DavidF wrote:Pat, your better off saying that your just a perfectionist in the extreme..anal can go too many directions
I think of a perfectionist as someone who spends a lifetime buiding an 1/8th scale Titanic engine complete with every single valve and auxiliary part, and 10 million parts.
Or the guy who spends 3 months on the paint/finish on an engine.
Perhaps a better term is purist.
I like to build steam engines like they were built in the late 1800's, no better and no worse.
I paint my engines in 20 minutes with a can of paint and a paintbrush.
I don't buff out the sand finish on the parts.
I don't care about all the minute valves and piping, I just want a well designed engine that can carry a full load indefinitey.
Generally, my interst is the small working classs steam engines of old, not models, but like a Cretors or slightly larger, perhaps up to 150 lbs.
Function is king in my world.
The joke in the engineering world is that if an Architect designed a nuclear plant, his only desire would be that it would look like it would contain all the radioactivity, not that it actually would.
I think of looks as smoke and mirrors.
Function is what separates an Architect from an Engineer in many ways.
I don't want an engine that looks really pretty at a show, I want an engine with babbitt bearings that will pull a load indefinitely.
And I want an engine that people at shows can pick up, touch, look at, etc.
Nothing worse in my opinion than a big sign in front of your engine "DO NOT TOUCH".
The do-not-touch people are a-holes in my opinion, and worse yet, they don't really care about engine design they are just in it for the admiration/idolatry thing.
I better get off my soap box.
Edit:
In high school, there were to types of guys (more than that, but I simplify), guys with very nice looking cars, and guys with very fast cars.
I learned very quickly that the "sleepers" as we called them could leave the great looking cars in the dust when it came to drag racing.
I guess it depends on what you are in it for.
Performance is very important. Looks are the icing on the cake, and optional in my opinion.