User talk:William Neal

Greetings! I am trying to work on a word processing document (in Open Office) assembling the machine building instructions and related documentation from the wiki and other OSE web resource, and I wanted to ask you a bit about the Google Docs spreadsheet I presume you created and linked into the CEB_Press/Bill_of_Materials wiki article. My efforts stem from my limited technical writing experience, but I lack even a basic comprehension of standard machining and metalworking which causes issues as I attempt to handle the data and materials I need to compile the document, such as your spreadsheet, and thus I have a question for you (presuming, again, you have machining experience and came up with the Google Docs spreadsheet used on the CEB_Press/Bill of Materials article):

Noting the order sheets generated in the spreadsheet are shorter lists than the actual bill of materials, are they simply adding the various quantities and lengths of the same height/width/thickness-dimensioned materials with the intention they are to be cut to the appropriate sizes, thus making the needed materials to order a smaller list and perhaps saving over what a metal shop might charge to pre-cut?

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I hope to collaborate you and others on the Documentation Team in the future! --Howard V. Agnew 06:28, 20 September 2011 (CEST)

... also, if you have the time, could you take a look at a note Marcin added under the spreadsheets ("Note: eliminate 1/4"x2"x3" angle and replace with 1/4"x2"x2" - [2] 20-3/4" and [2] 5-1/2" for a total of 52-1/2"") and (again, presuming you created and are updating the sheets) update the sheets to reflect this? It would help my efforts if you did this and let me know when you did, as I am copying and pasting the data from the spreadsheets statically (not live data-linked to the google spreadsheet data) in the Open Office word processing document.  Thank you!  --Howard V. Agnew 06:51, 20 September 2011 (CEST)