pondering drafting and other "old techs"

[pyotr filipivich]

Greetings

Was pondering the whole "it is good to learn the manual skills first" school of thought, and made the analogy to writing vs keyboarding. Not a smart statement to make in the hearing of an early childhood education specialist B-). She pointed out that children at that age learn "though the hand." They need to use their hand to make the shape as part of how they learn the letters. "So much for that idea."

OTOH, for the vast majority of users, be it word processing, CAD, machine operator, operating an automobile, microwave, etc - knowing the history beyond the very basic outline is not needed. As far as keyboarding goes, all you need to know is "the layout is a legacy from the early mechanical typewriter layouts." Same with drafting - you don't need to know how to set an ink pen in order to use AutoDesk, Catia, Solidworks, etc. Just know that line thickness and their meanings were settled (in Court). You do not need to know about descriptive geometry to understand the origins of 3rd Angle projection vs 1st angle projection, just know that they are there. Likewise, while I am attempting to learn astronomy without clocks or telescopes, that doesn't mean when I want to look at the moon, or Mars, I don't grab a telescope. Same for in the shop. Having used hand tools for construction "I understand why power tools were invented."

There is the saying that the user knows enough to accomplish the task at hand, the expert knows all the relevant parts of the subject*; and a scholar knows all that and the rest, too.

tschus pyotr

*as a one time computer lab rat/monitor/ student assistant, I learned early that a "guru" is just someone with one more trick than you.

tschus pyotr

[J. Clarke]

If you were going to be in the back seat during a dogfight, who would you rather have in front, Saburo Sakai or an aeronautical engineering professor?

Building the bus and driving the bus are different skills, and excellence at one does not confer excellence at the other. This has been an ongoing problem at most universities for decades--the math faculty insist on trying to teach everybody how to build the bus, when most scientists and engineers need to know how to drive it instead.

[John Grossbohlin]

She might find Doug Stowe's "Wisdom of the Hands" blog interesting. He is an advocate of educational Sloyd. Without using the formal Sloyd process I used that approach with my sons from the time they were very young.

I took two years of "mechanical drawing" in school back in the '70s. I was good at it... Flash forward nearly 5 decades and at best I sketch woodworking projects out on a yellow sticky note pad, an envelope, or maybe a piece of printer paper. My drawing board and tools seldom see daylight. I don't use any CAD software either. This as I only need some key dimensions and proportions and the rest I build to fit as was common in the 18th century. My point: What design tool you use should be dependent upon the type of projects you build, how much detail you need, how dependent you are on machines, jigs and fixtures, and how well you can visualize how things will go together. We are all different in that respect.

[J. Clarke]

Sometimes planning things out in too much detail leads to the paralysis of analysis. I've got a project right now that if I had just _done_ it would be long done, but I started drawing pictures . . .

[Emanuel Berg]

Indeed also build is intellectual and drawing is practical, little by little can be a good first approach. Then you develop your own for or routine, not set in stone hopefully, but still, it happens quicker the 2nd and 3rd time and so on, no doubt. And _appears_ to happen even quicker when the mind and body relaxes...

[dpb]

On 3/1/2021 10:13 PM, John Grossbohlin wrote: ...

But you have the background that is inherent now in whatever you do in those sketches -- without that doing what you do now would not be nearly as effective.

I only had the one semester required of NE (supposed to have been two, but I heard they were going to cut back the requirements so I took a chance and didn't enroll for second--I was NOT much good but I did learn some rudiments that proved valuable for what is now getting closer to 6 decades.

[Leon]

Soooooo moving forward to using a computer....

Drafting, drawing on a drawing board,is wide open to mistakes. You can draw accurately but if you wright the wrong dimension you have a massive problem.

You can even mentally interpret how a view should be draw, and not knowingly draw that view wrong too.

With manual drawing you have to picture the views, correctly, and then put that on paper. Again, if you do that wrong, the drawing is wrong and that translates to your project being wrong.

With a Program such as Sketchup you can draw in 2D or 3D and orbit around the object you have drawn to see the different views. 99.999% of the time if the drawing looks correct, it is correct. You have to use the dimension tool but it fills in the distance. You know exactly at that point if the line you just drew is correct or incorrect in length.

And mistakes or design changes are very easily and quickly changed.

[pyotr filipivich]

"John Grossbohlin" [e-mail]> on Mon, 1 Mar 2021 23:13:28 -0500 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

She's Montessori based.

I remember in one of the classes, that one is not to put dimensions on a three-d drawing, because either the shape or the dimensions are not correct. OTOH, when I am 'designing' a thing, that three-D sketch gets all sorts of dimensions added, because, well if there is any questions, the design committee and production lead can go get a cup of coffee and figure it out. Part of my approach is that I am a history geek. How did this come into existence? What was the development process? Why this way and not that? Current 'crank' is time: "why twelve o'clock?" (It has to do with the Roman fractional practices, and Babylonian base sixty astronomy.)

Back in tech school, I noticed that most of the class were of the "Do this on the machine, then the books make sense" sort while I was one of "the book says X, ah, that's how that works on the machine" types. (And then there are the uber geeks, who not only know how it works 'one the machine', but how it works on the blackboard.)

[pyotr filipivich]

J. Clarke [e-mail] on Mon, 01 Mar 2021 17:50:31

-0500 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

I want Joe "Bird Brain" von Fronkensteen. Outside of the cockpit he's a complete, well, birdman. But because he had a bird's brain transplanted into him, he has an innate sense of flying that puts all humans to shame.

Go read the web comic "Chicken Wings" and tell me how much you admire Chuck.

As I said, there are "operators" who know enough to use the machine, there are those who knows the practice and the theory behind it, and then there is the guy who knows not only the practice and the theory, but also all the other bits, too.

If you want to hire the button pusher, that is entirely up to you. Just do not expect any useful feedback other than "it broke, I don't know why."

[John Grossbohlin]

That is a good argument for drawing by hand... you've built the object already in your head so when you move to the shop and materials it's the 2nd time you've built it.

[John Grossbohlin]

Absolutely... Recently I've had some home renovation problems present themselves that I spent way to much time thinking about... conjuring up all the ways it could go wrong and myriad alternatives. Then one day I just tackled the problem with complete success all the while asking myself why I just didn't do it sooner! LOL

[krw]

So you have to spend more time playing 3-D chess that in the shop doing? ;-)

[J. Clarke]

So how do you retain the master engineers in button pushing jobs? I'd think they'd get bored with it after a while.

[J. Clarke]

Do not _scale_ a perspective drawing makes perfect sense. But not putting dimensions on it is another story, the only caveat I can see is to make sure that the endpoints are absolutely clear.

[John Grossbohlin]

Yes, that goes with my point. Also embedded in my point is the notion that we are constrained by our tools.

When you use only power tools or are making many copies of a project you are more dependent on exact measurements and exact machine work. When you design and build a piece of furniture with a combination of power and hand tools, and build to fit, fewer exact dimensions are needed. For example I don't worry about making boards exactly .75 inches thick when I prep stock for a one off project. If I'm a little fat or a little thin it doesn't matter. On the other hand, if I were making parts for 100 of those items I really need to get as close to .75 inches as possible. Case in point, while not of solid wood an associate of mine made, as I recall, 175 bathrooms for a motel... He couldn't do that economically unless every part was made to a predictable size. I've got an upcoming renovation project where I'm going to make ash flooring for my house... I'm using a cabinet saw, jointer, thickness planer and shaper for that project and a power feeder. I need efficiency and accuracy and the power feeder facilitates that.

Other things to consider in design. I can cut dovetails by hand where the narrow ends of the pin sockets in the tail board are a saw kerf wide. That is not something you can do with a router. I can easily cut compound angles with a handsaw that would be very difficult to accurately make with power tools. I can shave a few thousandths off or alter an angle with a shooting board to attain a perfect fit, something very difficult to do with power tools. Whereas my jointer is 8" and my floor model thickness planer is 13" I can flatten and thickness any width I need to with hand planes.

In summery, in the context of how you design, you need to consider your tools and skills.

John

[pyotr filipivich]

J. Clarke [e-mail] on Tue, 02 Mar 2021 15:55:29

-0500 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers does it take to change a light bulb.

[pyotr filipivich]

"John Grossbohlin" [e-mail]> on Tue, 2 Mar 2021 13:28:38 -0500 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

Because you had already considered a number of the possible issue which might come up. I want a garden shed. I'm on my third or forth iteration of "I could do it this way.,," which is a heck of a lot cheaper than "just starting" and realizing that "I'm not sure what I wanted, but this isn't it."

"I should have put this over there, oriented that way, then the other could fit in that space, and I'd have this area here "clear"."

[krw]

I push 104 buttons pretty much all day long. ;-) After 50 years, yeah, sometimes I get bored with it.

[pyotr filipivich]

[e-mail] on Tue, 02 Mar 2021 21:56:08 -0500 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

How he functions, I've given up caring.

He apparently can't tell the difference between someone who only knows how to "push the button" from someone who understands what happens, and why. "All the science [he] don't understand, it's just his job, five days a week."

[DerbyDad03]

Rocket man, burning down the street with people on. Rocket man, Bernie Taupin sleeps with everyone. Rocket man, breathing all these fumes all everlong Rocket man, bringing home a ham and provolone Rocket man, Burning out this useless telephone