“My first blog”

I’ve spent all of my working life involved in engineering of some sort or other.  I’ve looked and learned to see how things work, I’ve observed and understood how to make and design things.  I’ve watched and learned about people and how to get round problems.  I’ve learned the value of respect and modesty.  Now I’m told that I need to start blogging!  Well, how hard can it be?  Just words on a screen?

The trouble is that I’ve always taken for granted that what I do is just ordinary and so why should I tell the world about it?  The answer has two sides, firstly, that the world may well be interested, and secondly, it is important for the growth and viability of the business.

The plan is to write a couple of blogs each month about the business, engineering and other topics.  I can promise that the blogs will be short and to the point (crikey only 160 words I’m told that I need to produce 300).

I was born just over half way through the last century and I’m told that my first words were “all automatic”.  I’ve been blessed with a good feel for tools and how to use them, so even from a very young age I was always making things.  I must admit that I’d have just loved some of the kit available today, a battery drill and some sharp bits would have been just brilliant compared to “drilling” holes with a red-hot poker.  Still, it taught me to think of other ways of doing things (some would call it bodging I prefer to think of it as being pragmatic).

I feel blessed to lived and worked during times of such change: Now I can design something using 3D modelling software, send the file to a printer and have the part in my hands in next no time.  True, before the digital age almost anything could be made, but it took time, patience, skill, expensive machine tools and often a lot of time.  I love the freedom that additive manufacturing brings to the design process: in the dim and distant past you would be constantly balancing what you wanted to achieve against how it could be made.  Currently the traditional cutting, welding and bashing techniques are still available and we exploit them in almost every design that we produce, however, as people start to retire and skills are lost, the future is without doubt 3D printing.

Well, I hope you’ve found this interesting and thank you if you’ve managed to get this far.  I’m not saying how long it has taken but future blogs will have to be quicker, or shorter!

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Written by: John Bennett