Some thoughts on Model Engineering

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Dusty Miller? Merrty Miller? Windy Miller?

I’ll get my coat..

 

As far as I can see the only constant in this hobby is the working of durable materials to a high standard of accuracy on a small scale.

 

Amateur manufacturing?

 

Neil

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Dusty,

 

I even hate the term ‘mill’ when one is referring to a milling machine. A ‘mill’ is driven by wind or water etc and is used to drive other machinery including grain grinding equipment – hence ‘Dusty Miller’.

 

By the way, many so called ‘Americanisms’ such as ‘tire’ (tyre) and ‘vise'(vice) are actually originally English spellings which were changed over here in the early 20thC.

 

Grumpily

 

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 25/02/2011 22:25:09

[Steve GarnettParticipant @stevegarnett62550]

It is my understanding (although it could easily be wrong) that the reason that milling machines originally were called what they are was that the earliest ones developed from rotary filing machines. These gave results much more like a conventional grain milling process, and the name stuck – even though it seems somewhat inappropriate these days.

 

Since Terry is grumpy, here’s an admittedly rather poor attempt to cheer him up. The alternative explanation for the name is that it is derived from their relationship with their much larger predecessors, ‘ing’ machines.

 

10^-3 ing machines = 1 mill-ing machine!

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Posted by Steve Garnett on 25/02/2011 23:33:05:

 

……………………..Since Terry is grumpy, here’s an admittedly rather poor attempt to cheer him up. The alternative explanation for the name is that it is derived from their relationship with their much larger predecessors, ‘ing’ machines.

 

10^-3 ing machines = 1 mill-ing machine!

 

Hi Steve,

 

Only one comment – Groan!!!!!

 

But it did bring a chuckle – only a small one mind

Regards

 

Terry

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

We could easily step into deeper water when referring to Americanisms.

Their engineers drive railway engines, don’t they?

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Sam,

 

I thought it was railroad engines over there? Sorry, we’re OT again, but to undigress (I know it’s not a real word before I get corrected) I still prefer the term Engineering in Miniature to describe my ‘modelling’ activities. That description provides a distinction to my other activities which tend to be (full size) engineering, railway modelling in 0 gauge or auto engineering.

 

Hi Wolfie,

 

I love your model bulk trailer project, I would consider that to be engineering in miniature, but in a different material.  Engineers these days tend to use many polymer and composite materials, just look at the uses of grp and carbon fibre composites etc.

 

Your model brings to mind the work of an incredibly talented student of mine who built a 1/16th model of a car he had designed.  As a 15 yr old he scratch built the model from sheet plastic, balsa, filler etc, he then spray painted and finished it to a very high gloss.  He finished the model with the addition of proprietary wheels and wipers just like a real manufacturer using bought in components. 

 

We entered the model in a competition run by BP and he did not achieve any result.  I was astounded until I read the judges comments that’ he should not have entered a model built from a commercial plastic kit.  I had to ask myself who was the real engineer, him from BP or young Ian?

 

Best Regards

 

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 26/02/2011 08:09:42

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Terry, just to make you groan (only joking) a little more, I looked up the word mill in my trusty old dictionary and along with the building and equipment for grinding grain were a few others including; any of various machines for shaping, cutting, polishing, or dressing metal surfaces. I then looked up milling and that has three definitions, the secound one being; the operation of cutting, shaping, finising, or working metal, cloth, or any other product manufactured in a mill.

 

I finally looked up milling machine and it says; a machine tool with a rotating cutter acting on a metal workpiece held on a movable table. Also called a “miller”

 

How about that, just when you think you’ve found the correct definition, they stick on the end of it, also called a “miller”

 

I like you prefer it to be called a milling machine. and as you say a miller works in a mill grinding grain.

 

One pet hate I have with definitions is trian station while this is most likely to be technically correct, I’ve always associated them as being a railway station, that is what I was brought up to understand they are. You could have a train station out in the wild west where there are no rails, but where all the wagons and horsees are stationed before they start thier wagon train. hence I don’t think trian station best describes a staion on the railway, because trains and not staioned at all of them, but people usually are.

 

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/02/2011 09:05:39

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

Terry when you are building an ‘O’ gauge locomotive you are working in full size. I used to call myself in this respect an ‘Amateur Artificer’. Now a days I call myself when I am in hobby mode ‘Mükedvelö Mesterember Úr – A gentleman amateur artificer or artisan-. This worries them because a gentleman cannot be an artisan and vice versa. In fact to a Hungarian, gentlemen areintellectuals and do not work.

As to modeling the mind goes ‘Boggle, Boggle, Boggle’. I think what you realy meant was model making. My late wife used to model for motorway roadblocks, she also used to ‘bump start’ Jumbo jets up at Ferihegi airport.
All the best

Dick

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Nick,

 

Double groan

 

When I researched the history of tools as part of my interest in industrial Archeology I did notice that ‘Mill’ and ‘Miller’ were used regularly, but most writers note that these are colloquial terms used generally by the operators. I still prefer the the correct term like you. I also agree about ‘railway station’ and especially the use of ‘train’ when talking about a locomotive. You can have a train behind a locomotive, a wedding dress or covered wagons but a locomotive is not a train, despite it’s use colloquially. Grr, – I’m getting grumpy again (I think that I could outdo, Victor M himself sometimes.)

 

Seriously though, that’s one of the reasons I try to be accurate in my use of language, it simply aids understanding and tends to prevent confusion when used properly with as little ambiguity as possible. I would be the first to admit that I don’t always succeed, but at least I try not to be sloppy in my writing. When I write about a milling machine there should be no doubt that I am not talking about grain milling, rolling mills or even textile weaving.

 

By the way, in danger of again going OT my interest in Industrial Archeology stems from where I was born in the Black Country. It was an area steeped in pioneering engineering. I was actually born within a few hundred yards of the Bradley ironworks where Matthew Boulton installed the first steam powered rolling mill. We later moved a couple of miles. near to where Newcomen had installed his first pumping engine in the Stour Valley near Dudley castle in 1712.

 

The area is called the Black Country not because of the
smoke and dirt of industry, but because the soil really is mostly black. This
is due to the ’10 yard seam’, a 30 foot thick shallow coal seam which
underlies most of the area. It also helped ironmaking that there was a
handy limestone outcrop at Dudley which was extensively mined for the blast furnaces.

 

Just half a mile away was where one Abraham Darby, the Grandfather of his famous namesake, lived with his wife, a member of the Ward family who were Earl of Dudley’s family who had developed the famous iron and steel works in Dudley in the late 16th Century (Ward is another form of the word ‘guardian’ hence many parishes had a Ward family). This was where, in the early 17th century, Ward’s illegitimate son Dud Dudley was working and became the first person to smelt iron ore using coke rather than charcoal. Darby would have been familiar with this work. The steelworks eventually became the Round Oak Iron and Steelworks but was still known locally as ‘The Earl of Dudley’s’ until it’s closure in the 1980’s when it became Merry Hill shopping Centre.

 

The Earl was always a forward thinker and adopter of new technology. He built his first railway to the works from Shutt end in Pensnett, Dudley,opening it in 1829. The Engineer who built the railway was John Rastrick the builder of the famous locomotive Agenoria for the railway (now in the Science Museum London) and it’s sister engine, the Stourbridge lion, was the first commercial locomotive in the USA and is now in a museum in Baltimore. ( I know that Tom thumb was the first Loco but it was not a commercial success)

 

Where My Grandad lived (himself a railway signalman or ‘Bobbie’) About 1/2 mile from us was the then LMS West Coast main line, a GWR branch line (The OWW) and a Midland railway line all with a few 10s of yards of each other at times, as well as many standard gauge industrial lines which all criss crossed the area. On top of this we had one of the densest systems of canals in the world, as well as a huge number of support industries.

All this was within a couple of miles radius from where I was born, raised and served my apprenticeship. My real regret is that I took it all for granted at the time and didn’t take enough interest to properly document the area before the loss of industry and the landscaping of the old steelworks etc into nice, euphemistically named, ‘retail parks’.

 

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. There is much more to tell but I must be off before I bore you all even more, hope that not too many of you have nodded off,

 

Best regards

 

Terry

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