To all engineers out there: What is it with everyone claiming your title?

[Mark Hennebury]

Hi Andrew,
Either you are the smartest of the bunch, or the only one that actually looked at the joint, either way you're the man.

Mark H,

I think your woodworking is engineering! and I'm an engineer!

Haha, I sub out the FEA's (Finite Element Analyses). I think of it as: I get paid the big bucks because I can problem solve, not because I can run a software program. A lot of jobs on the market for engineering specifically ask for FEA experience though. So maybe I'm not an engineer after all.

In the end, I think what makes me an engineer is the ability (hopefully) to take knowledge from a bunch of different sources (experience, journals, text books, experts, etc) and produce a solution. That's the engineering part, in my opinion. That solution process requires you to ask the right questions that others would not ask. Proving it out via math is a tool you use to get to the end result (and many times you have a software package). Understanding the theory is the hard part. A person who has had decades of experience building ships can probably tell you why you are having an XYZ problem without software. That decision is coming from lots of thoughts, not just experience. That same person may pass off the calculations to a more junior engineer because the senior already understands the processes, calculations, theories and doesn't really care about the tiny tweaks the 3D software may provide.

Maybe that makes me old school, but I'm with you Mark.

Cheers,

PS: Long into the future, I would like contract. If I'm charging $200 / hr, my answer can't be: "well, let me run the FEA to see what's going on" during an emergency shutdown and the customer is losing a ba-zillion dollars a day. So I think of it as, if you are a good engineer you can make dang good recommendations on what appears to be 'not enough' data. The cheaper engineers are the ones that can't perform during a shutdown due to the need to create a science project. In my industry anyway, I wouldn't pay anyone big contract money during a crisis to just tell me they need to run 5 days of calculations.

IMHO of course.

[Mark Hennebury]

Keep in mind that there are a multitude of solutions to a problem and the optimum solution entails cost, time, performance, regulatory, safety and other constraints and or requirements. An elegant solution is not always the best solution. Engineering involves dealing with all of these requirements and constraints. It seems that someine has some sort of bone to pick against engineers and this clouds their viewpoint. As a result they keep trying to present themself as capable as an engineer but lacking the prerequisite training.

Pat, i think you have a problem with me. forget me a think about what i have said, its not about me.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike, you have been staring at my degree all week.

My Pedestal base joint was the highpoint of my first twenty years of woodworking.

It, is my degree.

You may consider it a degree but to the rest of the world, a degree is something conferred by a university upon a person who has fulfilled the requirements specified by the university for that degree.

You sound like the woman I mentioned earlier who wanted the recognition of having completed a marathon but had only completed a three mile run.

If you want to be accepted as an "engineer" you need to get an engineering degree from an accredited college or university or drive a train.

Mike

[Malcolm McLeod]

"Molann an obair an saor." Doesn't mention anything about judging him by how long or what route he took to get there.

... a few of the engineers around here have lost their way, become slaves to the process, and forgotten that the sole reason for its existence is to to find solutions.
...

So happy to see you have not become judgmental.

Mike, you have been staring at my degree all week.

My Pedestal base joint was the highpoint of my first twenty years of woodworking.

It, is my degree.

It was proof that I had made the grade, I had learned to learn.
I had surpassed what was written and taught, and passed into a world of possibilities, an unchartered world to explore and find new truths. I had learned to see.

I no longer needed someone to hold my hand, someone to answer my questions, i have the tools to find the answers myself.

The pedestal base joint was designed with one purpose; the pursuit of absolute; to find the perfect proportions within the structure.
It took a lot of understanding of the nature of the material, and predictions of its behavior under the expected stresses.


As it is, it is probably the strongest structural pedestal base joint there is, and it still has room to be tweaked to find perfection.

It is a fundamental structure.

This is not a joint born of the benefits of the industrial revolution. It is not a novelty joint done with routers and jigs or on a CNC.
The joint is done, as it could have been done for a thousand years with traditional tools.


If designing this joint is such a trivial /obvious thing; (and assuming that it wasn't because the rest of the world simply couldn't be bothered...)

What is the probability that I am the only one to have designed it?


I don't need your friendship, i am not looking for entry into the brotherhood, don't want or need any titles.

All i have asked of you;
Is to look, to see without bias, and evaluate honestly. Broaden your horizons.

Forget what you feel about me, and look at what i am pointing out to you, it might be of some value.

Being very careful not to cherry-pick this last one ...!!!
I did a quick beam analysis on your structure. I did have to make some dimensional assumptions based on visual references, but result is probably +/-10%. You have approximately 3 to 4 times as much material in the structure as needed for the expected live load. I'm sure you can web-search and find the same.

How's that axe coming? Got a good edge on it yet? Or, is it just ground down to a nub?

[Mark Hennebury]

So happy to see you have not become judgmental.



Being very careful not to cherry-pick this last one ...!!!
I did a quick beam analysis on your structure. I did have to make some dimensional assumptions based on visual references, but result is probably +/-10%. You have approximately 3 to 4 times as much material in the structure as needed for the expected live load. I'm sure you can web-search and find the same.

How's that axe coming? Got a good edge on it yet? Or, is it just ground down to a nub?

Down to the nub.

Malcolm, i am so happy that you are upset with me enough to look at my joint. It's not perfect, by a long shot, i know. But you have learned a little about pedestal joints because of me; you're welcome.

Did you find a stronger one?

I wasn't looking for "expected live load" which i am sure you understand that anyway. And you will need to explain in detail what you're test involved, and what criteria you used to arrive at that conclusion.
I am seriously interested in your testing method, so please elaborate.

Show me a stronger version of that structure.

You have the entire internet, and the history of woodworking to prove me wrong.
If you cant find anything, Check out Japanese carpentry, they turned joinery into an art-form.


I am not your enemy. Just trying to get you to look at things with an open mind. Sorry that it upsets you, but if it gets you to look i am okay with being the asshole.

Run you're test on this joint below its kind of the standard that you will find in books; those crossmembers are halflaps.

And be sure and do a comparison with the Nakashima joint and my angled pedestal; I can take all that you can throw, so give it you're best shot.

If i am wrong the show me, I have put out everything in the open and you can humiliate if i am wrong. Show me.

Now we are having fun.

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[Dan Friedrichs]

If I want to know what the overwhelming majority of people think about “noises we make and all agree have a given meaning”, I look in a dictionary. Mr. Hennebury’s use of the word looks more like what I see in my dictionary than what you seem to think.

“The design, building, and use of engines, machines and structures.”

“The action of working artfully to bring something about.”

I can't disagree with that logic. However, if I were to hire an engineer (an activity I do with some regularity), I wouldn't be looking for someone who meets that definition...

Some folks, here, seem to be implying that engineering suffers from "Gatekeeping", where "we" only allow the educated, degreed, (and potentially licensed) into the "club". But that gatekeeping is nothing compared to what exists in law, medicine, or even trades. That was the premise of this thread, after all - that the title is used by many who have not gone through the "traditional" path into the profession.

I don't begrudge that, at all - but I profoundly disagree that artfulness, intuition, or trial-and-error are engineering. I also think it is an exceedingly rare person who possesses good engineering skills without formal training.

[Dan Friedrichs]

I think that a few of the engineers around here have lost their way, become slaves to the process, and forgotten that the sole reason for its existence is to to find solutions.
The process is but a tool, one of the many available to us.

The solution is the goal.

Mark, I respectfully submit that you're criticizing a process that you've admitted you're untrained in and don't understand.

[Mark Hennebury]

Hi Dan,
I am untrained and don't understand you're profession.
I have tried to understand.
I have offered a challenge as to whether your profession has the sole right to the term, not the profession, titles, privileges or responsibilities.
I have offered examples for evaluation, and all have been dismissed, mostly from what i can tell based on who did them, not on what was done.
The first one that i offered as an example was Filipo the Goldsmith, all was quiet.

Then i offered some of my solutions and process. It seems that the dismissal was all about me and the lack of membership rather than a discussion on the solutions or the process.

You could have schooled me on how engineers would have calculated a solution to the CNC router, and why they didn't.
You could have schooled me on how an engineer would have designed the cable switch, and why he didn't.
You could have told me how an engineer would have designed better joints than me, and why they didn't.
You could have explained why, what i do has no value, and why the solutions that i find are not as valuable as those of an engineer.
So far i haven't heard any of that.

If i showed you two items, could you tell which was designed by an engineer and which was designed by a non engineer, you know like blind taste testing or wine tasting, where you have to judge on what you see not your preconceived ideas, derived from labels?


Many of the comments that i have heard have nothing to do with the issue but are people who are angry at me and wish to take a shot at me.

Mark, I respectfully submit that you're criticizing a process that you've admitted you're untrained in and don't understand.

[Mark Hennebury]

You may consider it a degree but to the rest of the world, a degree is something conferred by a university upon a person who has fulfilled the requirements specified by the university for that degree.

You sound like the woman I mentioned earlier who wanted the recognition of having completed a marathon but had only completed a three mile run.

If you want to be accepted as an "engineer" you need to get an engineering degree from an accredited college or university or drive a train.

Mike

Mike, i am sure that you are a nice guy, and i am sorry that we got off on the wrong foot.
It seems that you cannot bring yourself to discuss the issues.