The BSA A7-A10 Forum
Bikes, Pictures, Stories & more => Chat, Offtopic & Everything Else => Topic started by: RDfella on 13.08. 2021 20:59
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My friend George ran a smallish engineering shop in the late 60's & 70's. He then, in partnership with a German inventor, moved to larger premises (about 80,000sq ft) with a vast array of machines (pre CNC). When his partner died suddenly, he reverted to his original 'shop, which he ran until recently. His work was mainly repair - take a gearbox gear in and pick up a replacement a week later reasonably priced - especially as he probably had to first make the cutter. He had mills, surface & cylindrical grinders, slotters, spark erosion, pantographs etc. etc. He also did a lot of work for inventors, developing ideas and making prototypes. I remember one occassion when a world-known inventor had toured the UK, USA & Europe trying to find someone to make a prototype. They all told him it couldn't be done. When asked, George said he could make it - and he did, albeit with a bit of lateral thinking.
I have often sought his advice when starting a project and he has done small jobs for me when I haven't had the appropriate machinery. Such as engine camshafts - I draw these up (having calculated lift, dwell and acceleration) then make a 5x scale hardboard template. Over to George to cut a master cam on his pantograph from which I can then grind the cams proper. I used the same approach when recently making the ratchet for the project's starter. He cut me a master for the pawls and gave me some work-hardening spring steel from which to make them. He is simply the best engineer I've ever known.
Well, today I went to visit him, knowing he hadn't been well and having heard from a mutual friend that things weren't good. I don't know how long he's got, but he won't see the year out. Which is very sad for two reasons - I'll lose a friend and engineer with far superior knowledge / ability than myself, but also the community will lose a person the likes of which aren't being replaced today. These days people leave university with loads of qualifications, but they can't actually do anything. My son has a Bsc in engineering with CAD and other trimmings. Ask him to make a blind square hole (eg socket) and he wouldn't know where to start. Had a very wealthy person drop by the other day (he has a large collection of expensive classics) and he remarked that his visits to Aston Martin and other similar places demonstrated wonderful premises but staff who knew nothing. Lotus was similar in the days when Ron Hickman (B&D workmate) worked there. Why is it people in sheds can produce amazing stuff (and many outstanding inventions over the decades) but the posh premises and qualified personnel can't?
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G'day RD.
The answer is simple. Young'uns these days don't want to get their hands dirty!
Yes REAL engineers are a dying breed.
Cheers
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i know loads with degrees but no common sense, car sales people who know nothing about cars but can tell you lots about the gadgets, and retired engineers who had no interest in engineering once they had left work, the fella next door has a degree in engineering and works at a gear cutting firm. he's about 38 years old and can't even reverse his car!!! he has no hobbies at all, even the tiny shed he keeps the lawn mower in is falling to pieces ,--- funny old game isn't it
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Dying Art? Dying Engineers. If only we could bottle it.
It makes me think of dear ol' Norm Trigg (well known to Velocette people), who recently passed away.
Norm spread his encyclopedic knowledge of Velos and other marques very generously, but those who spent some time with him know that the amount of knowledge he took to the grave is monumental! If only we could have bottled it.
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RD, It is sad to lose such a valuable person.
The term engineer is not usually applied these days to people with such skills - at least in Oz.
Engineers with degrees are required for design and project management, Cad and computer skills, Gantt charts etc are important and crawling up the greasy pole. A soul-destroying activity. Most design is done on computers - outside firms contracted to make things.
Those with the skills we value start out as fitters and machinists, then go into their own businesses in their area of most interest. They are totally free to develop those skills to suit themselves. They are always in very close contact with their customers and there is no confusion over the task at hand. They don't fit in a corporate environment.
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My eldest grandson has a masters degree in engineering. You should see the state of his bicycle. I recently had him (under close supervision) set the tappets on the tractor. He's still not sure which way you turn a spanner to undo a nut. But, will he ever need to get oily fingers?
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G'day Fellas.
When I was a third year apprentice the foreman came to me with a drawing (and the "engineer") to make a test unit. I studied the drawing and said this will not work. The engineer was adamant all the dimensions were correct. I made the piece as per drawing. Yes, it leaked like an A10 rockerbox. The foreman then said for me to correct it (another day on the lathe and $$$ of stainless). Worked as it should.
Cheers
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I believe it's common to confuse education with intelligence. I looked for a definition of intelligence and found this:
'Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.'
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Muskrat,
Back in the early 80's I asked a very clever fitter in the workshop to make me an object and provided him with a sketch. He rarely asked for any clarification and was a self-starter. For weeks I walked past the workshop to see a mechanical object in creation. It was about 10 metres wide. After a few weeks I looked closely and thought it looked familiar - and the penny dropped *pull hair out*. He had mistaken millimetres for metres. It was for a microscope slide.
Nobody came up smelling like roses on that occasion.
Col
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... the penny dropped *pull hair out*. He had mistaken millimetres for metres. It was for a microscope slide.
😁
So did you look for a mahoosive microscope?
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No GB. It crossed my mind for a fraction of a second. I was Plant Engineer of a small hand-blown glass works, and responsible for the budget. It was well and truly blown out that month.
Col
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Every cemetery is full of people who couldn't be replaced......
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Every cemetery is full of people who couldn't be replaced......
Which is probably why the world is going to hell in a handcart .....
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Well RDFella it is a small world.
Way back in the early eighties, I was a junior manufacturing engineer just come out of my Ford apprenticeship and was working at a small overflow engine plant in Plumstead, sarf London on the site of the old Woolwich Arsenal. There was a lovely old fella there, an engineer who I quickly realised was in fact a real boffin, a very clever man although "a bit different". His name was Ron Hickman and I slowly got to know him a bit. He was the only guy in the place who could get the Transit rear axle line to run as it was supposed to! *pull hair out* although I don't think he ever mentioned he'd worked for Lotus so there you go there was even more to Ron than any of us knew.
There was a story going around that he had actually invented the B&D Workmate, something that he never confirmed or denied to me but it was a pretty strong rumour. Apparently he was the inventor as I found out years later in a TV documentary which exposed the terrible way he was treated. Maybe he was a little naive but it was his invention and he initially tried to make it himself but needed the backing, sales and marketing clout of a bigger company behind him so he showed the idea to Black & Decker and they told him essentially that it would never catch on. Within a year or so it was in production and I don't think he ever really got the recognition or much else owed to him. I don't want to say too much as I don't have all the facts of the case but Ron was certainly badly affected by it all and was never properly himself afterward. I think he pretty well bankrupted himself fighting them and had a breakdown as result. All in all a very sad story.
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Re Hickman:
He indeed worked at Ford before moving to Lotus as a production engineer and general manager. He headed the team that designed the Elan (great cars - pig to work on but handled like a racing car). Leaving Lotus in 1967 he moved to Hertfordshire where he worked for Cunard. After Black & Decker had seen the potential, he made millions from the workmate and retired to Jersey. His old secretary / legal bod is a very good friend of mine. Plenty of detail about Ron on wiki.
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Plenty of detail about Ron on wiki.
Yes he didn’t do all that badly, did he!
Hickman sold the benches himself to professional builders at trade shows until Black & Decker saw the light in 1973 and began producing them. Hickman received a 3% royalty on the sales of the WorkMate. By 1981 it had sold 10 million benches and by 2011 more than 100 million
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I'm more old school than some here, it seems.
To me, the term "engineer" means someone who designs space rockets, jet engines, ship's gearboxes, railway bridges, etc and never ever gets their carefully manicured hands dirty with anything so common as a spanner.
People who can produce wonderful precision-made components and/or install, fault-find and maintain complex machinery are variations on the word "fitter" and ne'er the twain shall meet...ever.
Sadly those who lay carpets and install double glazing now lay claim to the word "fitter", just as those who fix your washing machine or service the boiler are now self-styled "engineers" and the little Thai girls who stick on acrylic finger nails are "technicians".
Things were easier to understand, years ago. *sad2*
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I think the world has changed. In earlier times one man, often a celebrity chief engineer, head designer call him what you may, could wield a lot of power and make huge calls often with stunning results. Sometimes sadly with startling failures and loss of life too. In these more litigious days, insurance companies call the shots and no one person wants or is allowed to carry the sole responsibility. Engineers are degree qualified, members of professional institutions and major design decisions are mostly made by committee.
A lot depends on the field of work but in my experience working for 35 years in the automotive manufacturing and R&D arenas the best engineers were always the guys who had a thorough grounding in the basics, often completing an apprenticeship and qualifying as tradesmen before going to Uni and doing a degree. Indeed in Germany and Japan this is the norm rather than the exception. These people understand the intricacies and issues involved in manufacturing, how different materials behave, not just their physical properties but how they are machined or moulded and what affect their choices could have on the process. Fitters and toolmakers have a lot more respect for their engineer if they know he could set up and run the machine himself if he had to.
Since the auto industry died here in Australia, I've gone back to my roots as a tool maker and I work at the uni as a prototype machinist / fabricator designing and making trial parts, spares, test rigs etc supporting a number of different research groups. Work which involves use of all the standard workshop machinery, Lathes, mills, surface grinder, sheet metal press brake, Tig / Mig welding stainless and Aluminium etc. it is wonderful and I have not had so much fun at work for many years! I have rediscovered the joy of getting my hands on the tools and realised how far away from what originally drew me into the industry I had gone in my previous engineering roles, sat in front of a CAD screen or an Excel spreadsheet for hours on end. I only look at computers now when I want to and its great!
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The definition of an engineer is someone who is prepared to argue about who can be called an engineer.
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The definition of an engineer is someone who is prepared to argue about who can be called an engineer.
Indeed, after all who else gives a damn.
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Rex - don't know about nowadays, but in the 60's when I was working in engineering companies (toolroom / design) a fitter was the equivalent of a 2nd fit carpenter, the engineer was the cabinet maker. A fitter would assemble parts made by others, service the factory compressor, set up the simpler production machines for the operators etc. A guy from the toolroom would be called in for setting up precision machines. Fitters could do a bit of turning or milling, but never design or get involved with prototypes.
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In this case it depends on your definition or understanding of the word "fitter" then.
Way back when (in the 1970s in my case when I did an apprenticeship) a fitter "made things (to) fit", whether it be on an airframe, tool room, electrical, steam, aero engine etc. Rather different from an installer.
Not saying design was ever in their/my brief, that was for the designers etc.
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It's universal. Computer operators call themselves 'Graphic Designers' nowadays, and people with degrees don't know the difference between 'your' and 'you're'.
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It's universal. Computer operators call themselves 'Graphic Designers' nowadays, and people with degrees don't know the difference between 'your' and 'you're'.
My daughter-in-law is a graphic designer. Of course she does her work on a computer; why wouldn't she? She 'paints' using a graphic tablet. She then emails her work files to the client.
I agree about the dire level of written English these days.
When I left school I worked for 13 years in manual jobs that needed no writing. I had to learn how to write good English after I joined BT when I was 29 and embarked on various courses, so I'm not sympathetic to people who can't be bothered to use our language properly. I don't always get it right but I am 'trying', 😉
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It's universal. Computer operators call themselves 'Graphic Designers' nowadays, and people with degrees don't know the difference between 'your' and 'you're'.
Ah, but do they commit the cardinal sin of pronouncing "aitch" as "haitch"? Hanging's too good for them...
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'anging, would that be Rex? *smile*
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... pronouncing "aitch" as "haitch"?
It's an estuary thing, you won't hear that in the villages.
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'anging, would that be Rex? *smile*
That's the irony Bill....people wot talk proper moan about the dropped aitch and have done for decades, yet say nuffink about the Essex Haitch.
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since having to upgrade!!! to a mobile fone my spelin as got wers cos of trin to keep sntncs as short as psble
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'anging, would that be Rex? *smile*
That's the irony Bill....people wot talk proper moan about the dropped aitch and have done for decades, yet say nuffink about the Essex Haitch.
What about the Agatha Christie posh style 'An otel' for 'A hotel'?
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yet say nuffink about the Essex Haitch
I may have bored you all with this before but my pet hate is the Westminster (or maybe it's Eton) "tu" instead of "to", pops up just about every time a politician is interviewed.
I once heard an engineer use it too (phew)
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What about the Agatha Christie posh style 'An otel' for 'A hotel'?
Apparently that is now grammatically correct in certain circumstances, but I ain't gotta clue as to which or why.
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The 'H' must be silent . . . as in Harlot maybe in the old adage?? *smiley4*
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but I am 'trying', 😉
Your son is trying: very.
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People conflate Engineers & Mechanics, Not the same skill set
We are just used to worshiping the motorcycle engineers of old who were also motorcyclist & motorcycle mechanics.
Engineers design
Mechanics fix ,
or in the terms of some mechanics I know
Engineers design & mechanics fix the engineers designs
Engineering works were places where a apparently non existant person, the machinist of various types turned the engineers drawing into specificly shaped pieces of metal.
However now days every one who puts a hand on a machine is now an engineer
MEchanics have become technicians
and softwear coders have become architects
All abut blowing your own horn and trying to justify getting more money for doing the exact same thing you have been doing for the last 20 years .
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And mild-mannered reporters are super-heroes.
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And mild-mannered reporters are super-heroes.
And reporters that have the balls to ask the right questions are ---- thin on the ground
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Rather like the comment I read recently regarding Charlie Watts 'we knew he was ill, but not that ill' the same applies to my good friend George. A few weeks ago when I visited, I didn't think he'd make the end of the year. Well, he only just made September.
As alluded to in my opening words on this thread, I not only loose a good friend of 50+ yrs standing but, possibly more importantly, his ability and knowledge. For those familiar with the tome, he was like a walking version of the Machinery Handbook. I often sought his views / advice when attempting a new project -eg a new design of LSD I was developing some years back. But who do I turn to now?
Because the world of machinery has changed, today's designs / problems are mainly electronic, whereas decades ago these issues were mechanical. As a result there is less demand for competent engineers - witness the number of machine shop closures over the last three or four decades. People like George are just not being replaced, so who do we turn to when we need someone to design / modify / fix old stuff?
There will be a vast number of similarly competent engineers around the world, but I don't know them and I can hardly just knock on their door and say 'what do you reckon on this?' I also relied on him for access to machinery I don't have, eg cylindrical and surface grinders, slotting machine, pantographs etc etc.
His funeral is next Wednesday. I will miss him, as will many others.
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Yes, recently us Velo people lost an incredible tome of knowledge, and a wonderful bloke along with it.
Norm Trigg, author of 'Norm's Technicalities' passed away in July, and we'll really miss Norm's quiet humour and incredible depth of knowledge about bikes in general and Velocettes in particular.
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Certainly one helpful book if you run a Velo.
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i know loads with degrees but no common sense, car sales people who know nothing about cars but can tell you lots about the gadgets, and retired engineers who had no interest in engineering once they had left work, the fella next door has a degree in engineering and works at a gear cutting firm. he's about 38 years old and can't even reverse his car!!! he has no hobbies at all, even the tiny shed he keeps the lawn mower in is falling to pieces ,--- funny old game isn't it
when I bought my new truck I asked the salesman where the trans dipstick was he points the the engine oil one..... asked if there was a towing package with a trans cooler he had to go look up the spec didnt know where the cooler would be located .
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I've not read the whole of this thread so my comments are in reply to the original post. My background is in manufacturing but I left school at 16 and initially did my further education whilst working. I went to a local technical college and initially did City & Guilds Mechanical Engineering. That took 4 years and then I did a further 2 years of Production Engineering. I was working at the Clarkson Tools milling cutter factory as a metallurgy technician. My boss then offered me the chance to do a degree course and I chose Materials Technology. My engineering qualifications were adequate to get me on the course but I struggled in the first year because I didn't have A level maths or physics. A lot of the other students were very good at maths and in the exams they would look for questions that could mainly be completed by doing maths. They probably got good degrees but didn't really learn much. I was trying to avoid the maths type questions so I had to make up for that by having a better knowledge of the technological stuff. I can well imagine some of my fellow students getting jobs in industry and being pretty clueless about running a heat treatment department or whatever.
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Probably so Fido
But the aim of a degree is not to produce a production line technician. that is what certificates & diplomas are there for
The aim of a degree is to produce a person with sufficinet background knowledge to look at a problem and find a solution that best fits the situation while taking into account all of the possible pitfalls of taking that course of action
I worked a full time night shift for the final 6 years of my 4 year degree ( went part time in 2nd year ) .
After graduating I then enrolled in a Masters in Materials Science as the school of metallurgy had been adsorbed by the School of Mining and geometallurgy was not where my interests lay.
While there I also did 4 diploma courses and taught certificate & diploma students .
Chalk & cheese between the courses and the type of graduates they were trying to produce.
It is those "number crunchers" who developed the Covid vaccines in record times
It is the diploma holders who worked out how to make them economically & quickly
It is the certificate holders who built the machines & ran them .
The problem now days is management who are by & large accountants & economist who did an MBA extension to their degree do not understand what technical staff actually do so put the applicant with the highest qualifications into every job so if they fail then it is not the fault of the selection panel because we put a "super graduate" into the job when in reality they would have been better elevating some one from the shop floor.
If I put a graduate to run a heat treatment I would expect them to do the production scheduling to meet Just in time manufacturing at the least cost, to evaluate the equipment used and do future planning , automation & computer controls.
I would not expect them to be lowering fork blades into a pot of molten salt .
I would expect them to look at new products and work out how the longer blades could be treated in order to get the tips hard enough to avoid rolling but soft enough not to break when the forkie tip lifts 10 ton on a 4 ton blade.
One of my bosses checked ingot segregation by cutting an ingot in sections then getting the chemists to do miro analysis left to right, top to bottom & front to back .
I did the same with calculus then worked out how to modify both the ingot molds & cooling to get a more uniform ingot .
Lots of maths in that one in the days before computers
I did not need a degree to jockey the emmission spectrogtraph but I did need one to do a lot of calculatng to convert the atomic volume percentages to weight percentages then calibrate the machine , to know which spectrual lines to use in what situations and in particular which lines to use when doing an analysis of a new alloy and what sections of a line could be trusted over what concentration levels .
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The aim of a degree is to produce a person with sufficinet background knowledge to look at a problem and find a solution that best fits the situation while taking into account all of the possible pitfalls of taking that course of action
Exactly, but sadly it rarely does because those teaching have little or no experience of what they're teaching. For example, when I first attended a mechanical engineering course, the tutor was demonstrating how to use a horizontal mill. I recall advising him not to proceed, but he carried on, so I indicated to the other students where on the wall opposite I thought the job would hit. I was only a couple of feet out. The tutor had no idea you can't climb mill with a standard machine (the first cutter tooth will take up the backlash in the leadscrew). When later attending Farnborough tech college I had a similar experience. Fortunately the tutor was amiable and aware of his limits, so he used to open class and then wander off leaving me as workshop foreman (prior to these events I'd already spent time in the toolroom of a local engineering firm, so was familiar with workshop machinery).
The same applied more recently when my son was at uni studying mechanical engineering. As I have previously stated, he used to call me almost daily, with 'how do you do #### dad?' To which I'd reply 'I'm paying for you to be taught' and he'd respond 'yes, but they don't know'. Some of the things he had been 'taught' were so wrong it was patently obvious the teachers were clueless. The tutors had never actually done the jobs they were teaching the students, so the latter came away totally unequipped for the work which their degree supposedly guaranteed them capable of. Bit like a £20 note I suppose - appears to guarantee a lot, but in reality is just a piece of paper.
The crux of the matter is that telling someone how to do something a dozen times is no way as effective as getting that person to do the job once themselves. You can't beat experience. And yet increasingly paperwork is everything when applying for a job. Is this because those interviewing aren't themselves sufficiently knowledgeable to be able to pick the best candidate, relying instead on someone else's judgement (certificate-issuing authority). Bit like those glowing CV's - written by a firm desperate to get rid of their employee.
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What uni course requires the students to get their hands dirty in a workshop?
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Must be many, but mechanical engineering is a cert ....
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I think we may be talking at cross purposes here. I'm talking three year degree courses leading to a BSc or whatever.
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So am I. See my previous text: "The same applied more recently when my son was at uni studying mechanical engineering"
Add - the point I was making reminds me of a quote by Mark Twain "College is a place where a professor's lecture notes go straight to the students' lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either."
Or Oscar Wilde: "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
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On the other hand, whilst glib quotes from those two very erudite, very clever blokes may be entertaining, they prove absolutely nothing.
I think Oscar Wilde also said ..."I might be in the gutter, but I am staring up at the stars" -You might just as well use that as justification for being paralytically drunk in a gutter.
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On the other hand, whilst glib quotes from those two very erudite, very clever blokes may be entertaining, they prove absolutely nothing.
I think Oscar Wilde also said ..."I might be in the gutter, but I am staring up at the stars" -You might just as well use that as justification for being paralytically drunk in a gutter.
Accuracy is important in engineering and glib quotes.
Wilde wrote: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
That was in the play what he wrote- Lady Fanermere’s Wind.
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... :"accuracy" did you say? Were you making a point about accuracy?
Lady Windermere's Fan I think you'll find. ;)
(Oh and I must admit to have done some astronomy from the odd gutter).
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Now here we have a properly engineered starting motor.
Take note RD.
cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=5PJ7jy5h4fA
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Now here we have a properly engineered starting motor.
Some professionally designed ear defenders would not go amiss
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Great sound to me but is he popular with the neighbours ? 😊
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Olev - Like the disengagement device - his foot. And how do you take the vee belt pulley off the crankshaft whilst it's running? At least the bike starts better than the starter. More like a John Cleese script. Think I'd prefer the rollers one used to put under a vehicle's drive wheel as a starter.
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One guy near deaf, the other guy trying not to be. As an acoustician and sound man (though, not of late) I hate seeing disregard for hearing.
Richard L.
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Regardless of knowing better, what an American thinks every time the name of this topic appears in "Recent Posts."
Richard L.
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is that Casey Jones Richard
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He had a stripey cap as I recall.. ;)
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Ha, he needs a starter motor for the starter motor.
I'd still prefer rollers.
Bike sounds sweet to me.
Cheers
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Four engineers get into a car and it won't start:
Mechanical engineer says: "its cranking too slowly the starter motor is under-specified for the job"
Electrical engineer says: " no its the battery its voltage is dropping under load"
Quality engineer says: " its a well known problem on these they brought out a late change to fix the warranty issue last year"
The IT engineer says: "I've got an idea, how about we all get out and get back in again"? *smile*
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Having experienced the "quality" of some who like to term themselves "IT engineers" that joke is uncomfortably close to the truth.