Other Builds - Pandora's Box

[WoodKnot]

On the American sites there is a sort of Guru mentality, you ask your question and await the great man to put you straight. He might be wrong but you are not allowed to question him. Swarms of his acolytes surround you to make sure you toe the line. Americans always want to be told what to do, perhaps teh ones who can think for themselves are in short supply, kept too busy to hang about on forums.

Over here we have the Model Engineering forum where real retired Enginers hang out. They will tell you how to do anything. They know every tool that has ever been available and have opinions on every supplier, past andpresent. There is no point arguing because they are always right. It may be new to you but to them it is stale and boring. They know you won't listen, they know you will fail and come crawling back with your tail between your legs. It is always the same.

On Facebook, YouTube there are some real characters, I spend hours watching, most entertaining.

One of my favorites is the welders. They have a notion that given a picture they can recreate any machine tool from sawn and welded box section. A horde of schoolboys leave encouraging comments as the structure grows. You have to wonder where these impressive irons end up, I cannot believe anyone actually uses them.

Sorry, I become tedious.

Robin

Thanks Robin

I have to disagree with you though on the Americans, they have some amazing Youtube woodworkers, that take woodworking and carpentry to the next level.

But even the local guys have enormous workshops with kit most UK professional carpenters shops would love to have in their arsenal and most are just hobbyists.

I think the main thing with the Openbuild platform is that nearly all the machines are based on the same platform - extruded aluminium.

To be fair, without adding ball screws and linear rails, there is not that much further that they can take their machines.

Without going to the next level - of the semi industrial type and upwards.

UK engineering has always and always will be some of the best on the planet.

But, I am building a hobby machine and not something that will be cranking out kitchen doors on a production line

WoodKnot

[A_Camera]

WoodKnot, just keep on posting pictures and messages. Don't let people kick you in the butt because they feel you are not fine enough for their standards. Let them ride on their high horses, who cares...? Some of these guys are really helpful AND have both experience and knowledge, so reading their posts and the comments they make for others can also be rewarding, but sadly, some just have their noses up in the clouds, but that's their problem.

Of course you should not go to the US site just because some people said so, but of course, feel free to be there as well. It is not just their workshops which are bigger, but also their site, for better or worse, there are many more members and many more subjects to discuss and the forum is livelier than here. So actually, even that forum can be used to gain knowledge and get help, especially if the "help" here is total silence or a bunch of negative, wrongly biased off topic comments, which happens more than once here.

Regarding Open Builds, many of them are not even aluminium extrusion based, but plywood and MDF and I think those guys also have great fun with their machines. As long as we know the limitations of our machines and capabilities... My own is also a "toy" based on extrusions, cheap ball screws and so on, however, it is definitely the most expensive (last time I checked was about 3-4k USD and heaviest (over 130kg now) machine I ever owned, but I know that it is VERY capable to do everything I made it for plus a lot more. So extrusions, cheap ball screws and your linear rails will indeed make up a nice machine in the end, I am sure of that. But buying cheap is still a bit of a gambling, though most of the time they are of good enough quality today, unlike 5-10 years ago.

So, good luck and continue.