[CAUT] shank strike weights

[Alan McCoy]

>Hasnt been much basic Stanwood
> discussion for a while.  Too bad really that he decided to burden the
> whole idea with patents instead of just selling finished products to
> techs that dont want to bother with it themselves.  I have a feeling
> Touchweight Design would far more widespread then it is now had it just
> been public domain.
> 
> Cheers
> RicB
> 

Ric,

Welcome back.

Actually most of his ideas are in the public domain. Correct me if I'm wrong
but I think that only his front weight methodologies are protected by
patent. Everything else is available in his articles, though it does take a
few readings to digest the ideas and a lot more work to develop your own
methods. 

I don't really blame David for trying to parlay his ideas into making money.
I don't know about you but I don't enjoy pounding away on spinets and funky
old uprights, so I salute those folks who have created a way to make a
living in this field while avoiding at least some of the drudgery. The
problem for David is that he is more of an idea person than an engineer. To
contrast, take Bill Spurlock. Bill has written copious methodological
articles for the PTG and given many presentations explaining ways to do
things. And he has created  lots of tools to make the job easier. He sells
us the tools and everyone is happy. (I'd love to see all the Rube Goldberg
devices that are now sitting unused on peoples shelves after Bill came up
with a better mousetrap!) Actually, if so inclined, anyone can use his
methods and build their own tools that mimic his and he doesn't get a dime
from it. So all of Bill's stuff is really in the public domain, but his
execution in tool building is so good that people buy his tools even though
they could make them. Bill is able to make a living by selling tools and
giving away his methods. David, on the other hand, has given away a good
portion of his concepts, but has decided to sell some of his methods instead
of tools. It's a much harder sell - intellectual property. Personally, I
would have preferred for David to have gone Spurlock's route and explained
his methods in detail and then developed and sold the tools that Bob
Marinelli is selling.

It is interesting to me though that David has kept especially the front
weight methods protected by patent. My feeling is that the front weight is
of overall less importance than strike weight because SW accounts for more
(75%, if I've understood B Spurlock and Darrell Fandrich) of the inertia in
the system. So if you 1) take good care of friction throughout the action,
and as Ric and Jon point out, 2) take pains to achieve uniform SW, and 3)
match the SW to the action ratio, front weight won't be difficult to deal
with. (Yeah, I know, I know.... it's circular - that in order to know the
ratio, you gotta know FW...., so you use a reasonable "guess" of FW for
calculations.)

One thing about David's FW ideas that is certain though is that if you
insist on adhering to the FW ceiling, then many actions will require wip
assist springs (turbo wips). Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe not. I'm just
not convinced that a "reasonable" amount of lead in the key is as big an
issue as SW and other geomety issues.

In the end though, I really appreciate the enormous contribution that David
has made to my understanding of actions.

FWIW,

Alan

(Caution: Mind under Construction. All opinions, thoughts and conclusions
expressed herein are subject to change upon further reflection and
experience.)


-- Alan McCoy, RPT
Eastern Washington University
amccoy@mail.ewu.edu
509-359-4627


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