Twelve Tips of Christmas: Tip 11: Get Your Project Moving

What is stopping you getting your products to market? Companies large and small have problems getting new product designs into production. There are many things that can increase development time, but the most common are: Staff shortages Production support taking Read more

By Tim, ago

Twelve Tips of Christmas: Tip 7: Protecting your Ideas

In some cases the most appropriate way to protect a design is to apply for Registered Design Rights. This is much more cost effective than a patent and only takes a few weeks. However while registered design rights offers protection Read more

By Tim, ago

Twelve Tips of Christmas: Tip 6: Using a Sketch Picture in SolidWorks

Nature is a great source of inspiration for product design. As is using existing product images to re-create geometry. The problem is that although there are billions of photos in the world, they don’t often come with a scale bar Read more

By Tim, ago

Twelve Tips of Christmas: Tip 5: Conditional Formatting in Excel

Conditional formatting allows you to format an excel cell, or cells, in a particular way depending on the data contained in the cell. For example, a quick glance of the simple spreadsheet below does not make it obvious which clients Read more

By Tim, ago

Twelve Tips of Christmas: Tip 4: Simple Turning Tool Set Up

See warning and disclaimer at the bottom of the page!! Correctly positioning the cutting point of your turning tool in relationship to the centreline of your lathe is critical to a number of things, but most notibaly… Tool life Surface finish (also affected Read more

By Tim, ago

Twelve Tips of Christmas: Tip 2: Avoiding Chatter on a Lathe

Please see the warning and disclaimer at the bottom of the page!! Just about every engineer who has ever used a centre lathe has at some point had the misfortune of uncontrollable chatter. There are many causes, and a good Read more

By Tim, ago