Young ME’s Workshop

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Several times, we have asked how to encourage the younger generation to get into model engineering. Let us suppose that a younger member wanted to get into the hobby and had a shed, probably 8' x 6' or Dad's garage, what equipment would he/she need to make a small oscillating engine, probably working off compressed air/simple reservoir and a 12volt tyre compressor.
Once we establish what equipment would be needed then what would that cost?
BobH

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Equipment needs

[Anonymous]

I have a pamphlet describing a horizontally opposed oscillating marine engine built using hand tools only. I've no idea how old the design is, but I've had the pamphlet for 45+ years. In style it looks like a reprint from ME in the 1940s or 50s.

So all you need are some files, drills, hacksaw and some simple marking out equipment such as ruler, square, centre punch and scriber.

Andrew

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

A sturdy bench with a 4" vice.

A mini lathe, say C3 size, with the standard accessories ie thre and four jaw chuck and steadies. Plus tailstock centre and tailstock chuck. Some pieces of high speed steel tool bit.

A small drill press. And a set of drills.

A six inch bench grinder to sharpen drills and lathe tools.

The workshop practice series books on how to use the above machines.

A box of hand tools including spanners, pliers, screwdrivers, few files, scriber, steel ruler, dividers, clamps and what have you.

A big soldering iron or a small propane torch is handy too.

How much will it all cost? Quite a bit if you buy it all new in one hit. Next to nothing if you scrounge around boot sales, garage sales, auctions, local model eng. club, classified ads etc. With the possible exception of the lathe which might be harder to come by locally secondhand. Even then, you might get lucky. Or a new one costs a few hundred pounds. Which makes it an expensive oscillating engine, and much better if Dad would like a handy workshop too!

I've equipped my workshop for next to nothing via garage sales and auctions etc but it has taken me about three years or longer, and I started off with my old apprentice days box of hand tools and an inherited old lathe. I regularly see at garage sales bench grinders for $10, small drill presses for $25, vices for $10, propane torches with a full large bottle $10, soldering irons $5, drill bits $5 a large box full, reamers $1 each ranging from 1/8" to 1" or larger, British made spanners $1 each and misc hand tools for give away prices often $5 for a box full or plastic bucket full, with many good brand items lurking among the dross. But it means being out there at 7am on Saturday mornings to get the bargains before they get snapped up. Larger items included a 140 amp arc welder with a couple of pounds of rods for $50 and a Myford ML7 (totally clapped but repairable) for a few hundred dollars.

Edited By Hopper on 30/04/2017 12:17:35

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I think Hopper has described a sensible 'get you started' outfit for anyone, regardless of age. They would rapidly need more bits, but further additions should follow needs not wants.

Neil

[Henry ArtistParticipant @henryartist43508]

Just remember not everyone who might have an interest in model engineering lives in a home with a garage… nor have room for a shed. Some people live in apartments and a lot of stairs may be involved.

Stuff to "get you started"…

• Safety glasses.
• A robust table or workbench. A Black & Decker Workmate can be very useful in the absence of other suitable work surfaces.
• Drill press – in UK the "Silverline" brand machines are inexpensive and good quality.
• Drill vice.
• A compound drill vice is not expensive and will help with accurate hole drilling.
• 100mm bench vice. If it swivels that can be a bonus. Inexpensive jaw protectors can be made from aluminium angle bought from B&Q.
• Small and medium size engineer's square.
• Scriber and some BIG felt pens for marking out. A Sharpie pen is also useful.
• Automatic centre punch.
• Small adjustable spanner. (The best you can lay your hands on.)
• Hacksaw and junior hacksaw.
• Steel rule and digital calliper. If you can afford a small digital height gauge you will find it super useful.
• Set of needle files.
• (Soft) Soldering equipment – butane plumber's torch, pen torch, electrical solder, flux, Vermiculite tile at least 250mm x 250mm x 30mm.
• Various hand files, spanners, screwdrivers, drill bits, centre drills, taps and dies, clamps, wet 'n' dry paper, etc. as needed.

"Building Simple Model Steam Engines" Books 1 & 2 by Tubal Cain and "Making Simple Model Steam Engines" by Stan Bray contain lots of super helpful "How to" information for novices.

Sooner or later a lathe will be required though you'd be amazed how far you can get before you feel the need to invest in one. A mini-lathe (e.g. C3, CJ18, etc.) is ideal. If you do not have the room for a mini-lathe something smaller like a Sieg C0, Unimat 3, Taig, etc. will do just fine. ALL of the designs in Stan Bray's book can be made with a drill press and a Sieg C0.

So how much does it cost to set up a workshop? Without a lathe you can do it for around £500 or less at today's (2017) prices even if you had to buy everything new. With a lathe £1000 – £1500 is a realistic estimate. But of course very few people set up a complete workshop all in one go. Workshops grow and evolve over time which helps to spread the cost.

The above steam engine was constructed from the Opitec 420 kit (with a few modifications). The Opitec 420 can be built with hand tools and a drill press, no lathe is required. It is designed to be built by schoolchildren.

**LINK**

[Henry ArtistParticipant @henryartist43508]

P.S. If you want to get young people interested in model engineering going down the live steam route may be more successful than running something on compressed air. There's fire involved and the (albeit remote) possibility that the thing might explode…

"Oh, but that's DANGEROUS!"

Well most machine tools found in a workshop will maim or kill if you give them half a chance…

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Over the years, like most of us, my workshop has grown as the interest in making things grew; metal, plastic, wood,electronics etc and one day it will all be redundant. However I made it a rule that I would buy a tool every time we went on holiday, and in those days it would usually be in the UK and camping. I can see the family now, patiently (or not) waiting outside some hardware shop where I would be found poking around for something to buy. Later on as car boot sales arrived, we would include one as a holiday itinerary. The kids didn't mind as they would be on a toy hunt.
What I am saying is that it doesn't all come at once and sometimes we will buy tools that will not be used for some time – Look at "Whats this tool" etc on this site.
Henry's list is quite comprehensive but does not include taps and dies – again a decision, metric, BA, ME, Imperial, American and the list goes on.
I like Andrew's post about a model made from hand tools only and perhaps something like that should be a 'pull out' in the ME mag at least twice a year.
Anyway. enough of my ramblings – Its time to go to the car boot sale.
BobH

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

As far as encouraging young lads to get into Model Engineering, I think we just have to accept the fact that we live in a post-industrial society and young lads today are more likely to take up post-industrial hobbies, like looking at YouTube.

I'm sure when the motor car first came out, home shop leather horse saddlemaking and horse brass casting quickly became a popular hobby of the past. As probably did custom top-hat making about the same era. TImes change. Popular pursuits change.

Young lads tend to use hobbies as a way of growing up, a way of emulating what they see grown men doing around them, which they badly want to do themselves in order to be all grown up. Back in the days when fathers, and/or friends' fathers and neighbourhood men seen daily worked in factories and engineering works or at driving steam trains or buidling or sailing ships and the like, and rebuilt car and motorbike engines, bicycles, lawnmowers and toasters at home on the weekend out of the necessity of near-poverty, lads naturally wanted to work with machines and metal just like the big fellas did. Today, what do lads see? Metrosexuals sipping lattes and tapping away on their smartphones working in office jobs and calling in a service contractor to change their lightbulbs and clean their air conditioning filters in the home. No engineers or even greasy knuckled mechanics to emulate there.

Yes, the "maker" movement is hip among hipsters at the moment but is not particularly widespread and is a part of that whole hipster movement of searching for coolness through retro authenticity, even if you have to manufacture that authenticity yourself, ie fake it. Not as inspiring to youngsters as real men working on real fire-breathing, limb-tearing, eardrum-shattering greasy machinery.

Edited By Hopper on 01/05/2017 09:28:03

[Phil H1Participant @philh196021]

Hopper,

You should take up poetry.

Phil H

[Henry ArtistParticipant @henryartist43508]

Posted by Hopper on 01/05/2017 09:24:36:

Yes, the "maker" movement is hip among hipsters at the moment but is not particularly widespread and is a part of that whole hipster movement of searching for coolness through retro authenticity, even if you have to manufacture that authenticity yourself, ie fake it. Not as inspiring to youngsters as real men working on real fire-breathing, limb-tearing, eardrum-shattering greasy machinery.

Perhaps plans could be published in Model Engineer magazine for a stirling engine powered gramophone? Such things really did exist and would appeal to the Hipsters out there with vinyl records being all popular again…

Some young people can be very creative and the "maker" movement should not be dismissed out of hand. Showing how the principles of model engineering can be applied to other hobbies can get people interested in engineering in general.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

as 3-D printing seems to be the modern fabricating method, perhaps ME clubs should invest in a half decent printer and encourage younger members to print their designs on it ? The design part could be done at home and fabrication at the club.
BobH

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Might have missed it in the lists, but a bench vice is damned useful.

As for Hopper's 'Metrosexuals sipping lattes and tapping away on their smartphones working in office jobs' , don't forget that when it comes to generating wealth and paying my pension, those guys are outperforming Industry by 5 to 1.

Judging by what's available to buy, I'd say there must be an awful lot of 'makers' about. There are certainly plenty of people with technology-based interests. Model Engineering is just one part of it and I wouldn't knock anyone for focussing on something else.

Dave

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Phil Hale 1 on 01/05/2017 09:50:01:

Hopper,

You should take up poetry.

Phil H

LOL. I'm working on the musical. "Fiddler in the Shed."

[Adam PhillipsParticipant @adamphillips50363]

Harold Hall has a section on his fantastic web site under the name of John Steele. His web pages inspire me every time I visit. Enjoy

[Russ BParticipant @russb]

Fairly recently being a starter myself, and I would do it differently to be honest – and I would also consider going for a new chinese machine if someone experienced could help with installation and initial setting up as the second hand Myford I bought threw up questions about its ability to produce accurate work given that it was over 50 years old! (It turned out to be like new, and I should have never sold it! doh!!!!) – but with so many different and new things to learn, I couldn't identify where I was going wrong because there were just too many factors and sources of error – I couldnt have confidence in eliminating any of them, it made learning more difficult.

I would drop the bench grinder and tool steel in favour of carbide tipped tooling – one square shank SCLCR turning/facing bar (the largest that can be fit under centre height and one SCLCR boring bar the smallest possible, sharing tips between the two. Since the model will be simple, there should be no need for special hand ground bits and a simple cheapo drill bit grinder will take care of the basic sharpening tasks – again eliminating another skill initially in order to more quickly produce cool things!

When I started (not that long ago) I did grind my own tool steel, and while I frequently still make my own HSS bits, its always special stuff for the one off's and generally, I find unbranded tool steel, garbage, but maybe I'm still doing it wrong (probably) – I have bought up old branded tool steel at every opportunity and it seems to hone to a nice edge, and keep that edge for a long time, quite a contrast, and suddenly makes the time invested in grinding the bit and honing it worthwhile!!

I started using the SCLRC boring and turning bars on the lathe at work (a big 5HP Colchester) and it's just magic – I follow the tip manufacturers guidelines straight down the middle on surface speed, depth of cut and advance per rev, and its a mirror finish every time – and they're just general roughing out tips!

Pros,

• It rapidly eliminates a major skill/unknown factor in poor surface finish and aids the confidence of the leaner in identifying other ares of error.
• Less space required for equipment (grinder).
• One less skill to learn on the road to creating something memorable and exciting.

Cons

• Perhaps issues may arise finding tips of good quality, similar to finding HSS of good quality!
• Initial lack of appreciation for clearances and rakes and really the detailed mechanics of how the material is being shaped. But this is a more advanced topic really given the advances of tipped tooling.

I buy all my tips from CutWell and they're a couple of quid each. They tell me what I need based on my requirements – proper old fashioned experiance seller.

I seem to remember conversations or suggestions made to Amadeal who put together a selection of starter kits, which contains a lathe, some indexable tools, all the basic metrology kit, a 3 and 4 jaw chuck, a faceplate, fixed and travelling steadies, all sorts – I would ditch the chinese indeable tool set in favour of the standard SCLCR's which are robust, can turn and face externally and internally.

Edited By Russ B on 01/05/2017 13:11:56

[thaiguzziParticipant @thaiguzzi]

Posted by Hopper on 01/05/2017 09:24:36:

As far as encouraging young lads to get into Model Engineering, I think we just have to accept the fact that we live in a post-industrial society and young lads today are more likely to take up post-industrial hobbies, like looking at YouTube.

I'm sure when the motor car first came out, home shop leather horse saddlemaking and horse brass casting quickly became a popular hobby of the past. As probably did custom top-hat making about the same era. TImes change. Popular pursuits change.

Young lads tend to use hobbies as a way of growing up, a way of emulating what they see grown men doing around them, which they badly want to do themselves in order to be all grown up. Back in the days when fathers, and/or friends' fathers and neighbourhood men seen daily worked in factories and engineering works or at driving steam trains or buidling or sailing ships and the like, and rebuilt car and motorbike engines, bicycles, lawnmowers and toasters at home on the weekend out of the necessity of near-poverty, lads naturally wanted to work with machines and metal just like the big fellas did. Today, what do lads see? Metrosexuals sipping lattes and tapping away on their smartphones working in office jobs and calling in a service contractor to change their lightbulbs and clean their air conditioning filters in the home. No engineers or even greasy knuckled mechanics to emulate there.

Yes, the "maker" movement is hip among hipsters at the moment but is not particularly widespread and is a part of that whole hipster movement of searching for coolness through retro authenticity, even if you have to manufacture that authenticity yourself, ie fake it. Not as inspiring to youngsters as real men working on real fire-breathing, limb-tearing, eardrum-shattering greasy machinery.

Edited By Hopper on 01/05/2017 09:28:03

+1.

Wot he said, very well written.

[Author]

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