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May 30, 2025 38 mins

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Aaron Moncur sits down with Dean Odell, a distinguished mechanical engineering instructor and YouTube educator, to explore the fascinating world of Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing (GD&T). Dean shares his journey from a welder to an engineering instructor, discusses the importance of GD&T in manufacturing, and reveals insights from his popular YouTube channel, dedicated to technical education.

Main Topics:

  • Origins and evolution of GD&T
  • Common misconceptions about geometric tolerancing
  • Practical applications in engineering and manufacturing
  • Dean's approach to teaching technical concepts
  • The importance of understanding design intent
  • Inspection techniques and measurement tools

About the guest: R. Dean Odell is a distinguished mechanical engineering educator and consultant, specializing in Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) and Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) technologies. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology from SUNY Polytechnic Institute and an A.A.S. from Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC), where he currently teaches courses in GD&T, CAD, CMM, metallurgy, and robotics as an assistant professor.

Dean is also a prominent online educator with over 32,000 YouTube subscribers, offering tutorials on GD&T, CMM operation, print reading, and metallurgy. Beyond academia, he conducts in-person training across the United States, particularly in GD&T and Zeiss CMM, known for his clear and hands-on teaching style. His work reflects a strong dedication to advancing precision manufacturing and engineering education.

Links:

Dean Odell - LinkedIn

Website

YouTube

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dean Odell (00:00):
Especially now if I make a video and I'm wrong about
something, I'll never hear theend.

Aaron Moncur (00:20):
Hello and welcome to another exciting, exciting
episode of The being an engineerpodcast. Joining us today is
Dean Odell, a seasonedMechanical Engineering educator
and consultant specializing inGD and T and CMM technologies
with a strong academicbackground and a popular YouTube
channel that educates 1000s.
Dean, brings a wealth ofknowledge and experience to our

(00:42):
discussion on precision inengineering and manufacturing.
Dean, thanks so much for beingwith us today. Yeah. Thank you
so much. So let's, let's get toknow you a little bit. Tell us
about why you decided to becomean engineer, and then how your
focus eventually shifted to Gdand T and CMM coordinate

(01:05):
measurement machines, sure.

Dean Odell (01:09):
So I kind of backed into going to college and stuff.
I really wanted to just use upthe rest of my GI Bill. I was
working as a welder at the time,and my company was getting more
into machining, so I wanted tolearn about machining at our
local community college. And Igot confused about the the names
of the programs, so I signed upfor Mechanical Engineering

(01:32):
Technology, and I found outafterward there was Advanced
Manufacturing Technology programthat was just machining, which
is what I meant to sign up for.
So I did two years of that whileI was working as a welder. I had
some background as a machinistapprentice, and that was, I want
to be clear, that was the title.

(01:52):
It wasn't a state sponsoredmachinist apprentice program,
but I had worked in the tradesfor a while, and like I said, I
had about two years of GI Billleft over. So I was like, yeah,
let me go to this communitycollege. And, you know, use that
up. And that kind of just wentfrom went from there after that.
I well, I have to remember now Iwas hired as a mechanical

(02:15):
designer. And right after Ifinished my four year degree,
and I did that for a while, andthen I was hired on to where I
work now at the college, samecollege I went to terrific

Aaron Moncur (02:28):
Okay, and tell the listeners a little bit about
what you're doing now at thecollege. So

Dean Odell (02:33):
I'm a full time instructor at that Advanced
Manufacturing Technology programI mentioned, that's what I teach
in now. So I teach, you know,aspiring CNC machinist, mostly.
I occasionally have a class inanother program, but that's the
majority of my work, mostlyprint reading, GDT, CAD
metallurgy, those kinds ofsubjects I kind of specialize

(02:57):
in, those for our tradestudents. All

Aaron Moncur (03:00):
right, I have a question for you about Gd and T
and machinists. I'll be honest,we don't know G and D, G D and T
super well at Pipeline, youknow, I think, like a lot of
engineering places,environments, we understand the
basics. You know, we can put afew G, D and T symbols up on a

(03:20):
drawing here and there. Butwe're definitely not experts the
way some people really are, forexample, you and occasionally,
someone on the team willsuggest, Hey, we should really
get some GD and T training, andsomeone else, this is the
objection that I always hear,not just from pipeline, but from
plenty of other engineeringcompanies as well. The objection

(03:43):
is, well, we could do that, butmost machine shops don't even
know how to read GD and T sowhat's the point? Well, I'd love
to hear just your generalopinion or thoughts about that,
right?

Dean Odell (03:56):
I've heard that a million times as well, and it's
just one of those things. Itjust depends. I mean, good
machine shops will understand GDand t just fine. Anybody doing
high end work for defensecontractors or medical device
industry or aerospace, they knowGD and T perfectly good. You

(04:16):
know, people are picking it upmore and more as time goes on.
But I've heard that. And youknow, part of it is the customer
is always right. You know, ifyou go to a shop and they're
going to triple the prices ifthey see a composite position,
you know, if that's your onlychoice, yeah, you might have to
pull the GD and T off thedrawing. And as I'm sure we'll

(04:37):
talk about later, you know, Gdand T is about design intent, so
as long as the machine shopdoesn't necessarily need to know
the ins and outs of every singlesymbol, it's really, can they
make the part correct, and thencan it be inspected to the GD
and

Aaron Moncur (04:53):
t? So that's a really great point. Let's, let's
just dive right into that. Now.
What at a high. Level, at itsmost basic conceptual level,
what is geometric dimensioningand tolerancing, and why does it
exist?

Dean Odell (05:09):
So GD and T is, you know, a language, and that's in
the first page of every GD and Tbook, but it's really a language
to simplify things before GD andT so I have a text or not, a
textbook, a drafting manual fromGeneral Motors from the 1950s
when they wanted to apply ageometric concept like
perpendicularity, they would doit with a note. So it would say,

(05:31):
hey, this surface needs to beperpendicular to this surface
within this number. And for say,coaxiality, you know, that would
be a note. And they'd have towrite all this stuff out. And,
you know, writing it out leadsto problems. I'm sure you're
very familiar with drawingnotes. You keep them very short,
because the longer you go, themore issues you can have. So

(05:52):
early GD and T was justreplacing these concepts that
they're doing in machine shops.
Anyway, one of them is run out,right? So the surface variation
relative to axis revolution.
Every machine shop that makesround things, it's doing that
it's just putting it into asymbolic form that saves space
on the drawing, because that wasa thing back then, right?

(06:14):
Everything was done by hand andstandardizing it. So you go to
y, 14, five, see what thedefinition for that symbol is,
and kind of go from there.

Aaron Moncur (06:26):
That's fascinating. I didn't know the
history behind GD and t, thatthey originated as drawing
notes, and the symbols were justa way to make it faster to
communicate on a drawing. Yep.
Very

Dean Odell (06:38):
cool, and it's grown over the years. Early GD and T
there's just a couple symbols.
And you know, it's up to, well,it was 14. Now it's 12. They
took two away, but, yeah, itjust grows every 10 years they
do a revision. You know, thestandards get longer and longer
and longer.

Aaron Moncur (06:56):
Well, it's nice to hear that they're taking some
things away as well. I think allof us can get trapped in that
routine where we're just addingand just adding, and then
whatever it is we're working ongrows to be unwieldy and giant.
So it's nice to hear thatthey're pruning things also
being so thoughtful about it,

Dean Odell (07:13):
right? Yeah, two commonly misused, concentricity
and symmetry were pulled out ofthe standard. Now, I'm not privy
to the committee's decisionmaking, but it seems pretty
clear that they just got sick ofpeople misusing them, and that
took them away.

Aaron Moncur (07:30):
All right, let's talk a little bit about your
YouTube channel, which has grownover the years and has a really
impressive following. Now youhave lots of subscribers and at
least dozens, if not hundreds,of videos out there, mostly
about Gd and T How did thechannel get started? What was
the impetus for beginning that,and how has it grown over the

(07:53):
years? And what impact have youseen it have on engineering
education?

Dean Odell (07:59):
So the first video ever made, it's still up there,
was like December 2018 and I wasjust a part time instructor, and
it was just kind of goofingaround. And, you know, I was
trying. I made a couple ofvideos before the pandemic, but
not really seriously, because itdidn't really matter, once the
pandemic happened, I decided togo fully online. And because of

(08:22):
my experience in college, Ireally didn't like classes where
you just, you're presented withall this stuff to read and just,
here's a PowerPointpresentation, flip through it
and write what you think aboutit, that kind of thing. So I
wanted everything to be video.
Every lecture I used to do inperson, I wanted to be on video.
So, you know, with limitedsuccess in 2020 I got that

(08:42):
started, and then by 2021 2022started to kind of fill out all
the videos I needed for myclasses, Gd and T is by far the
most popular, and I have themost videos about it. But
there's also videos onindustrial relations, safety and
health and manufacturingprocesses, and a couple other
classes that I teach. So, as faras you know, making the channel,

(09:04):
you know, it's an incrementalprocess. If you go through and
flip through old videos, I triedall sorts of different things,
all different techniques forreading off a script or not
reading off a script. You know,I did a lot of videos just
sitting in front of a camera andmove to a whiteboard. The
feedback from YouTube has beenpretty good, you know, the first

(09:25):
couple years, nobody reallycomments. But now let's get
like, 10 a day. I have to kindof read through and I do read
them. Sometimes people haveuseful information, not not
usually, about the technicalaspects of the video making that
I kind of have to figure outmyself. They will let you know
if the sound is bad orespecially, oh, my god, the

(09:47):
background music. People let youknow they hate that. You know, I
like it, so they got to tough itout. You know,

Aaron Moncur (09:57):
did you? Did you expect the channel? To do so
well, or was that just apleasant surprise? No,

Dean Odell (10:03):
I had no idea. I've liked YouTube forever. I think
it's just such a great thing tobe able to listen and learn, and
it's got music on there. It'sgot everything. And I never saw
myself as like a YouTuber, butonce you know, there's a niche
for GD and T that I kind of sawthat I could fill when I was
trying to learn it, the videoswere very few and far between,

(10:26):
so I kind of set out to make acomplete free course where
people could learn it fromYouTube, just like any other
subject, I had a dynamics class,engineering dynamics with a
horrible instructor, who justwas a first time teacher. It
just didn't. Wasn't a greatclass, but I learned most of it
off YouTube, you know, forstudying for tests and

(10:47):
everything. And I'll be gratefulto that guy on YouTube that made
those videos forever. That's howI learned everything in that
course.

Aaron Moncur (10:55):
Yeah, what I know this happened during COVID,
where online was, was reallyimportant. Was there anything
else that compelled you to dothis? Because it takes a lot of
time to create these videos.
It's not like you just snap yourfingers and and there they are.
Or was it really just COVID, andyou needed a way to still teach
your students, and that wasonline was the only way?

Dean Odell (11:16):
Um, yeah, at first it was just, you know, hey, I
want to make this for thepandemic and everything. But
after I started doing it, Irealized I was kind of good at
it, so I just kept on. I mean, Icould have stopped at a certain
point and said, Hey, I havevideos for all my classes. I'm
done. But, yeah, I do enjoy theecosystem getting that feedback.

(11:36):
And, you know, I made a lot ofvideos about Gd and T before I
ever went and got the seniorcertification. It really helped
me to study to make thesevideos, and it's helped me
understand GD and T on a muchdeeper level. Because especially
now, if I make a video and I'mwrong about something, I'll

(11:56):
never hear the end of it, I'vegot really cool people that will
email me or DM me and say, Hey,I think you made a mistake here.
I don't want to publiclycomment, but it's kind of a
nightmare if I get somethingwrong, so I've got to be more
careful than I used to be inolder videos where I could kind
of spitball a little bit more.

Aaron Moncur (12:15):
Yeah, well, something else that has changed
over the course of your videocareer is the hair. You had some
sweet long hair before, and youlook great now with short hair
as well. But I just want to putit out there that I love the
long hair, and I'm putting myvote in for a comeback of that
long hair. Oh, thank

Dean Odell (12:35):
you. Yeah, that was Oh man. You know, YouTube
comments are 99.9% positive. Thereally nasty ones were about the
hair, really, yeah, oh, man.
People would say awful stuff,and I delete and block them. I'm
not a free speech person on myYouTube comments, yeah, yeah,
but yeah, thank you. I reallyenjoyed it. I had a guy that was

(12:56):
going to make me a logo forfree, and it was, you know, the
hair or whatever, yeah, and Ihad to be like, Ah, I'm gonna
cut it eventually. So I don'twant to make it like, where I
have to have it forever.

Aaron Moncur (13:10):
Well, not that it really matters one way or
another, but I was a fan. Thankyou. The long hair that looked
really cool. All right, what aresome of the most common
misconceptions that thatstudents and maybe even
practicing engineers have aboutGd and T

Dean Odell (13:27):
well, they think it makes things expensive, they
think it's unnecessary. Theythink, I don't want to say it's
too hard to learn, but maybefrom an engineering perspective,
it's like, hey, we didn't coverthat at my university. So how
important could it be? You know,we covered calculus. That was

(13:47):
important enough to cover wecovered fluid mechanics. You
know, if we didn't cover GD andT, do I really need it to do
engineering? I think that thatis

Aaron Moncur (13:56):
comments about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I use
probably 10% of what I learnedin school on the job, right, and
the other 90% are things that Ilearned after I graduated that
were never taught in college,not the least of which is
communication and getting alongwith people and organization

(14:17):
things like that. Although Iwill say at my university, we
did cover GD and T, there was acourse for T as

Dean Odell (14:25):
well. And I will give universities a break. You
can learn GD and T on the job.
You can't necessarily learndifferent differential equations
on the job. So there are thingsthat are better set in the
university environment. Youknow, Gd and T, most people
learn it. Most people learn iton the job. So, yeah,

Aaron Moncur (14:44):
it's fair. That's fair. Something else that you
have in your lab are a wholebunch of Zeiss, CMMS, and they
go, you know, hand in hand with,with Gd and t, what? How did
you. Was that part of the coursewhen you started? Or is the are
the CMMS something that youbrought to the table? So

Dean Odell (15:07):
me and my colleague were instrumental, and we had a
couple, and we got a few more inthe pandemic. And I think
there's 12 in that room now.
Yeah, that's a huge part of ourprogram for machinists being
able to inspect things, and,more importantly, be able to
explain decision making when itcomes to metrology, so that when

(15:27):
they're getting their partsinspected and a metrologist, you
know, tries to sell them a billof goods, they can fight back.
And you only really get that ifyou know how to program a
coordinate measuring machine,which, which is a very important
course for us, yeah,

Aaron Moncur (15:47):
yeah, and doing inspections on a CMM, it's not
necessarily black and white.
There's some real training thatgoes into it to understand how
to interpret the drawing, whichis was, which is what you teach.
If I were to use a CMM, chancesare I'd probably get a bunch of
things wrong, but that's part ofyour course as well. Is teaching

(16:09):
students how to use these in thecontext of a print that is being
inspected. Right?

Dean Odell (16:18):
Yeah, as a CMM isn't as simple as just taking what's
on the print and punching it inthe computer. There's a good bit
of interpretation that has to goon and the data you get. I mean,
there's so much you can do witha CMM. You can take touch
points, you could scan you couldget a million points, or 10
points, you know. And it's justhuge subject of stuff. And

(16:42):
there's so many settings, yes,kind of like CAD, there's so
many settings in there. Andbeing able to kind of untangle
it all is can be overwhelming atfirst, but I think it is an
important part of the educationof, you know, Gd and T and print
reading is being able to takethat to the next step. And we
were talking about YouTubebefore I have a I have a good

(17:05):
few videos about that, and Ithink people really resonate
with the inspection part of it,as well as just the whiteboard.
Hey, this is what this symbolmeans.

Aaron Moncur (17:14):
Going back to the the videos, YouTube, what? What
are some of the challenges thatyou've encountered, and do you
have any pro tips for forsolving the complexities of
taking sophisticated, technicalcontent and making it, you know,
really accessible over a video?
So

Dean Odell (17:33):
I'll go in the context of the CMM videos I've
made. You start from thebeginning. So you make a video.
Hey, how do I turn the machineon? Right? You got to start
there. Then a video that's verysimple. How do I qualify a probe
and you build just like in thelearning process? So in GD and T

(17:53):
videos, I'll start with, Hey,here's some definitions. Here's
the big picture, and then we'lldrill down on this, you know,
more minute topic. I'll try tojust explain things in videos
basically how I would. And in aclassroom, the video format is
great, because you can fastforward through things. So if I

(18:14):
have an hour long lecture, thevideo version would be like 20
minutes, which I think is, Idon't know if I was a student, I
would appreciate that not tohave to listen to something for
an hour. He's just gonna compactit into 20 minutes. You

Aaron Moncur (18:29):
cut out the non essential parts and just give
the people what they need,right? Yeah, yep. You also do
some consulting. And when you'redoing training for a client or a
client's team. How do you tailorthose in person sessions to meet
all the different needs that adifferent company or different

(18:50):
teams might have? So when

Dean Odell (18:53):
I do in person trainings, my style is on a
whiteboard, just like thevideos, and I've had companies
when I, when I show up andthey're like, oh well, here's,
you know, the computer you canput your slides on. I'm like,
Well, I don't have any slides.
They give me a look like, Oh myGod. We hired this guy. He's not
prepared at all. Oh, right. Butonce I start doing the

(19:14):
whiteboard thing, I really, Ireally, really like that method,
because it forces doesn't forcethem. People are inspired to
take notes, whereas with aPowerPoint, people are much less
likely to take notes becausethey're looking at the slide.
Maybe they know they'll get acopy of the slide that they're
listening which is good, but thenote taking process is really
important for me, and an inperson corporate training and

(19:37):
whatever conference room theycan get. For me, that's an
important insight. Yeah, I foundit really, really helpful. And
like I said, the first hour orso, people are caught off a
little, little off guard,because they're basically back
in school. And how I've tried torelate it is, you know, go back
to college, you would never takea calculus one class. Sites

(19:58):
where they're just puttingPowerPoint slides on the screen
right your your instructor isgoing to be on a projector or on
a whiteboard solving problems,and that's how I approach GD and
T I don't want to trashPowerPoints because I know, for
efficiency reasons. You know,other companies use them. And
I'm not saying, if you're usinga PowerPoint, you know, you

(20:19):
might be using a whiteboard aswell, so I don't want to go that
far, but my personal method isjust all all whiteboard. I draw
everything out. I think peopleget something important from
trying to understand what's onthe board and get it in their
notes. So they're thinking aboutit on a couple of different
levels. As far as I'm drawing afigure putting a symbol on it.
They're they're drawing that intheir notes, and then they get

(20:42):
to keep their notes and they'redone. Yeah, and the other thing
you mentioned tailoring iswhatever a company wants. If
they say, Hey, we don't use wedon't have any shafts, we don't
have round parts. But cool, Iwon't talk about run out, you
know? We'll skip circularity.
We'll just talk about the stuffyou guys need. It's the GDT is a

(21:02):
system in such a way that thereare things you could leave out
and still understand. You know,80, 90% of it, terrific.

Aaron Moncur (21:09):
Well, I'm going to take a very short break here and
share with everyone that thebeing an engineer podcast is
brought to you by pipelinedesign and engineering, where we
don't design pipelines, but wedo help companies develop
advanced manufacturingprocesses, automated machines
and custom fixtures,complemented with product design
and R D services. Learn more atTeam pipeline.us and The podcast

(21:34):
is also sponsored by the wave,an online platform of free
tools, education and communityfor engineers, you can learn
more at the wave dot engineer,and we're speaking with Dean
Odell today. And speaking of thewave, one of the big events that
the wave sponsors is PDX, whichis coming up in October, the

(21:56):
product development Expo. And weare so happy that Dean is going
to be joining us there as one ofour training partners. Dean,
maybe you can just take a fewseconds and talk a little bit
about what you have in store forPDX or just general thoughts. Or
maybe you have questions for theeventual attendees for your

(22:17):
training session and you want tosolicit feedback, but any
thoughts or anything that youwant to share there, in regards
to PDX, sure,

Dean Odell (22:26):
yeah, I'll be there.
I'll go get a whiteboard fromStaples, and I'll teach things
basically how I normally do. I'mopen to if your audience has any
suggestions, it'd be my firsttime doing that kind of thing,
you know, outside of aclassroom, but I can talk GD and
t all day. So if I have to put asign on front that says, you
know, debate me, we can. We cantalk about whatever, whatever

(22:48):
topic anybody would like to

Aaron Moncur (22:52):
discuss, and you don't need any slides. It's all
up there in Dean's brain. Yep,nice. If you mentioned that
there's a committee who, everydecade or so, they make changes
to Gd and T, they add things,they clarify things, maybe they
remove things. On occasion, ifyou were part of that committee,
what changes to Gd and T wouldyou make? Oh,

Dean Odell (23:15):
that's interesting.
I could get in trouble for thisone. I would seek to simplify
things by removing symbols, andagain, I'll get in trouble for
this. But I think circularity iskind of could be replaced by
something else. There arecertain symbols that are very
easy to use, but it's hard toexplain. Don't make a lot of

(23:36):
sense. So flatten. Well, I don'twant to say flat,
perpendicularity, circularity,flatness. I could show that
symbol to anybody, and they'dinstantly understand, on a
logical level what it does. AndI think what happens is people
who aren't experienced with Gdand T will kind of use those too
much where they don't makesense, so they'll see a hole and

(24:00):
say, well, the only thing I knowabout my toolkit is circularity,
because it's obvious, orcylindricity, and they'll put it
on the drawing. So I wouldreduce some of the symbols and
use profile for more things. Andyeah, I would try to reduce the
page count. It's, it's gottenvery, very long, and I know a

(24:23):
lot of people work very hard onthat, so I'm not saying their
work is not good. I just thinkif there's any possible way to
reduce the page count a littlebit so it's a little bit easier,
you know, more less unwieldy, Ithink that would be be good.

Aaron Moncur (24:43):
I have, I don't know what year it was published.
It's definitely out of dateright now, but probably most of
it is still applicable. I have ascanned copy of a GD and T
pocketbook, and it's awesome.
It's like. I don't know, 15pages or something, and it's
just like a really concisesummary with a couple of basic

(25:04):
examples of all the different GDand T concepts. And I love that
thing. I'll go back to thatthing, you know, over and over
before opening up a Bible fullof way more content than I ever
want to go through on my own. Doyou have any favorite GD and T
concepts?

Dean Odell (25:26):
Yeah, profile, profile can basically be used
for everything. And the way Iteach GD and T I basically start
with profile and explain how itcan be used to control flatness,
perpendicularity, parallelism,all that stuff, I think it
really helps people tounderstand GD and T as a system,
to see how profile, depending onyour data, references basic

(25:48):
dimension, plus or minusdimension, how it would control
form, size, location andorientation in different ways.
So conceptually, I think that'sa good way to learn the system,
and after you have profile, youdon't really need anything else.
You can make an argument thatposition is a very special thing
and well, I'm not saying you canreplace position with profile.

(26:12):
Position and profile, you haveto have both, but you could
essentially replace run out withprofile. There's there's new
dynamic profile allows you to dosome things you weren't able to
before. So yeah, that that wouldbe my go to if I just, if I had
to teach GD and t in four hours,I would do datums, profile and
position, then I could getpeople on the right track.

(26:35):
Great,

Aaron Moncur (26:36):
great. Okay, I had a question that I just lost.
What was it? We're talking aboutyour favorite, your favorite GD
and T concepts, darn. I've lostit. I'll have to come back to
it. This might be the same.
Well, it is the same because Iwas going to ask you, if you
could only teach one GD and TConcept, which would it be? And

(26:58):
you already said you profiledatums, and was it position?
Yes, what you said, Okay, whatare some of the most commonly
used GD and T concepts, and inyour experience, should they be
so commonly used? Oh,

Dean Odell (27:15):
interesting. So I think what you see on most
drawings is position, positionfor holes and cylinders, things
like that. I think that's whatpeople think about. First they
think about position, bonus,tolerance, that kind of thing.
The next would probably beflatness. You see a lot on
drawings, if it's a kind ofrectangular part,

(27:35):
perpendicularity, and that's allin qualifying a datum reference
frame for round parts, it'sgoing to be a lot of run out
generally, if it's a part thatspins, and as far as you know,
use overused. I think I touchedon that before. You know, for
people that aren't familiar withGd and T, every flat surface,
you might say, well, I got a Igot to put a flatness on it

(27:58):
right? I want it to be flat. Andthat goes back to understanding
the concept. So rule number oneis a concept that links size and
form. So essentially, if youhave a plus or minus dimension
on a rectangle, the form of bothsides is already controlled, and
that's why CD and T training israther important. Because if

(28:19):
you, if you skip that and justgo straight to the symbols you
can kind of land in some hotwater because you end up
overusing symbols that aren'treally necessary.

Aaron Moncur (28:32):
The Product Development expo or PDX is your
chance to learn from subjectmatter experts providing
practical hands on training fordozens of different engineering
topics, Gd and T advancedsurface modeling, DFM, plating
and finishing techniques,programming robots, adhesive,
dispensing, prototyping, tipsand tricks and lots more. PDX

(28:55):
happens October, 21 and 22nd inPhoenix, Arizona. Learn more at
PD Expo. Dot engineer. That's P,D, E, x, p, O, dot engineer,
going back to the fundamentalsof g d and t, what can an

(29:19):
engineer do with this tool withGd and T that they can't do with
just standard tolerancing. Likeyou, you know, you're eight
inches plus or minus point twoinches, right?

Dean Odell (29:31):
Right? That's a great question. So they can get
their design intent across. Youmay have seen a composite
position control frame. It's theone where there's one symbol and
two tolerances, right? It's thecomplicated, scary looking one,
what an engineer can do withthat. And the example always
uses a light switch on a wall.
You can control the two holes toeach other separately from where

(29:54):
the two holes are relative tothe floor. So if you have a. A
pattern of holes in any part.
You can control thingsseparately, and you can put that
on the drawing. You're basicallysaying those two holes need to
be a certain distance from eachother, but they can be a larger
distance as a pattern from thefloor, and that's something that

(30:16):
would be super complicated to dowith a note. Got

Aaron Moncur (30:20):
it. Okay, great.
What is it that compels you tocontinue developing all of your
educational content andmentoring the next generation of
of engineers? What do you thinkit is that motivates you. So

Dean Odell (30:42):
I've gotten this question before. I'm not, I'm
not sure about mentoring thenext generation. But as far as
making the content just good atit, you know, when you find
something you're good at, yeah,want to do it? Yeah? You want to
do it more, yeah, there'sobviously a need for this. So I
just kind of, you know, keepgoing with it. Obviously, I
enjoy it. You know, I've gotyour viewers can't see, but I

(31:06):
got this from eBay. I'll read itdrawings and drafting room
practice 1946 as a book fromI've had a search for it on eBay
for years. You know, when youtype it in you say, let me know
if this pops up, popped up. Ibought it within minutes. I bet
that seller was like I thoughtthat, you know what I mean, you

(31:28):
sell some random thing. So yeah,I'm pretty deep in the game as
far as GD and T and all thatthat goes. But yeah, genuinely
enjoy it, and I happen to begood at it. I think I'm a good
teacher. I'm not sure about amentor, but I think I can teach
pretty well. So that's basicallyit. Well

Aaron Moncur (31:46):
when, when you have GD and T or or any kind of
dimensioning and tolerancing ona drawing, of course, that that
only matters to the extent thatsomeone can measure it
afterwards. What are the mostcommon tools for inspecting a
part based on the GD and T orthe basic dimensions and

(32:07):
tolerances in a print

Dean Odell (32:09):
so measuring things on a plate, and I've got a
couple of videos about this. Youknow, your best friend is a
height cage, and it's one ofthose things that there's not
very much information about asfar as textbooks or reference
materials, you basically have tohave somebody show you how stuff
works. And I'm no expert atplate inspection, but you know,

(32:32):
you got to have somebody showyou. Hey. You use, you know,
this gate or this angle block tohold the part so you present it
parallel to the height gage soyou can sweep it. That's just
something you wouldn't see ifyou just walked up to that
equipment. It really is like apuzzle as far as all the 123,
blocks and angle blocks and yourheight Gage, like, Where do I

(32:54):
even start? I find that reallyinteresting. And a lot of shops
still have that equipment, and alot of times you'll hear
arguments. So you probably heardthis before I measured in the
CMM and got this number,measured it with a gage pin and
got this number. You know who isright. So I find those, those
arguments, very interesting. Andthat goes back to why 14 five

(33:16):
and GD and t then to shout out,there's two other y, 14 five
standards. Y 14.45 is the datameasurement reporting standard.
It's rather new 2021, and y14.43 is the gaging standard,
which has these awesomeillustrations of gages for GD

(33:39):
and T I think those are, thoseare both really good resources,
if you are, you know, in themeasurement game and you want,
like, the official source on howthis stuff is supposed to work.
Now, for your audience, itdoesn't tell you how to measure
stuff that is, like the whitewhale, as far as some book that
shows you how to measureeverything, because, as I

(34:01):
mentioned, everything is its ownpuzzle, right? It's nothing is
going to be there's nostandardized way to measure the
position of a hole. Some partsare easier than others, but you
kind of got to come up with iton the fly.

Aaron Moncur (34:15):
How much does a decent height gage cost? Oh,

Dean Odell (34:19):
not much, you know.
You get them on eBay for 50bucks. That's it. Yeah, I
wouldn't say calibrated oranything, but as far as you
know, one that's calibrated acouple 100 bucks maybe. Yeah,

Aaron Moncur (34:32):
all right, Dean, I've got an idea for you. I
think that would make for anamazing training session at PDX.
If you had a height Gage, andyou showed attendees how to
measure their parts. I mean,attendees could even bring some
of their parts with them to theevent, and you could show them

(34:53):
in real time, in person. This ishow I would go about using the
height gage to measure thisbecause, I mean, a CMM most
kind. Companies don't have halfa million bucks lying around to
buy a CMM, but, you know, a few$100 if you can get a height
gage and maybe a granite blockright, that becomes much more
accessible. And actually, asI've interviewed people

(35:16):
attendees for PDX, one of thethings that they have
specifically asked about is, howdo we do inspection without a
CMM really, and this would justbe, yeah, this would, I think
that'd be a really cool trainingsession, yeah,

Dean Odell (35:30):
so I know it's an audio podcast, but on showing
here, this is my little graniteplate that I use for virtual
trainings, the little heightGage. So, yeah, that's something
I could do. I could see what UPSis going to get me for for
mailing a granite plate. MaybeI'll use go to Home Depot to get
some linoleum, yeah,

Aaron Moncur (35:50):
yeah. Or if you can't find anything easy, I have
a feeling that I know a companythat could lend you a granite
block for the event, okay, yeah,

Dean Odell (35:58):
that's something I could definitely do. You know, I
really like, in training to usereal tools. I don't, I don't
like, like wooden height gages,you know, the real ones are not
that expensive, especially fortraining purposes. You know,
could be beat up. It doesn'tmatter. But a lot of people, you
know, go to university college,they never see one of these

(36:19):
things, or they walk by it, butthey don't know how to use it.
So, yeah, that's something wecould I could definitely,
definitely do.

Aaron Moncur (36:25):
Terrific, Yeah, terrific. All right. Well, Dean,
anything else that you'd like totalk about or share before we
end this interview?

Dean O (36:35):
No, I think I'm all set.

Aaron Moncur (36:36):
Okay, well, thank you so much again for being on
the show and super excited tomeet you in person later this
year at PDX.

Dean Odell (36:44):
Awesome.

Aaron Moncur (36:47):
I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and
engineering. If you liked whatyou heard today, please share
the episode to learn how yourteam can leverage our team's
expertise developing advancedmanufacturing processes,
automated machines and customfixtures, complemented with
product design and R and Dservices. Visit us at Team

(37:08):
pipeline.us. To join a vibrantcommunity of engineers online.
Visit the wave. Dot, engineer,thank you for listening. You.
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