that are usually regarded as common knowledge. Learning those skills may require taking courses and/or patient reading and lots of practice but you can't expect it to be repeated with every new idea proffered for consideration.

[Jon]

Good call; I've just enlarged and bolded the Advanced Search text. Let me know if that's looking good in your browsers.

I'm wondering if I should cook up some custom Google search engines. We've already completed a lot of the legwork; we can just use the sites listed here: HomemadeTools.net -- Thousands of Homemade Tools - HomemadeTools.net . Then we can label the sites: Woodworking, Metalworking, General, etc. Then you could search, for example, 30 woodworking sites at once.

Along similar lines as have been mentioned: I think I'm going to cut out the less techy new tool entries that come from other websites. For example, I think it's fine to have a few lumber rack builds listed here, but there's minimal value gained in adding the 50th one. Also, the builds submitted by HMT forum members are increasing so much that we don't really need to add builds from other websites unless they're high quality.

[mklotz]

Much better with Firefox, Jon.

In addition to stock racks...

clamps
table saw push sticks and sleds
paint stirrers
mallets (wood or metal)
bandsaw/router circle cutting jigs

unless really innovative in design or application

[C-Bag]

Occasionally there will be something a bit out of the ordinary and that's worth discussion but much of the build is typically, well, stuff you need to know how to do if you're in the hobby of building miniature engines.

The folks who need a detailed plan to drill and thread a hole have to recognize that they have a responsibility to learn the basic skills on their own rather than requiring every contributor to re-explain minutiae that are usually regarded as common knowledge. Learning those skills may require taking courses and/or patient reading and lots of practice but you can't expect it to be repeated with every new idea proffered for consideration.

As one who has one cheek in each world of old hand and silly noob on different subjects and different forums, I get where you are coming from Marv. But if a site just becomes a place where only the pro's can contribute its going to dwindle and die I guarantee. Been there, watched it happen. This was beat to death on one site I've been on for 14yrs. And what it really finally came down to is, nobody is making anybody look at everything. We have choice. And the OP could have asked questions that were a little more engaging but didn't feel it was worth the time. What do you do with that response? I don't know how anybody realistically expects to get good at anything without putting in some time and asking question. But if he was expecting to get a terse response or no response I guess I could see the point. But everybody I've asked questions to on HMT have gone out of their way to respond in a supportive way.

It was too bad because I've gone through threads that not until questions that jumped the original track did it get interesting for me. And I'd be surprised if those alternate universes are going to show up in a search no matter how advanced your search.

I've not had time to spend on the search criteria yet but so far nobody has found that thread I was looking for. It's based on that exact HFT drill press vise.

[PJs]

Thanks Jon, looks good in Firefox (49.02)...how about the root template (all pages)? It's also nice to see that HMT is top of the list but interesting the drop off after the first 5 or so. Obviously there are a lot of innovative creators here but somewhat agree with Marv about the inane builds, particularly from other sites. I'm not sure I understand your "Cook up some custom Google searches"...would those be built into the drop downs in advanced search or maybe a tab in the advanced with quick searches? I kind of like the idea of built in "Quick" syntax but can't attest to the efficacy for others.

The folks who need a detailed plan to drill and thread a hole have to recognize that they have a responsibility to learn the basic skills on their own rather than requiring every contributor to re-explain minutiae that are usually regarded as common knowledge. Learning those skills may require taking courses and/or patient reading and lots of practice but you can't expect it to be repeated with every new idea proffered for consideration.

Marv, I agree in principle that people need to take responsibility and spend the energy to learn, but found when I was teaching the best thing I could do for a significant number of students was to teach them how to learn; where to go find the answers, and how to build up to the answers they needed, which usually involved Practice. Engaging newbies and novices with ways and a "Will" to learn can be somewhat double edged in this day and age of "have it now" and the next new i-Toy showing up every 10 minutes. It's applicable to all levels too, whether novice or master and the benefits are exponential, IMHO. To be successful in teaching this it requires the participants have a "Want to Learn" and not just handed to them on a silver platter, IMHO. To me this was some of the most rewarding experiences of my careers and one of the most valuable things to me about HMT.

You yourself have given me and others, a myriad of tidbits of wisdom, insights, practice, enabling the "Possibilities" as well as countless others. Some may not even know there is a tap drill chart or that a wizard such as your self wrote a program for it. We do because you told us all about it and why it's important! For things like this, I am most grateful to be a member here even though I already know about % thread depth. If I can point someone in the right direction...I'm a happy camper and it helps to exponentially expand the creativity we see here. I'm not convinced that we ever do it alone and sometimes we can stand on the shoulders of giants to do something magical...if those giants are willing to dangle a carrot, but only they have that choice. I have to admit my patience has diminished over the decades for particular idiocy, but recently saw the movie "The Intern" with De Niro and Anne Hathaway and it's renewed my interest in being of Value, not necessarily successful...although it would be a nice bonus if I can be of value.

I'm with C-Bag at some level about being a noob on one side and skilled on the other. We've all got our own skill sets and wherewithal but know absolutely I've got a ton to learn on all of it...And Practice. Then there are those things dancing around in my noggin for years looking for the right Spark to bring them to light, which is where my eclectic interests come from. I strive to be discerning, judicious and mindful of the results, especially now but there is always room for flushing things out that clog the arteries...always a challenge but necessary for new growth, IMHO and truly enjoy what we have here now. Choosing our passions and battles is the challenge.

Thoughts from the far side...~PJ

[mklotz]

Ah, yes, "teach them how to learn". A noble goal, but so few teachers seem to understand its importance and even fewer know how to do it.

Of course, there is no universal formula for accomplishing this. The student needs to be first taught self-examination. How does his mind work and what learning pitfalls most plague the learning process for him? Sadly, most people are not very good at self-examination. Lots of folks claim to be hands-on learners but, in reality, they've never really tried the mental approach so can't assess their skill at it. To teach how to self-examine, the teacher must examine himself. Sort of like requiring aspiring psychoanalysts to undergo analysis themselves.

The teacher has many responsibilities. One of the most important, and most overlooked, is to start each teaching session with a discussion of why the student wants to learn the material to be presented. When I was working, the first slide in any presentation was devoted to this issue and it really worked to forestall a lot of irrelevant questions, the product of drifting attention.

I'm sure you've encountered the forum submission that jumps right into "here's how I built an xxx" without ever mentioning what an xxx is or why the reader would want one. Even something as simple as a carving mallet needs a bit of prelude - why does it have the form of a truncated cone? Of course, one must judge the presentation venue. An introduction suitable for a generalized forum may be extreme overkill for a professional woodcarvers' forum.

Enough of my babblings.

[Jon]

A search function for multiple external sites could take the form of a dedicated separate page, featuring a search box accompanied by a dropdown menu. The dropdown menu would have options like: "Search 13 woodworking forums", "Search 11 machining forums", etc. Each of those dropdown options would invoke a complex Google search query, with numerous inurl: and site: syntaxes built in, but the user wouldn't know it. He would just enter a search term, select an option from the dropdown menu, and get the results.

Here's a basic example of one I made a while back, that searches only motorcycle forums: https://cse.google.com/cse/publicurl...59:hxz9cfm1wrm . For example, try a search there for spring compressor, and then compare that with a standard Google search for spring compressor. Huge difference in quality of result set.

It's probably not possible to simultaneously appeal to both newbies and experienced people. This community's focus was premeditated to appeal not necessarily to experts only, but to people across DIY disciplines who had at least arrived at intermediate ability, and this ability was gauged by filtering on "homemade tools", which is a rational but not perfect means of establishing skill level across various DIY disciplines.

What we can and should do is focus more on appealing to beginners without disturbing more advanced users. This could be done with a dedicated subforum or an ebook with detailed beginner tool builds.

[PJs]

All good points Marv, especially the "Sort of like requiring aspiring psychoanalysts to undergo analysis themselves". If Only! (is that a new programing function?) The other issue with teaching is having to deal with someone else's curriculum and timeline. When I taught engineering drafting and CAD I wrote my own but had to work within someone else's framework/books for electronics (Ohms Law thru Digital) & computer troubleshooting. Some of those students had never turned on the old red switch before. I found it pretty "Awakening" what wasn't taught in our schools, by parents or life experiences and had to improvise daily, teaching how to learn so I could manage the timelines and get through the material. Using an opening salvo as you suggest works for teaching And meetings!

I think your "Presentation Venue" & Jon's point of the "premeditated focus" here speaks volumes for how and what is presented to whom...at least to me. Brief thoughts on having an e-book or sub-forum; The e-book kind of appeals to me but could be a squatwad of work for all the categories of DIY and dividing the population seems a bit extreme and might be perceived as cliquish, which I avoid, mostly. ~¿@ Perhaps a rating system similar to the Star system might work to differentiate the difficulty of a build and could be built into the submission template and used in conjunction with the categories?? I know I try to use the categories effectively but still a novice for the right words based on a page and a half of categories.

Jon, It's up to you if you want to implement the offsite searches. I tried your suggestion but my "Ghostery" blocked the custom search data entry line from even appearing. Once I paused it, it showed 3 cookies; Google Analytics, Google Adsense, & Google Ajax AP. I don't mind these too much but generally leave them enabled in Ghostery. I've used Ghostery for a number of years now and appalled by some of the practices going on out there. ForInsanity....DirecTv now requires one to disable it to log on to your personal account/information and then proceeds to drop no less than 35 cookies of all types onto your machine....and the big news sites are even worse. I may be a tightwad but its my wad. Please don't do that here.

~PJ