Sometimes it is as simple as no one with the needed knowledge base happening to read your post. Other times it may be the way the post is worded. Perhaps no one understands the question. Perhaps by the way the question is worded readers think you won't be able to use the information when it is provided. .. so they don't spend valuable time answering. So... word your question well with more effot and energy than you expect someone to spend in an answer. Use the edit option to correct a post that you messed up.... or want to improve ... I do.. repeatedly. (if you don't believe it look at the bottom of this post).

If English is not your natrual language, your wording may not say what you think it does to those who live and think in English. Don't be afraid to word your question in more than one way. It is not your fault if the wording does not describe what you intend, so do the best your can. Ask if your question makes sense and maybe someone will help you with your question wording, this may take longer but at least you will have a better chance of getting an answer.

The best way to get results is to state the question kindly and humbly, remembering that you are asking for free advice from a person with learned skills. This person is providing an answer from kindness, simply for the enjoyment of helping a fellow human being.

Don't pretend you know more than you know. Honesty is the best policy.

Sometimes you are asking for information that is simply no longer easy to obtain. Old skills that are held in the minds of people not interested in fooling around with a computer on-line. There may be people highly skilled in the area you need advice in that are very internet savy but can't find enough hours in a day to stop by and read posts.

One of the sad losses with the advancement of technology is the going of those whom had vast knowledge in the black arts. Black arts being those that you learned by doing and from the masters that simply can not be learned any other way as well. The most clear example is the black smith.... ( in my mind's eye I see a wise old gentleman with thick arms hammering away at a project with the skills gained by many years of practice .. I wish I could go back and learn some things from him! .. such people "forged America".) ...and I assume this is where both these terms came from. Can you imagine how much we have lost as these learned old people past on???

If you don't get an answer or the answers do not provide the information you seek, I strongly suggest you worm your way through a used book store containing old college and teck books. For example, the Machinery's Handbook is a great source, it gets as close as anything to answering questions about bolts, nuts, shafts, fits, and metal cutting methods and standards. Additionally, for lost arts, I'd seek out an older addition from when old skills were still active, again the used book store may be the best source, (remember there are on-line used book stores too).

Here is an interesting example:

A few years ago I was ask if I could re-babbit the bearings of an old turn table that could not be replaced nor undated to modern bearings. Guess what, the Machinery's Handbook told me exactly how. As it turns out in the end, the tuffest chore was obtaining babbit stock, (I finally found some raw stock in an old junk dealer's shop). The book even told me how to use strips of white pine to determine when the babbit and bearing housings were the right temperature to pour. It explained how to put paper around the shaft and between the bearing housing layers. The results were near perfect. The paper burned away and left perfect fit bearings. I'd have never figured it out, and the method was amazing to see work. I now understand well why babbit bearings were so popular for so long. ... they are renewable.

-thank you-
Randy