Charles Angelich wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

CA>> I was going to buy a grandchild one of those see through engine 
CA>> models then realized his father had no auto mechanical skills at 
CA>> all and it would make his father look stupid so I didn't get it. 

RJT> Do they still have that out? I remember the "Visible V-8". Didn't 
RJT> know they still made it... 

CA> This was some time ago (I have 15 grandchildren) and I think it was
CA> a bit expensive too.

You're somewhat ahead of me on that score,  I only have six.  So far...

 CA> --8<--cut 

CA>> into a metal mold. I have built all of these plus molds for 
CA>> plastics and foams. 

RJT> Sounds complicated... 

CA> Yes, it is a bit. 

 CA> --8<--cut 

RJT> Speaking of computer assisted stuff, I wonder at how far that's 
RJT> gone since it was introduced. I've had very little ocntact with 
RJT> it, mostly limited to repairs of the electronics on a few 
RJT> machines, but I get the impression that some of them are fairly 
RJT> sophisticated.

CA> Last time I was involved the data comes direct (downloaded) from 
CA> the auto company and software converts that to machine readable 
CA> code to cut the shapes. Very little manual programming is required 
CA> anymore.

I keep thinking that it'd be handy to have something of the sort.  

RJT> In fact, I wouldn't mind ending up with something that could do 
RJT> "machining" in a light-duty sense of the word, maybe similar to a 
RJT> flatbed plotter?

CA> Not sure of prices but I would guess in the $20k range for a small
CA> CAM milling machine?

Heh.  That's what I figured.  I worked at one place that had such a
machine, which was there to do stuff to boards.  He did all sorts of
sophisticated RF stuff,  the detailed nature of which I have no clue about
(I was there to do computers).  I never saw it work the whole time I was
there,  a couple of months,  and remember only one comment about it,  that
it was expensive to get and also expensive to operate for some reason.

I also remember a DIY project of some sort in a magazine article,  though
just where that was I can't recall offhand.  Given enough hardware,  it
shouldn't be too hard.  You'd need a base frame,  and the sort of physical
transport that you see used in a lot of the older,  bigger printers,  the
kind I've scrapped several of,  including saving such stuff as big stepper
motors,  driver transistors,  those polished steel rods,  etc.  Maybe
someday I'll even play with the idea a bit.  We'll see.  I have *no* idea
where you'd go for thinks like the cutters and such,  though.

 CA> --8<--cut 

RJT> Speaking of wood working, the local PBS station runs one show on 
RJT> saturday afternoons that's a guy who goes as far as he can toward 
RJT> the "old fashioned" way of doing things, all hand-operated (and 
RJT> some hand-made) tools, while the show that follows it comes as 
RJT> close to "machine shop" as you can get and still be working with 
RJT> wood. It's an interesting contrast.  

CA> The 'slang' for wood patternmakers when a person puts too much 
CA> effort into making a wood pattern look good is to call it 
CA> 'furniture'.

Heh.  This guy did some of that,  too.  And the other guy even had a
"treadle lathe",  foot-operated.  To me that's carrying things a
bit to the extreme,  though I suppose for a fairly small amount of work
where acquiring a regular lathe wouldn't in any way be practical,  it might
be worthwhile.

CA>> The basic classroom training is identical, the knowledge of math, 
CA>> drafting, and design are the same. How this is put into practice 
CA>> and the manual skills of using the proper tools at the proper time 
CA>> are different from one to the other. 

RJT> I'll bet. 

CA> Many wood men do convert to metal but few metal patternmakers ever
CA> go into wood. 

Depends on what you want to do.  I turn to off-the-shelf bits of hardware
whenever I can make something of that sort work.  Wood is easy to work,  as
is aluminum,  while steel is much more difficult,  and often not required
for the sort of stuff I'm doing.  But that's the stuff I'm doing,  and what
somebody else might want to do is another matter entirely.

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