- Joined
- Nov 30, 2015
- Messages
- 4
You do bring up a good point, we're all anonymous on the internet and being a newcomer, I don't know who each of you are yet. Other than post history, and looking up what you've shared, I can't know who you are if you've never divulged it. It also goes without saying that the singular opinion is often flawed. My own areas of expertise aren't rock solid, and I've been known to be wrong on occasion.
I do have faith in the community, not this one specifically, but anywhere that like minded people gather and discuss ideas. Where one person is wrong, there's 3 more to correct him, 5 with alternate strategies, 1 old timer to explain why they won't work, and 2 more to argue if and why he was wrong in the first place. As a collective whole, I've seen this happen many times over in hundreds of situations, and usually it pans out in the end. There's also the attention seekers and guys who like to hear themselves talk, but you have to be right occasionally in order to keep talking.
The R/C guy in your example probably wouldn't head here first, he'd be talking with other R/C makers, then possibly the Sherline forums on this site and others, and maybe finally dropping in here to weigh in. He's got a singular purpose, and there's communities out there for him. Guys like me who don't have a dedicated purpose in mind, just random prototyping parts with small production runs and a fascination of the craft, there's a lot of stuff to consider, most of which we don't know until we really get going.
And the main problem with getting started here is the first step is a doozy. If we're skipping over the 7x's and tiny hobby lathes, we're dropping a grand or three on a first machine, either a new import or a used behemoth. Wanting to get one that we won't regret is only natural. What you see is lack of research or instant gratification is merely an appeal to the community. Research is definitely being done alongside it, there's probably much more information floating out there about these old machines then there was when they were new. If you think back 40-50 years ago, there was a few books, a catalog, a salesman, and local machinists you worked alongside of - they told you which you needed and that's the one you got. Nowadays there's the same old books, newer books about modifying and restoration, lots of websites, new vs old machine debates, and countless posts all discussing particular machines, some written by guys who have wrestled with them for decades. But all the research in the world can't beat a few dozen words of encouragement or dismissal from a guy who has used or owned that machine, or has been a machinist for far longer than you've been alive.
I do have faith in the community, not this one specifically, but anywhere that like minded people gather and discuss ideas. Where one person is wrong, there's 3 more to correct him, 5 with alternate strategies, 1 old timer to explain why they won't work, and 2 more to argue if and why he was wrong in the first place. As a collective whole, I've seen this happen many times over in hundreds of situations, and usually it pans out in the end. There's also the attention seekers and guys who like to hear themselves talk, but you have to be right occasionally in order to keep talking.
The R/C guy in your example probably wouldn't head here first, he'd be talking with other R/C makers, then possibly the Sherline forums on this site and others, and maybe finally dropping in here to weigh in. He's got a singular purpose, and there's communities out there for him. Guys like me who don't have a dedicated purpose in mind, just random prototyping parts with small production runs and a fascination of the craft, there's a lot of stuff to consider, most of which we don't know until we really get going.
And the main problem with getting started here is the first step is a doozy. If we're skipping over the 7x's and tiny hobby lathes, we're dropping a grand or three on a first machine, either a new import or a used behemoth. Wanting to get one that we won't regret is only natural. What you see is lack of research or instant gratification is merely an appeal to the community. Research is definitely being done alongside it, there's probably much more information floating out there about these old machines then there was when they were new. If you think back 40-50 years ago, there was a few books, a catalog, a salesman, and local machinists you worked alongside of - they told you which you needed and that's the one you got. Nowadays there's the same old books, newer books about modifying and restoration, lots of websites, new vs old machine debates, and countless posts all discussing particular machines, some written by guys who have wrestled with them for decades. But all the research in the world can't beat a few dozen words of encouragement or dismissal from a guy who has used or owned that machine, or has been a machinist for far longer than you've been alive.
