Notes on work we actually do
Each of these exists because somebody asked the question and there was no decent UK answer to point them at. They are written to be used — by a maintenance engineer, a works manager or an owner deciding what to do next — rather than to rank for anything.
All insights
Who owns the drawings when you reverse engineer a part?
Engineering · September 2026 · 7 min readTwo different questions get muddled together here, and only one of them is really about the law. This is what to ask, and where to stop and take proper advice.
Tolerancing a part with no original drawing
Engineering · September 2026 · 8 min readEvery reverse engineering supplier quotes their scanning accuracy. Almost none of them explains the part of the job that actually decides whether the replacement works.
Documenting obsolete spares before the machine stops
Maintenance · September 2026 · 6 min readThe cheapest version of a reverse engineering job is the one commissioned while the machine is still working. Here is how to decide which parts qualify.
How to tell whether a job made money
Operations · September 2026 · 9 min readMost engineering SMEs cannot answer this question, which means they cannot answer any of the ones that follow from it. You do not need a system to start. You need twenty jobs and a fortnight.
Is there something you would want written up?
If you have a question that nobody seems to answer properly, tell us. It is a reasonable way to start a conversation and it is where most of these came from.