I wouldn’t bother – if you try and bend aluminium of that size cold, and still keep the bend neat and tight it’ll more than likely crack. The difference on the price you’ll pay for the material and the price for buying the part off the shelf is going to be in using the right tools and stress relieving it during and after forming so the metal around the bend is as strong as the rest of the bar.

Up to you, but as wors says the cost of the canoe is going to be much greater than £25… and if the ‘real’ part fails, you have someone else to blame other than yourself! ;-)

If you are going to borrow a copy from the web, make sure it uses site license version, using FLexLM as a license server. There are plenty of ‘tools’ for writing a FlexLM license to allow you to do some ‘research’. The node-locked version has a rock-hard liecensing system whereby Solidworks hold the license centrally on there servers and when you use the code your computer requests it…. so they know who is paying and who ain’t…. ;-)

Podge – As compositepro alludes to, if you have previous 3D modelling experience I’d forgo the formal course, pick up free tutorial (from university websites etc) and save yourself the £1500! The help package which comes with it is really rather good nowadays

Yep, Solidworks is a complete doddle – you can get very professional looking 3D models and generate detailed manufacturing drawings for very little effort. If you’re coming from a 2D/draughting background it can take a while to get your head round the correct ‘design intent’ to creat things in the simplest way, but after that it really is all good.

I only tend to use it infrequently (building solid geometry for FE models), but even so I’m not much slower than colleagues who use it pretty much all the time.

Seems to be the current “weapon-of-choice”, especially with the Dassult Systems empire being an ever-expanding multi-national beast!

Yep, another sad bu&&er here – done it in Soldworks. In 3D, with a fully ‘mated’ assembly and the collision-detection apps on, you can watch suspension parts move through the stroke, track virtual pivot points, track changes in suspension rate through the stroke etc etc…. yes, very, very sad ;-)

I’m on the industrial advisery board for the mech eng dept at Bristol which met last week….. think yourself lucky that it’s only AAA – given the number applicants for the numbers of available places for the next academic year (2010), the selection criteria/A-level offers that will be going out is quite scary!!

They look like cast dropouts – is the line not the line of casting flash from manufacture, not a crack? If that’s the case, its a bit ropey, but certainly still fit for purpose. If it is a crack, I’m struggling to think of a loading mechanism that would cause a plat of that size to split in-plane, rather than through thickness.

Seat tube crack is, possibly, another matter entirely.

Euroheat Harmony 13 here – Around £2500 for the stove, liner, hearth, fitting and commissioning a couple of years ago. Stove was about £300 pricier than ‘normal’ as its rated for smokeless areas, burning wood and coal. Fitted it as part of rebuilding the whole of downstairs and it is without doubt the best thing we did :-)

As with PK and Clubber, assuming you’ve bought something half decent you’re into a grip vs longevity/puncture-proof trade-off. A bit more width and a reduction in pressure will help (offset against more rolling resistance), but ultimately the contact patch is tiny so it doesn’t take much crap on the road to break traction.

Gatorskins here BTW, in 23mm during the summer and 25mm through the winter.

+1 Photobox – did a superb job of our ‘informal’ wedding album. Dead easy with the online templates – drag/drop/resize/crop, job done.

Still have a job going for a mechnical/stress engineer at my office. North Bristol area, small independant consulatncy firm, workign knowledge of Patran and ABAQUS preferred, experience or relevant higher degree required. If you can add any/all of the following to your CV you’be a shoe-in – Matlab, MathCD, StarCD/Fluent, Solidworks, R6, Visual Basic….

CG – Yes, that was a problem for me to start with, but you can change your settings so you don’t recieve all the emails of the group. I generally just review the listings on the website every day or so.

No…. perhaps interesting should have been in quotes, as its ranged from normal, everyday, folk to completely bonkers-nuts looneys. All very nice in their own way though!

Yes – fair point. The toe box is quite wide….

Take what you like, you don’t have to offer back…. but you’ll need to respond super-quick to adverts, as stuff goes very quick.

Have offloaded and recieved some good stuff on the Bristol Freecycle group… and met some intersting folks along the way ;-)

The best purchase I ever made was a pair of Saloman Goretex XCR trail running shoes. A bit pricey, but comfy as a comfy thing in any conditions.

Also looked at Speedcity’s. Have currently settled on XT hubs on Open Pro’s as this seems to be the best cost/weight/strength trade off (the Open Pros are around 100g a rim lighter than anything else of a similar price), but I’m looking into having them rebuilt with some disc specific 700c rims which are ‘available’ from Alex/Velocity/Sun, but are either bu&&ers to get hold of or very heavy. May look again at the Speedcity’s….

Been using 700c P2’s with discs on my commuter (Airbourne Carpe Diem) for years now. Did it as a fit-and-forget option…. the added bonuses are more stopping power/consitency and the occasions when I’ve dinged a rim (submerged potholes… chavs leaving bricks in strategic locations…. etc) I can get home without having to stop and trim/disconnect the brakes.

I agree, P2’s don’t look right, but they are cheap, will probably last forever and have mudguard eyes – ticked all the boxes at the time I was building the bike and, so far, I’ve not felt the need to shell out for something carbon

Ski – lots of smokeless compliant ampliances available on the market now. Euroheat ones are particularly nice. Think ours was about 20% more pricey than a ‘standard’ item.

Second Bocabar @ Paintworks. Good food and choice of beers. Best avoided during the day, unless you have kids in whohc cas eits brilliant as the layout lends itself to prams and toddlers running about ;-)

Booked a table at the Riverstation two weeks ago for Valentines day, and they said it was pretty much full then. Form an orderly queue…… ;-)

Husqvarna….. and go to a good shop and get them retune the carb before you leave. All new engines are tuned and locked for emmissions, rather than performance. Husky dealers can override this for ‘maintenance’ and they run a whole lot better :-)

Shhh.. the blog says no names ;-) BTW – sounds like a hell-of-a-place! :-)

Barclays released an open letter this morn from the Chief Exec saying year-on-year profits to be released in early Feb will still be strong, despite 8bn of investment losses, and they don’t need any the government liquidity cash (but will use the investment insurance scheme.

Clearly investors saw this as a show of strength, rather than protesting too much ;-)

Takisawa

Hmm, OP was a little strong m’be – ABAQUS/Patran isn’t essential, but would be a considerable boon.

Would be happy to train-up ‘the right person’ for these packages which are used fo rth emajority fo the work (have done so in the past) – however, demonstrating a sound basic engineering knowledge is more important, certainly at interview stage, as the client/project list is so varied. I, as a humble stress engineer have had to come up to speed very fast on basic hydraulics, flight loads, electronics theory, materials as well as general and code-specific programming languages, several CAD packages, pressure vessels, fatigue and fracture, thermal calculations, naval architecture etc etc. If we think we can handle it, we’ll take on pretty much anything that comes through the door which means the day to day challenges can be huge, but you can never say you didn’t get to use your brain at the end of the day!! ;-)

ANSYS is the work of the devil! ;-)

Historically the company has used ABAQUS, but lately the majority of our clients are, making it a requirement.