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Pick'in on injun ears again...

Old millwright friend of mine always liked to pick on the young engineers on the construction jobs he was working. One of his favorite questions he would ask was: Son is them boots you are wearing cowboy boots or engineer boots. The kid would almost always say, I don't know, What's the difference. The old man would say "Well the cowboy boots have the manure on the outside"!!
 
Told my boy ?if you ever come home and say you can?t to be an engineer you better be talking about trains?.
 
Let's see ...... which occupations get flamed here on the YT site most often? Doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, government workers, and now engineers. They must have something in common ...... I think I know what it is.
 
Let's see ...... which occupations get flamed here on the YT site most often? Doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, government workers, and now engineers. They must have something in common ...... I think I know what it is.
Click to expand...

Let me take a guess at what they have in common! They're all educated unlike 99% of the people on this site!
 
(quoted from post at 06:55:18 02/13/18)
Let's see ...... which occupations get flamed here on the YT site most often? Doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, government workers, and now engineers. They must have something in common ...... I think I know what it is.
Click to expand...

Let me take a guess at what they have in common! They're all educated unlike 99% of the people on this site!
Click to expand...
ou may be right in your opinion but you do not need a degree to recognize stupidity. I dealt with many very good engineers over the years and the best of them took the time to listen. Then explain why changes may or may not be made. The poor one's simply tried to denigrate the person questioning them. I learned early on if something seemed wrong or impossible to do to bring it up in an official setting and ask for written instructions as how to proceed in an official documented answer. They do not like being put on the spot, then again I never liked being treated as though I was nothing but a tool.
 
I am an engineer and I have one response to people who think engineers are a bunch of idiots. Hand them a clean sheet of paper and pencil. Tell them since you are so smart you draw it up. So you people picking on us engineers let me see your drawings. Once that drawing is complete go and build it without making any corrections on the fly. Try and build it 100% to what you have drawn.
 

There are engineers, and then there are engineers, and some of them are very good at what they do, but then we also have bean counters. Bean counters can make an engineers job very difficult and frustrating.
 
My last project. Didn't need any paper either. I can show more if one is not enough.
a256810.jpg
 
Hey, not all engineers are evil, just the ones that make things so you can not change the oil without pulling the entire engine... Those are the ones that frustrate us all...
 
John, Engineers don't have the benefit of just building it. They have to start with a clean sheet of paper and define every detail. They have to do stress analysis to make sure it won't break. They have to specify the material, cut tolerances, welding specifications, joint details, cross sections. The list goes on and on. How did you size the hydraulic cylinder? Did you do detail hydraulic calculations? I am guessing you have seen trailers before and knew roughly how to make it and just went from there. So how do you make something that hasn't been made before? No example to follow.

A lot of guys can build stuff but few can draw it without having seen it before.
 
Hey, quit pickin' on us. As an engineer you are always under the gun from the bean counters, marketing/sales and stupid managers. The typical requirement for managers was the operation where they got their glass belly button. That was so they could see where they were going when they had their head up their backside. The marketing and sales scum were way worse. Those guys would promise the moon and it would only take 30 days to do it. Then they would dump it on the engineering staff.

If you let an engineer have a free hand to design a compact car with all of the durability; ease of service and federally mandated safety features it would be a HUMVEE.

OTJ
 
That formed side trailer is my design, I've been doing them for 30 years. But I did this a few years back. The entire design and build was documented on this site. I've never seen one of these til I did it.
a256812.jpg
 
Jon, (sorry I spelled you name wrong in my first response). I don't doubt that you are a great fabricator and mechanic but that is not engineering. I am an engineer and a weekend fabricator. What I build on the weekends does not even come close to being an engineered product. I have the luxury of over building it, trying it out and making it work on the weekends. During the work week I don't have that luxury. The drawings go out and the next time I here about it is when something isn't quite working out while it is being built.

And lets be honest. Did you smile and breath a sigh of relief the first time you raised the trailer up with a load in it? I only find out if something doesn't work. If I don't hear about something I know it worked.
 
jon f is that a remanufactured boat trailer?

It is beautiful

I'm doing one right now and I'm thinking about the hydraulics . Maybe I need one of those engineer types to help!!!

Stan
 
Jack ....... you're post is doing exactly what you say others are doing ..... criticizing and ridiculing others with nothing to back up your statements except your own personal biases. Very childish and immature for someone who is supposedly an engineer (if you really are one).
 
Another touchy subject. I think it was supposed to add a little humor to the forum but it always gets off the rails.
 

Hey Jon -

Great project! Is that battery the break-away? Or does it help with the lift? Or is that pump handle mean it is manual lift?



Thanks,
Howard
 
Manual pump on this one. Works real well with this small cylinder because it pumps on both up and down stroke, so it's quick.
 
The build is posted on here in tool talk a
couple years back. It's all designed and
built be me out of aluminum.
 
You said that those of us who thought it was funny couldn't do it ourselves, I posted pics showing that I can, and without a computer that shows me how the parts work together or books that tell me if it's strong enough. I have great respect for those of you who do your job well, but I've also seen what can happen when one who isn't good gets involved. I run across things your colleagues have messed up and I needed to redesign to fix many times. The engineers designing trailers especially. Those designs are mostly tried and tested and still today you run across things that make no sense. The semi trailer I recently repaired at work was a p erfect example. It was a common brand and well thought of, but it was the poor design that caused the failure. Of course the poor engineering was made worse by less than stellar fabricating in that case. All I'm saying is you threw down a challenge and I excepted. Sorry if that offended you.
 
I can see where this is coming from.... I have a Buick Regal that in order to change headlight, you must take front 1/4 panel off car. This is engineering at its worst!
 
Pete 23, you are right. I told myself at the beginning of this year to not make any negative or argumentative post. I need to do a better job of that.
 
yep, and clueless managers and the gooberment regulations and sales and bean counters and ...... make it tough for us to do a good job engineering and designing alot of things especially autos.

the "pull the engine to change the oil (or spark plugs)" was probably (very likely) a manager who said "shoe-horn that motor in that car .... no you have no budget to tool up a new oil pan. and we need it tomorrow".

yeah there are some poor engineers out there and i'm worried about some of the new ones coming in. with each generation it seem like more "kids" have less and less hands on "tinkering". farm kids (generally) should make a better engineer as most have seen how things work and have had to fix or help fix stuff and see and experience things that may/may not work well and see what happens if they don't fix it right, quality parts versus junk,... ect ect.

i've also worked with "engineers" that were called engineers but had no formal training. yeah, some were good and smart guys, and got the job done, but generally they had to do things 2 or 3 times and it was likely overbuilt = too much $$, too heavy, too long to build ect ect. Our coursework is designed specifically to give us the right tools and to train us to think and analyze, know how things work and find solutions. we think differently and it happens about the end of the sophomore year.

Actually, if it wasn't for engineers this sight wouldn't exist as I can't imagine any production tractors that didn't have engineers involved. = no antique tractors.

my 2cents for today.
 
That's the problem, when the engineer doesn't work with the builder. Engineers have the technical knowledge but builders have the common sense.
Here is a good example. I recently rebuilt the engine on a Toyota pickup with a 22R engine. If you need to work on the timing chain or the oil pump, you have to remove and replace the head to remove and replace the timing cover and get it to seal properly. Stupid design.
Same with the old Chevy V8 engine. You have to remove the oil pan to take off the timing cover. Stupid design!
 
Jon, that's a nice looking trailer! If you made the frame out of aluminium then you made a mistake. Aluminium work hardens and cracks. I have a Freightliner frame out back with cracks and welds in it. It was scrapped way before the truck was wore out. Aluminium is good for box and cabs but not for frames. The engineer that designed the truck frames didn't do his homework in the day that they taught about aluminium!
Now steel can flex millions of times without work hardening IF it is not flexed beyond its' critical point. If you go under a railroad bridge you can actually see the steel flex an inch or more as the train passes over and it can do this thousands of times with out cracking.
 
If you think that is bad your should try to change the alternator on a Ford Escape. On the Escape you have to pull the right front tire and the front axle and a few other things. 4 hour job by the book.
 
What about all those aluminum semi flatbeds that run millions of miles? I've heard that arguement before, but a propperly designed aluminum trailer will last a long time
 
I wonder how they do that? All I know is that it didn't work for truck frames or they would still be doing that. It would have to be made heavy enough to not flex or it will crack. All I can say is what my engineering book says and what happened to the nice truck that I scrapped out. I still have the frame that I would sell cheap!
 
Three engineers were arguing over what kind of engineer designed the human body.

One said it must have been a mechanical engineer. Look at all of the joints, etc.

Another said it had to have been an electrical engineer, looking at all of the nerves and nerve ends.

The other said it must have been a civil engineer. Who else would route a toxic waste conduit through a recreation area?

Sorry, I just HAD to do it.
 

Our engineers tend to be fresh out of school with the highest academic scores. No field experience and being ESL’s . As soon as they they have enough seniority they apply for a transfer to the city where the rest of thier people are .
By the time we have a new engineer somewhat clued into our business and trained how machinery works . They transfer out and we get more fresh graduates that can tell you how much jam is in the Jar. However they have no idea how to get the lid off.
 
I think it's great fun to pick on engineers, and I used to be one. I let my Professional Engineer license expire, so I'm a farmer now.

You may as well pick on them, they can't fight back. Each of them thought they were doing what they could under the circumstances. I always enjoyed picking on them when they could fight back. After they were proven wrong, they would apologize.

The marginal engineers do try to hide behind their education. That infuriates people who know better but still have to follow the engineer's lead. However, remember there are marginal performers in every craft. And we could not get along without them, there would not be enough help to do the jobs. For instance, not all truck drivers know how to do their job, but they are on the road with the rest of us.

So if you're an engineer, let the guys have their fun. We've all seen things that were poorly engineered, sometimes those things break and kill people. Whether we're engineers or not, we've all seen things screwed up by forces beyond our control. As was stated earlier, engineers usually don't get to address the errors until it is widely advertised while lots of real people get to fix their screwups privately.

Engineers get paid well to do what they do so they can take a little heat.

I quit worrying about future engineers when I see what SpaceX, Google, and many other new companies are doing.
 
You'd be one of the first guys I've seen take the pan off an old Chevy small block to replace the timing cover.
 
It just seems like everything you buy made this century someone has taken a product that works and redesigned it to where it no longer works.
 
I worked for the local phone company and among other things I took care of the standby generators, power equipment , battery supplies, etc. in addition to other things. We were installing small buildings with remote phone equipment in them, and the buildings were coming with connectors for the stand by generator on the side where they were difficult to reach with our existing cables for the portable generator. I asked the engineer in charge of 1 area if he could get the plugs moved to the side of the buildings next to the road and he said sure, no problem. I asked the one in charge of area 2 the same question, and he replied " I engineered them that way, you will have to live with it." Guess which one I preferred to work with. Area 2 engineer about had a cow when he saw I had cut a hole in the chain link fence around one of his buildings to get the generator plugged in since I couldn't reach it through the gate.
 
I worked in an engineering function where a marketing and sales guy (who supposedly was an engineer also) NEVER believed anything the real engineering dept guys explained to him. So frustrating to try to help someone like that !!
 
(quoted from post at 10:47:58 02/13/18) I am an engineer and I have one response to people who think engineers are a bunch of idiots. Hand them a clean sheet of paper and pencil. Tell them since you are so smart you draw it up. So you people picking on us engineers let me see your drawings. Once that drawing is complete go and build it without making any corrections on the fly. Try and build it 100% to what you have drawn.
Click to expand...

You do your own drawings?
I draw what an engineer has come up with, then they review and sign off on it as I am the lowly draftsman.
 
(quoted from post at 11:54:47 02/13/18) Jon, that's a nice looking trailer! If you made the frame out of aluminium then you made a mistake. Aluminium work hardens and cracks. I have a Freightliner frame out back with cracks and welds in it. It was scrapped way before the truck was wore out. Aluminium is good for box and cabs but not for frames. The engineer that designed the truck frames didn't do his homework in the day that they taught about aluminium!
Now steel can flex millions of times without work hardening IF it is not flexed beyond its' critical point. If you go under a railroad bridge you can actually see the steel flex an inch or more as the train passes over and it can do this thousands of times with out cracking.
Click to expand...
I think you may have over loaded that trailer more than once.
Boeing 747's have frames made out of ....... you guessed it aluminum and they flex a whole heck of a lot more than that trailer ever did
 
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