CAD files

[gcarsen]

another interesting thing on prints, their usage, and copyrights,,
I have dealt with numerous Aircraft prints. I do not know all the legal steps they take. but generally they have an issued serial number, and one is only supposed to make one airplane from the print pack! you make more, you need to buy a set of prints for each one!! I saw this on the smith miniplane, the BD-5. neither of each I could ever get into!!!! I climbed into a bd-5 and my whole shoulders up was way above the canopy line!! as well as the BD-4 had the same legal stuff on it! I know trains and planes are way different! but I know this works on some boat as well as other items,,

most magazines now days state that the plans are for only the hobbyist usage and no commercial usage at all!

Grant

[EnidPuceflange]

Thanks Fred - I asked Reeves as well.

By the by - the right hand side footplate on the drawing has the square hole for the reversing rod in the wrong place....as (of course) does my rather nice waterjet cut footplate now.

[Glenn Brooks]

This is an interesting chain of postings,,
this hobby is based on copying!! we copy the full-size, yet get upset when some one copies each other!! LOL!!

here are a few inputs that probably going to open some interesting conversations.

the Harpur/Allan Mogul,,, I had a conversation with Gene about this particular engine design. he got the design package from Bob Harpur. he went into the history that Bob built his design from a series ran in the Model Railroader back in the 40's . A fellow by the name of Mel Thornburgh. he ran quite a few series on scratch building O scale locomotives. well Gene said Bob took the series and multiplied all the dimensions by 6 to turn it into 1.5 scale!! of course it was not all that easy, he had to change it into a working steam powered model. but generally copied it all the way down to the actual cab number 713!! I have not had a real chance to sit down and compare the O scale series drawings to the 1.5 to see how close the overall dimensions are in relation to each other. comparing apples to oranges, but does set up the history and family tree of a design. I also have not had a chance to see where Mel got his info, but at that time in history the railroads where known to have plan packs they sent out to modelers'!!
brings into fact that the whole series is copies of others works with changes made to fit what is needed.


the plan ahead series of prints was brought up by Harry. a perfect example of this question. they are all copies of others work, into a different format. is this legit?? I don't know. but if he corrected all issues with the prints ?? from personal experience the logging Donkey, and the Mich cal shay are from Bill Harris works. Bills original prints for both where so full of mistakes they where almost useless. when I was working on both I had to double check every dimension going both ways, and to mating parts to find all the mistakes. now if all the original mistakes are still in the "plan ahead packages" that is pretty bad, but if all the models and prints are corrected what does that mean? new and useable prints?? I think it is just as much of a crime offering prints for projects that have never been built to prove themselves out, or full of mistakes. I have come across that a lot in the machining hobby

Grant

Back in the '70's building model boats was in vogue. Designers would publish a line drawing, showing loftings etc in a magazine or book, then advertise where one could order the actual plans. It was common practice to alter the dimensions in the magazine drawing so that people who lofted the model off the page ended up with a distorted hull - as one or more frames or parts were mis sized. If one bought the actual lofting one got the correct dimensions.

Perhaps the practise still survives.

[Fred_V]

Thanks Fred - I asked Reeves as well.

By the by - the right hand side footplate on the drawing has the square hole for the reversing rod in the wrong place....as (of course) does my rather nice waterjet cut footplate now.

Is that a drawing or your cad error?

[Kimball McGinley]

What has not been mentioned here yet is the financial side of this argument. The idea behind Patents, Trademarks, etc. is to encourage innovation and growth in an industry, and country, by rewarding it. The reward is the legal protection that nobody can directly copy your design, thereby depriving you of your profits. Those profits are required to offset the work required to design something in the first place.
I don't know where the threshold would be, but clearly if ALL of the drawings were available in a CAD format, then locos will be built for which the original designer/drafter did not sell a set of plans, and therfore would not be paid.

[hwboivin3]

This would not be the case.

This is a dxf file for the plates to have cut. Anyone who would be building would still need the drawings in order to build the engine. This is purely an offering to broaden the building of the engine if someone wanted to send the file to a local shop to have the pcs cut. Without the dxf file, one would have to make their own or cut the frames themselves. This is just a time saver for people who may not have the means of drawing the parts. And a $$ saver if you had to pay someone to draw it.

In all reality, there's probably not a huge line of people wanting to build the hunslet. And the way I see it, if it were available, it would only help reeves in selling the drawings and castings.

Nowadays with the current technological advances, if the sellers would update their products with cad files, 3d models...etc, this wouldn't be an issue.

[kvom]

I'd agree with the above. My current project is a fairly large (10" flywheel) model of a stationary steam engine, for which I paid about $100 for the paper plans. The castings are another $900. I have made a number of parts via CNC milling, hence I have DXF files drawn from the paper plans. I seriously doubt any of these files would allow someone to build the engine of themselves, as only certain parts are covered. The rest of the engine requires the castings.

Another wrinkle in this project is that the original drawings of the engine were published in Model Engineering in 1905. The current set is derived from someone measuring the original model(found in a museum). The designer originally made wood patterns and had castings made, but since there were not kits back then it's not surprising that his was the only one made until modern times.

I second the notion that the drawing set should be much cheaper to encourage people to buy the castings. The drawings I received were printed on large sheets of paper, and I immediately spent another $40 having them scanned to PDFs. Now I can easily print individual pieces for shop drawing as needed, and the paper is still pristine. If the drawings were distributed as PDFs then the cost of printing and shipping would be eliminated. While not impossible, building this engine without the castings would be quite a challenge.

[Fred_V]

I just got this reply back from Reeves:

""Superheat is totally worth it, coal, profane, oil or Alcohol...

The physics don't lie- if you superheat steam, you should be able to extract ALL that energy from it in the cylinders. If you increase WP, you should be able to extract that energy too. Anything to add more enthalpy to the steam before it gets to the cylinders, because you are putting 1200 BTU/lb up the stack or so...anything which adds to the amount of extractable BTU's is good.

Superheater flues need to be big enough to ensure flow through them in a fouled condition- on 3 1/2" gauge, something like 7/8 or 1" for the SH flues sounds about right, depending on the superheater configuration and boiler tube length. (on a 2" traction engine, I think we used 3/4", with a 3/8" tube up the middle, across the back of the box, and down the other). We had a 1/4" OD superheater running through a 1/2" tube (not flue) on our Hoffman Hudson, which worked more like a steam dryer than a proper superheater. I would suspect that you really need more than the .100 clearance that would result (approx.) from a configuration like that. I would, if I was designing a boiler, probably go for something like 20-30% of free gas area in the flues _with_ the superheaters in place. I would aim at a steam temperature of about 450-500F as the design temperature, again if I was starting from 0. (unless one was building something special, in which case, design up to the oil limiting temperature, which could be as high as 750-800F using 1200w steam oil...)

I hope that helps,

James Powell ""

[EnidPuceflange]

The reply I got was similar to Fred's (although not to his quoted one ):

"Dear Sir

Thank you for your email regarding our Hunslet drawings.

On no account may these drawings be reproduced and/or distributed whether in the UK or elsewhere in the world. We DO NOT grant any permission to do so, whether for financial gain or not.

Yours sincerely

Kate Barton

Managing Director"

I guess this ends the argument, at least as far as plans from Reeves are concerned.

[Rich_Carlstedt]

I have tried to follow this thread with an open mind and also what the law is trying to accomplish.
I think you can boil it down to this:

Whenever you use someone else's plans for what ever reason OTHER THAN YOUR OWN build...you need to ask permission of the originator of the plans if you intend to transfer the drawings .
It does not matter if you MODIFY, draw them in DXF, DWG or Solidworks etc, as soon as you pass them off for a fee or free, you have engaged in the transfer of intellectual knowledge.

I had this happen to me in a huge way. I will not say what it was as I don't want to start a fight
I created a mechanical device as a teenager, and used it in competition. No one ever had such a design/concept
Many years later , a friend had a problem and to solve it I built the device (s) for him (specifically and only )
It was a smashing success (for him, as he became nationally famous in his field) and he wanted a second set of units as it gave him an edge over his competition.
Just at that moment in time I was fired from my job and had to move 500 miles distance to a new job and home (and shop) . I was swamped with keeping my family first and making a living and He begged for the units. Since he was a good friend , I gave him a full copy of my drawings, dimensions ,tolerences and material needed , as he had a machinist friend who would build them for him.
After 5-8 years I was shocked to see MY units for sale in a store!
When I investigated, I found it was recently patented and production started about 3-4 years after my drawings were "loaned"?
Now everybody says they invented the wrench that Sears made or some such claim. We all know that original ideas or inventions are hard to come by.
So how do I know this was my idea?
My units had 4 functions, but I only used three for him ( and in the prints) and left out the forth function. It did HOWEVER REQUIRE a major component to have a specific design for the forth function to work ....so guess what ?
The design was there for the fourth function , on the product and patent , but not the added function ( as the patent was based on my 3 functions and they didn't know about the fourth !)
I was never asked by him OR the machinist about further utilization of my idea and build ..that hurts.
I probably would have given away the idea as I really wasn't interested to get into that business...but was never asked nor had the opportunity.

Rich

[Rich_Carlstedt]

As a second thought, making a drawing is not a "no time" event.
It takes work , especially in the old drafting modes. ( DWG's and DXF's are a snap compared to old days)
SO if a guys spends 300 hours making prints and sells you a copy for 40 bucks , he is not killing the market.
If you make a Laser program from that print, and wish to sell it , give him a call and offer to split the profits ( that is if you can call it a profit ?)
IMHO

Rich

[Fred_V]

I just got this reply back from Reeves:

""Superheat is totally worth it, coal, profane, oil or Alcohol...

The physics don't lie- if you superheat steam, you should be able to extract ALL that energy from it in the cylinders. If you increase WP, you should be able to extract that energy too. Anything to add more enthalpy to the steam before it gets to the cylinders, because you are putting 1200 BTU/lb up the stack or so...anything which adds to the amount of extractable BTU's is good.

Superheater flues need to be big enough to ensure flow through them in a fouled condition- on 3 1/2" gauge, something like 7/8 or 1" for the SH flues sounds about right, depending on the superheater configuration and boiler tube length. (on a 2" traction engine, I think we used 3/4", with a 3/8" tube up the middle, across the back of the box, and down the other). We had a 1/4" OD superheater running through a 1/2" tube (not flue) on our Hoffman Hudson, which worked more like a steam dryer than a proper superheater. I would suspect that you really need more than the .100 clearance that would result (approx.) from a configuration like that. I would, if I was designing a boiler, probably go for something like 20-30% of free gas area in the flues _with_ the superheaters in place. I would aim at a steam temperature of about 450-500F as the design temperature, again if I was starting from 0. (unless one was building something special, in which case, design up to the oil limiting temperature, which could be as high as 750-800F using 1200w steam oil...)

I hope that helps,

James Powell ""

sorry, I had the wrong quote on my clipboard. Looks like I didn't even read my own post before sending it.
Paul has shown the actual reply.