From kragen@dnaco.net Tue Jul 7 20:20:02 1998 Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998 20:20:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: clug-user@clug.org Subject: Re: CPCUG steals from CGLUG members! (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 347 Status: O X-Status: Forwarded with permission. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998 13:56:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen To: Celeste Gale/Monty Stein Subject: Re: CPCUG steals from CGLUG members! I should preface this post with this disclaimer: I've never (intentionally!) welded so much as a cubic micron of metal, and my experience with other power metalworking tools has been limited to making a set of lock picks and a screwdriver. (Well, and squaring off the heads of stuck round screws so I could unscrew them with a wrench.) So I wouldn't be surprised if every statement of fact in this post contained an error. (Except, of course, for the ones I quoted from Monty.) On Tue, 7 Jul 1998, Celeste Gale/Monty Stein wrote: > Apart from being new, having more horsepower/pound and carbide tools, the > metalworking equipment that I use isn't that different from stuff from the > 1920's (I use the same techniques and manuals). I'd love to find some > equipment from 30 years ago. Didn't the introduction of the electric factory radically change metalworking between 1890 and 1920? Do you think you could have made the same statement in 1925, that the metalworking equipment you were using then was essentially the same as stuff that was in use 30 years earlier? Even today, wire EDM, laser welding, and CNC versions of more traditional tools have changed metalworking radically in most shops -- even over the last *ten* years. I expect that, in the next thirty years, at least the following things will happen to metalworking: - Selective sintering and similar technologies will become much more commonplace - small CNC mills will appear in every weekend hobbyist's garage - job-shop costs (for people with CAD software) will go way down - nanotechnology will change everything, making metal unnecessary for most things > That statement was more an expression of the lack of longevity in value of > computers vs. other tools. Hmm. You have a point there. May I post this post to clug-user? Kragen