Mechanical Design

[Old Age And Cunning] I am a mechanical designer. I worked for almost thirty five years at Optech Incorporated, now Teledyne Optech. I had a contract for fifteen months with Christie Digital. As of March first, I am employed again. Yay!

I am working for 4D Technologies, a high technology start-up. There are people out there who value old age and cunning!

I am a member of OACETT. I am a Certified Engineering Technologist, specializing in mechanical design. As of April 2019, I am OACETT's Toronto West Chapter Chapter Chair. I hold a Lean Manufacturing White Belt certificate.

Articles by me

Most of the following articles are written in LaTeX, and converted to a readable format by the various LaTeX tools.

Design For Manufacture and Assembly: [HTML] [PDF] These are my notes on the subject. Shoddy design is a non-value added cost. Let's do it properly!
Calculating Locational Tolerances: [HTML] [PDF] As a mechanical designer, I prepare fabrication drawings. I apply a lot of dimensions to holes, and I have to work out tolerances. Finally, I sat down and did the math. If you prepare or check mechanical drawings, this article should be useful. The format is PDF.
Document Management: I have been working with engineering documentation in some form or another since the mid-seventies. This is an opinion piece, based on all my experience. Here is a cute link from Seth Godin in the same vein.
Positional Tolerances: [HTML] [PDF] Positional tolerances as per ASME Y14.5, and some ISO specification, are supposed to provide 50% more allowance, compared to ± tolerances. Do they? Also, note how the scatter diagrams are generated randomly, every time this website is updated.
Office Suite Abuse: Your office suite is your slave. It must do whatever you want.
Parametric Threads in SolidWorks: You can model a threaded assembly and create fabrication drawings of the parts, and make it so that all the thread specifications update. It does have to be a metric thread. Let me show you how. This was written in straight HTML.
Screw Torques: This is a screw torque calculator, written in JavaScript. As of 2018/11/20, I think I have everything working, and it explains the engineering it is doing. I need to add materials. I need to test the hell out of it. The pull-down menus do not work on my cellphone. I am learning JavaScript! :)

External Engineering Websites

Engineering Tips: This is an engineering forum I found on the internet. You can log in and ask technical questions. You can be helpful and answer some of the questions if you know what you are talking about.
Matweb: Here is a very useful database on engineering materials.
Engineering and Technology: This contains all sorts of articles on engineering related topics, maintained by Dr James B. Calvert. I still have an old slide rule lying around somewhere.
Tips on Designing Cost Effective Machined Parts: Most of my stuff gets machined. I do not agree with everything in the article, but most of it is good to know.
Engineering.com: All sorts of engineering stuff.
RoyMech: All sorts of more engineering stuff thank to the late Roy Beardmore. The website is being kept up for the moment.

Finally...

Never be caught without your Machinery's Handbook. You never know when you have to flatten out a panel for dovetailing.

Next time, I buy the large print version, which weighs more.

Last modified: 2019/04/14 by Howard Gibson.